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00:01Roar!
00:03Born into a world of brutality.
00:07Viking combat is gory, it's gritty, it's real, it's raw, it's loud.
00:12Trained to attack with no mercy.
00:15He's swinging around his ray tax, cutting down people left, right and center.
00:19This graphic shock and awe encounter.
00:23Built into a fighter without fear.
00:26The Viking warrior psychology is to run towards death.
00:29The warrior from the North becomes a conqueror.
00:33This is an absolute fear of the Northmen.
00:36This is terrorism of its day.
00:46Warriors aren't born, they're built.
00:53Understanding how reveals the true nature of their greatness.
00:59From the cradle to the grave, these are the steps to creating history's greatest warriors.
01:18The Viking.
01:20A fearsome warrior like no other.
01:25A force to be reckoned with on land and on sea.
01:28The Viking's strategic skills and technical prowess are matched only by his brutality on the battlefield.
01:37The people that we commonly call the Vikings now, otherwise known as the Norse, they're people from Scandinavia.
01:42They are a great naval force who know exactly how to raid coastal settlements and attack places that are vulnerable
01:50because of their access to water.
01:53But the Vikings are best known for being the most savage and brutal warriors of the Middle Ages.
01:59The Viking Age is a period in history where Scandinavia, for one of only a few times, steps into the
02:06spotlight of history.
02:08The Vikings make their way much further afield than so many other people before them and have a disproportionate impact
02:16on the history of Europe.
02:19Expansion beyond Scandinavia will require an elite warrior as fierce as any other in the Middle Ages.
02:28His path to becoming a warrior will require him to endure years of training, master the Viking weapons of war,
02:37and defeat his enemy through brutal tactics that terrorize the Christian world.
02:44It is a path to greatness, first carved out centuries ago.
02:53The Viking Age is approximately understood in scholarship to be the 8th century to the 11th century AD.
03:00The countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark don't exist at this time.
03:04The Vikings' greatest foes lie to the West.
03:08The Anglo-Saxons are Christians, ruling over medieval Britain.
03:13And the Frankish Empire is an alliance of Germanic tribes living in what will become Northern France, Western Germany and
03:22Belgium.
03:22Both maintain standing armies that dwarf those of the Norse.
03:28Scandinavia itself is made up into small, independent communities of farmsteads, usually the members of a very large family.
03:38In the very early society, you've got clans, and as the clans develop into chieftainships, it means that you have
03:44people who are no longer blood-related, that are trying to organize themselves together.
03:49And there isn't always enough land to go around.
03:51Just simply to survive, you might take advantage of a less capable Viking farmstead or Viking community.
03:58Even if you do have land, you may decide that subsistence level living isn't good enough.
04:05There's a population boom in Scandinavia at this time, and they want to go abroad to look for more riches
04:11and more opportunities.
04:13If he is to become a conqueror, one that can strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, a young
04:20warrior must learn to live and die by the sword.
04:25It is a code of honor that is instilled in him as soon as he enters the world.
04:31The Arabic explorer and chronicler Ahmad ibn Rustah of the 10th century, he is traveling throughout the eastern reaches of
04:39the Viking world.
04:40And he observes this Viking father throw his sword on the ground and says to his son,
04:46I leave you no inheritance. All you possess is what you can gain with this sword.
04:51The promise of greatness within the young Viking can only be fulfilled through the strict discipline that has created countless
04:59warriors before him.
05:01His first step on the path to glory will be learning how to survive.
05:14You need to be able to live in sub-zero degree temperatures in those harsh Scandinavian winters.
05:21You're also learning how to make things, you have to learn how to make houses, learn how to make boats.
05:26The young Viking strengthens his body by working the land, conditioning him for a brutal and merciless life.
05:34Oral histories of heroes and violent conquests also shape his understanding of the ways of the Viking warrior.
05:42We can picture a Viking father sitting around a campfire in his hall telling his boy about Egil Skalagrimsen.
05:52Egil is playing a game with various children of his village and he feels cheated by one of the other
05:59children, a boy called Grim.
06:01So he leaves the match, goes home, produces an axe, returns to his game and then casually splits the brain
06:08of the boy who had cheated against him.
06:15And so already at the age of seven, he's killed his first person.
06:19But his mother looks at him and says, Egil, you have the makings of a great Viking.
06:23So really, violence is celebrated in the childhood of Vikings.
06:30The ambitious youth also gains practical skills through a competition known as Glima.
06:42Glima is the only sport that survives the Viking Age.
06:46It's the national sport of Iceland to this day.
06:50It's a kind of wrestling or grappling, not unlike Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
06:56And part of the sport is that you grip your opponent and then you try to flip your opponent and
07:04slam him to the ground.
07:12Glima is a way for Viking youth to impress the elders, those who are looking for the next generation of
07:19elite Viking warriors.
07:22There's an old Norse word, drengskaper.
07:25And that is the highest compliment one could receive during the Viking Age.
07:29To say that he demonstrates drengskaper means that he demonstrates this sort of reckless courage with an element of fair
07:37play.
07:37That's one thing a Viking is not born with and what he needs to spend his youth striving and building.
07:44Shaped by an unforgiving land and honed by fierce competition, the young Viking has a singular goal.
07:52Join the war band setting sail to conquer new lands.
07:57The word Viking is less a people and more of a job description.
08:01So the old Norse word vikinger means sort of a pirate or a raider, a medieval Scandinavian that goes off
08:08raiding and plundering.
08:10The Norse first arrive on enemy shores at the end of the 700s, setting off centuries of carnage known as
08:18the Viking Age.
08:22The Viking raid of the monastic island of Lindisfarne, which is off the coast of Northern England, is kind of
08:28the shot heard around the medieval world when it comes to the Vikings.
08:32This is kind of the first recorded raid of the Vikings in the Middle Ages.
08:38Monasteries during the Middle Ages are sources of immense wealth.
08:42You have chalices of gold, gold and silver coinage.
08:44The monks of Lindisfarne see these long ships on the horizon.
08:49The Vikings come out seemingly out of nowhere.
08:56The Vikings notice these men have no weapons whatsoever.
09:00This is going to be a cakewalk.
09:05The Vikings immediately slaughter several of the monks.
09:19The Vikings absolutely desecrate all of the religious relics.
09:22They trample upon the altar of God like dung in the street.
09:27They kidnap several monks, certainly to be sold into slavery.
09:31They strip several monks of their clothing to humiliate them and then actually drown them in the sea as well.
09:38So it's this graphic, devastating, shock and awe encounter.
09:45All that is left is a handful of monks bleeding out in the smoking ruins of the monastery.
09:53And rumors of fearsome raiders from the north.
09:55But Christians see this attack on Lindisfarne by this heathen horde as an act of God.
10:04That God is sending them to punish them for their sins.
10:08And it embeds itself in the British Christian psyche for generations.
10:15One of the things that the Vikings specifically do in battle to put fear into the hearts of their enemies
10:22is the right of the blood eagle.
10:24This involves hacking open a high status opponent.
10:29You pin them down, you hack them open, you open out their rib cage, you spread out their internal organs
10:36in the pattern of an eagle.
10:38This is terrorism of its day.
10:43To join the ranks of the elite warriors wreaking havoc abroad, the young Viking must first demonstrate his worth.
10:55The Viking youth has been inspired with tales of greatness and groomed for violence.
11:01Now, he must be hand selected for the next stage of his journey.
11:13If you're a young Scandinavian, you want the Jarl or chieftain to invite you into his hearth or herd.
11:21These are the Viking raiding parties.
11:24And these hearths might contain 30 warriors, 50 warriors, sometimes 100 warriors.
11:31Viking chieftains are ultimately the tacticians who lead the raiding parties.
11:36They're the ones that determine the targets.
11:39Whenever a chieftain decides that he's going to set out to go raiding, this would be something that occurs in
11:46the great longhouse, the biggest longhouse, the Jarl's longhouse.
11:49And he pledges that he's going to raid such and such village, that he's going to select certain men within
11:58the community to come along.
12:01The chief end of any Viking raid is to obtain plunder and great immovable wealth so that a chieftain can
12:07reward his followers and keep them in his service.
12:10And you could return with material wealth that could change the course of your destiny.
12:18The chieftain will judge whether or not a young warrior is ready for battle.
12:22The skills and traits that are instilled into a young Norseman at a very young age are the very skills
12:29that would propel them forward as warriors.
12:32You need to be tough.
12:34Those who exhibit the skills of a warrior are invited by the chieftain to a sacred ceremony.
12:42At the chieftain's great hall, he swears allegiances and blood oaths to his followers.
12:49The chieftain is giving you great gifts of gold and silver and ornate weapons, gem encrusted sword hilts, you know,
12:57and weapons inlaid with silver and gold and armbands of great precious metals.
13:02In exchange, his followers pledge to him loyalty.
13:06You're pledging your life, really, to the chieftain or jarl that's sponsoring you.
13:12To join the herd is to embrace the Viking mindset, giving the young Norseman a terrifying advantage.
13:21You have to die sword in hand in order to make it to Valhalla, which is Odin's realm, a warrior's
13:29paradise.
13:30And those of them who are slain in battle are then resurrected to enjoy a feast of roast pork and
13:38alcohol and the companionship of Odin's warrior maidens known as the Valkyries.
13:44What allows the Vikings to be so successful in this scourge of Europe for over 300 years is the hope
13:51every Viking warrior has that he will die a heroic death.
13:57We do know about a few different rituals and rites.
14:01One can almost imagine there's a group of men that are about to go on a Viking expedition.
14:05A priestess comes in and she looks and says, listen, all of you, you're now going to go on a
14:12Viking adventure.
14:13You're now going to go on an expedition.
14:15And yes, you may die, but you know you're going to die anyway.
14:19We at the end of the day are all fated to die.
14:22So live life and gain honor.
14:25That's what it's about.
14:26The carpe diem of the Vikings.
14:29Being chosen by the chieftain is a critical step on his path to becoming a warrior.
14:36Now, he will learn from the herd's most seasoned soldiers.
14:41There's the trained warriors, warriors that are just going on like a raid for one year, and then there's the
14:47berserkers.
14:51Trained to be the most extreme warriors in the herd, the berserkers and their violent tactics will be studied by
14:59the young warrior.
15:01A group of berserkers is this terrifying spectacle of wild men howling like a wolf or like a bear, causing
15:09themselves to froth at the mouth, biting the rims of their shields, flailing their arms like mad men.
15:15And this is something which would have been terrifying.
15:18They are brutal in warfare.
15:22There is a debate about what their name means.
15:24Some people think that their name comes from bear, or like the bear skin that they would potentially wear.
15:31But other people say that it comes from the fact that they would attack people bear, they would attack people
15:36naked.
15:37And this was part of their shock value.
15:40The Vikings are showing their victims that they're so vicious and so powerful that they don't even need armor.
15:48To those who face them, the berserker appears to be possessed by some unnatural power.
15:55There is great debate, why did berserkers go berserk?
16:00For a long time scholars have believed that Vikings are actually doing a form of hallucinogenic mushroom.
16:07And it's causing them to lose sense of where they are and what they're doing.
16:12This might help describe why they're acting so brutally.
16:17Christians describe the experience of facing a Viking horde as being like the wrath of God.
16:24That this is something that is so horrific that there's no way humans could be responsible for it.
16:31The berserker dominates the battlefield.
16:34But for the young Viking warrior looking to earn his place alongside him.
16:39He must first master the chieftain's arsenal of weapons.
16:48The Viking warrior must be equipped with all the instruments of war.
17:01Knowledge of the Vikings weapons is embedded in a source that chronicles the victory at the Battle of Hastings by
17:08William the Conqueror, a Viking descendant.
17:11The bear tapestry which is made in England around 1066 is a super important source for the study of late
17:19Viking era weapons.
17:21The bear tapestry shows lots and lots of helmets and mail shirts and swords and spears and shields.
17:27So it gives us a huge amount of evidence about the arms and armor.
17:30The first weapon of Viking warrior reaches for is the one that is most familiar and the quickest to master.
17:40The advantage that Vikings have in using the axe as a weapon is that they've been using axes almost their
17:48whole lives growing up.
17:50There's cutting wood with an axe and there's using an axe as a vicious weapon of war.
17:54It is in many ways the Vikings primary weapon.
17:58A simple flesh wound that might be incurred through an axe or something like that could have life altering consequences.
18:09There are some big advantages to axes. Axes break shields more easily than spears or swords do.
18:16Additionally, axes are more effective against people wearing armor.
18:19People like the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks.
18:22With each new opponent comes new challenges.
18:25So the Viking warrior must learn to adapt.
18:29It's clear to us that the Vikings evolve their axes over time.
18:34There are great, long, what are called Dane axes.
18:38These are two-handed weapons that the Vikings develop particularly to respond to the threat of Frankish cavalry.
18:47The head of the axe, it hooks down in such a way where a warrior in a single swipe could
18:54obliterate a Frankish cavalryman along with his horse.
18:58In the hands of the Viking's most ferocious warrior, the Dane axe unleashes devastation and mayhem against a powerful foe.
19:16The battle of Stamford Bridge, September 25th, 1066, the English chronicler Henry of Huntington tells us that the Vikings are
19:26taken off guard with English forces that are advancing.
19:31This certain hero positions himself on this bridge with his axe. This means he can occupy the space and the
19:37width of the bridge and nobody can get past him.
19:40And he's swinging around his great axe, cutting down people left, right and center.
19:45If you're going to fight a large number of men, the way to do it is on a bridge because
19:50you funnel them all into a manageable number of people to fight at any given time.
19:56He slays 40 men single-handedly.
20:00And it's only when one quick-witted Anglo-Saxon warrior sneaks beneath the bridge and stabs him from underneath with
20:07a spear that he is slain in battle.
20:12As the warrior is built into a more formidable fighter, he may prove himself worthy of the ultimate Viking weapon.
20:20The challenge is getting one.
20:22It's clear that the Vikings love swords, but they don't necessarily have access to as many swords as, for example,
20:29people in the Frankish Empire would do.
20:32The Franks have more developed centers for the manufacture of these things, and they also have more access to the
20:38mines producing iron ore.
20:40We find out that the Vikings are interested in this one kind of sword that's being produced out of the
20:46region around the Rhine.
20:47And it's known as the Ulfbert sword.
20:54It's far superior to the swords that the Vikings are producing.
20:58There's a lot of debate as to how it came to be in the hands of Vikings.
21:03One theory goes that they encounter it during their battles with Frankish troops, and then they start trading for it,
21:09and they end up incorporating it more into their arsenal.
21:13In fact, the trade of weapons into Scandinavia has become such a problem that people like the Franks and the
21:18Anglo-Saxons actually prohibit trading weapons to their enemies because they're being raided so constantly by these Vikings that they
21:26don't want to keep arming them.
21:28But the Vikings will have these blades. What is no longer offered in trade will be taken on the battlefield.
21:36If a young Viking goes into battle against a contingent of Frankish warriors, all of them well equipped with Ulfbert
21:43swords, you know, he's thinking to himself, I am looking to exchange this axe and come home with a sword
21:50so that I can then be better equipped for the future.
21:54Armed with the finest steel in the land, the Viking is a menace.
21:59But it's the Norseman's technical ingenuity that will produce his most powerful weapon, the Longshill.
22:13The boat is the innovation that the Scandinavians have at this time that really is what causes them to become
22:21the fierce warriors that they are.
22:23Naval conflict is not well known during the Middle Ages, and all of a sudden the Vikings come up out
22:29of Scandinavia, seemingly out of nowhere, as this great naval superpower.
22:34One of the things that the Vikings love doing is going up a river and attacking a settlement, and in
22:39some cases attacking fortified bridges.
22:42One of the most famous examples this happened was actually London Bridge.
22:45The Vikings have come up the Thames to attack London, but London Bridge is their great big wooden bridge that's
22:52been fortified, and they actually use grappling hooks to attach to the bridge and pull a section of it down.
22:59They attack the bridge in order to get access to the port of London.
23:03Without the Longships, the Viking Age doesn't happen.
23:07The Vikings' boats will transform his warrior armies into an unstoppable naval battalion.
23:13Their imposing shape sends a terrifying warning to the enemy.
23:18The sails of Viking longships are very iconic.
23:22Viking longships are powered by both sails and oars.
23:26This combination of sails and oars is what affords the Vikings' mobility and speed.
23:32One can assume that a longship could carry about approximately 30 warriors.
23:37The hull of the Viking longship's streamlined design is what allows the Vikings to move swiftly and easily venture into
23:45shallow waters, right into the heartland of enemy territory.
23:49That technology allows them to succeed in warfare in a way that is really very different from anybody else in
23:59that time period.
24:00Sailing towards enemy territory, the Viking is ready to meet his destiny.
24:07It is time for combat.
24:11Whoa!
24:15The Viking has been trained, selected, and armed.
24:20Now he must face off against his enemy.
24:37A true Viking's battle is tested in combat.
24:47Viking warrior psychology is to run towards danger, to run towards death, because your reward will be potentially gaining entrance
24:57to Valhalla.
25:00There's one particular example of Gisli Surson, who's an outlaw in Iceland.
25:06He's moving up this cliff and he's, you know, killing men who are pursuing him in the process.
25:10And he's stabbed with a spear and his guts are spilling out.
25:14And the saga tells us that he takes a cord and he binds his internal organs up so that he's
25:20able to fight for a few more moments.
25:22And it's evident to him that this is not his day to win on the battlefield.
25:27And he dramatically jumps off the cliff, splitting a man with his sword as he plummets to his own death.
25:37With no fear of death, the Viking stands his ground and considers his attacker.
25:44They're looking to gain as much information about the opponents as they possibly can.
25:49And does this person look experienced? Do they look like a raw recruit?
25:53Eye contact is an interesting thing. There's a psychology to it.
25:56And obviously, staring with fury at your opponent can have a psychological effect on them.
26:23The Viking combat is tough, it's aggressive, it's gritty.
26:29The Viking combat is tough, it's aggressive, it's gritty.
26:30Your shields are banging into each other and you're desperately trying to push somebody's shield out of the way with
26:36your own so that you can get a few hacks in.
26:39Using his own shield allows the Viking to dominate his enemy.
26:44The shield isn't just a passive thing that you hold there and receive blows on.
26:48It's something you can smash into the opponent's shield, smash into their face, below the level of their helmet, break
26:53their nose.
26:56The Viking shields have a distinct element called the boss.
27:01It's on the front of the shield. It almost acts like a brass knuckle because your hand is positioned right
27:06behind the boss.
27:08The metal boss in the middle of the shield also serves a unique purpose in that it can catch blows.
27:14If an enemy comes down on you with an axe or a sword, you can catch their blow with your
27:20shield boss and parry it away.
27:28The weapon the young Viking learned to use as a boy proves to be his most versatile tool in combat.
27:37One of the great advantages to axes is apart from the fact that they hit really hard because you've got
27:42all of the mass concentrated at the top of the shaft.
27:44In addition to that, you can hook because all axes have a natural T-junction to them.
27:52Being able to hook the shield forwards creates an opening into which you can stab into or cut into behind
27:59the shield.
28:01The axe, because of the special hook that it has, you were also able to trap individuals like grabbing their
28:07legs, pulling them down, taking them right down to the ground.
28:10In a life or death struggle, the young Viking relies on his training to anticipate and respond to his opponent's
28:18every move.
28:26Vikings definitely use Glima to take an enemy by force.
28:34With wrestling and Glima, you can actually do anything that gets the other person down.
28:38That's very practical in warfare because there really in some ways are no rules to warfare because basically of two
28:45sides that are essentially trying to kill each other.
28:58Death can be swift for the Viking's adversary.
29:05Or he may suffer a crueler fate.
29:11When a Viking sees an enemy, he doesn't see him just as an enemy.
29:15He sees him as prosperity.
29:19They decide, why don't we take some of these people for slaves and we can maybe take some as hostages
29:24and ransom them off later on.
29:27Slavery is an essential part of the Viking economy.
29:33Human capital, if one can even call it that, is something that the Vikings are very well aware of.
29:41If you can subdue the enemy, he's worth far more alive than dead.
29:46The Viking has been built to overpower any enemy he faces.
29:53But a daunting test lies ahead.
29:57War is upon him.
30:06The Viking has been molded into a deadly warrior.
30:12But to conquer enemy lands and enrich his people,
30:17he will need to show true courage fighting alongside thousands of his fellow warriors.
30:28One of the things that probably makes the Norse at this time quite different to a lot of the people
30:32they're fighting against
30:33is that they are used to raiding and operating together as units.
30:41The Great Heathen Army is a coalition of multiple war bands of Vikings.
30:48By the middle of the ninth century, the Great Heathen Army has conquered all but one of the Anglo-Saxon
30:54kingdoms.
30:56Vikings have established, at this point, settlements in northern France in Normandy, which is a particularly strategic location.
31:05As that estuary in Normandy leads to the Seine River, which takes you all the way to Paris.
31:14It is a city of riches, and the warrior's next target.
31:18An audacious attack on an unsuspecting foe.
31:22But to achieve victory, the Viking will call on all of the war tactics he has amassed over the course
31:29of his journey.
31:42The Vikings decide to besiege Paris on Easter Sunday in 845 because it's on this day in the Christian calendar
31:50that the markets of Paris are overflowing with all sorts of wealth.
31:54People are celebrating this great holiday and the Vikings know this.
32:01The Viking siege of Paris is led by the legendary figure Ragnar Lothbrok, larger than life Viking warrior who is
32:10leading about 120 ships, the sources tell us, about roughly 5,000 warriors into battle.
32:17The Viking warrior and his fleet appear on the horizon without warning.
32:24And in many cases, the Norse flee with their ships before the enemy army can get there.
32:29So they're operating for minimal risk when possible, a maximum profit.
32:42The sails of his dreaded longships are designed to stir terror in the hearts and minds of his enemy.
32:49The first part of the Viking assault is kind of a propaganda assault. It's showing you the might.
32:55You can see this sail coming at you. You know that you don't have much time to prepare to defend
33:01where you are.
33:04The Vikings under Ragnar Lothbrok are sailing down the Seine River and they come upon a group of Frankish warriors
33:11stationed on either side of the Seine River by Charles the Bald, who is king of West Francia.
33:17He's the one in charge of Paris' defenses. So you have Frankish defenders on the right side of the river
33:23and Frankish defenders on the left.
33:25And the Franks, they don't have boats with which to meet the Vikings at sea.
33:33They simply attack one contingent of Frankish warriors decimating them and leaving the other one unable to help the defense.
33:50And there are Berserks and the Berserks roared.
33:53And now imagine this, you're on the battlefield with a group of men and they're standing there and the terrifying
34:00sound that would make.
34:07The Vikings capture 111 Frankish warriors, load them on the long ships and move further down the Seine, closer to
34:16Paris.
34:18This is the next phase in the Vikings' plan. He and his fellow warriors now hold the captives and the
34:25city of Paris for ransom.
34:30This ransom is the entire reason for the siege. The Vikings attacked the Franks to extract as much money from
34:38them as possible.
34:40Ragnar Lothbrok had been in touch with Charles the Bald and had been undergoing these negotiations saying, you know, we'll
34:45leave Paris if only you pay us enough silver.
34:48In 845, the Franks defending Paris are probably asking themselves, well, can we hold off this Viking attack?
34:55It looks to be about 120 long ships, but the Franks have ballista technology, they have great boiling vats of
35:03pitch, they have all sorts of counter-defensive technology that they can use.
35:08But evidently to Ragnar, the negotiations weren't happening quick enough, so those 111 captives that he had taken on one
35:16side of the Seine River, he brings to the island near Paris and hangs them.
35:34We can only imagine how terrified the defending Franks of Paris are to see their 111 fellow warriors hung open
35:44in plain sight.
35:46Hanging 111 men might have been seen as being very advantageous and strategic.
35:51By demonstrating that you are willing to do something that may seem to be barbaric, you may be in the
35:58long run saving lives on both sides.
36:00And it's only then that the Vikings are able to receive 7,000 pounds of silver, that's how much the
36:07Franks pay the Vikings to go away.
36:10Although it doesn't seem to work because in the 850s and then again in 885, the Vikings, they're seeing Paris
36:17as sort of an ATM that they can come back to over and over again.
36:21The Viking has mastered the art of war through his unflinching embrace of bloodshed, his training, his weapons and his
36:30dedication have made him feared across a continent.
36:35But every great warrior must fall and the Vikings days are numbered.
36:46The Viking's success in battle earns him glory and a reputation for tactical brilliance.
36:54His brutal empire is growing.
36:58In their essence, the Vikings are seamen and that is the absolute core of their success.
37:04However, as things move on, they start to change their goals.
37:07We see the Franks having to give them land because that's clearly what they want.
37:12And equally in Anglo-Saxon England, they go for a full invasion in 865.
37:17And they are clearly not there to raid, they are there to stay.
37:21We start to see a transition from raiding to settling.
37:25But incredible gains give way to devastating losses.
37:31Over time, the Vikings enemies begin to understand their attackers.
37:37And how to fight back.
37:42People like Charlemagne, one of the things that they do to try and combat this Viking threat is to build
37:49navies.
37:50Building bridges, putting large chains across rivers was something else which was done.
37:54The Anglo-Saxons in England and the Slavs in Central Europe are increasingly using more cavalry.
38:01But the Vikings themselves never actually had cavalry.
38:07Outmatched on land and no longer dominant at sea, the Viking warrior loses his tactical advantage.
38:14By the year 1066, the Viking age is no more.
38:21Near the end of the century, the Norsemen controls nothing beyond Scandinavia.
38:27Warring clans headed by chieftains are dying out.
38:32You have the formation of the modern countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
38:38You have chieftains consolidating power and submitting to kings.
38:46Now you have a political organization and a king who's basically not going to allow things like the Vikings,
38:52because it's in that king's best interest, to either hire them as part of his army or to get rid
38:58of them altogether.
38:59So that's a big piece of it.
39:01The second part is religion.
39:04Christianity really takes hold in these previously heathen places.
39:09So, you know, here we see a bit of the psychology of warfare is dying out.
39:14Christianity is the religion of kings throughout medieval Europe.
39:19You know, you have the Pope in Rome as well, who bestows great privileges on kings who follow him and
39:24so forth.
39:25Christianity is the social club of medieval kings.
39:30But it's a Viking warrior who emerges to unify all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
39:38William the Conqueror, who the modern-day royal family of England can trace their lineage to,
39:44the first king of England, is descended from Normans.
39:47He's descended from the Duchy of Normandy in northern France,
39:50which was founded by Rollo, who was a ferocious Viking in the 10th century.
39:58By creating some of the most fearsome fighters of the era, the Vikings change Western civilization forever.
40:10The Vikings are a warrior culture that is so larger than life.
40:16They leave their footprints throughout the world.
40:21The modern-day countries of England and France originate from Viking principalities.
40:26They start these marketplaces that then become towns, that then become cities that still exist today.
40:33Dublin is an old Viking marketplace.
40:37York is an old Viking marketplace.
40:41Novgorod is an old Viking marketplace.
40:44If I were to say the word Viking, which has gone on to bear the name of football teams and
40:50clothing brands and ocean liners and so forth,
40:53the word Viking means bravery.
40:56It means courage.
40:57It means being larger than life.
40:59And the mythology, the spirituality of the Vikings is very well understood by modern viewers as well.
41:08J.R.R. Tolkien's own mythological worlds, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit,
41:13are directly based upon Old Norse literature and given to us in the forms of sagas.
41:18The other reason why I think they loom large in our memory has to do with the freedom, individualism components
41:27of what we think of when we think of Vikings.
41:30I think we tend to either downplay the violence or upplay the violence in our telling of these stories.
41:37But I think that there is something about a group of farmers that hold Europe at ransom for several hundred
41:47years that just is a little bit inspiring.
41:50Centuries after disappearing from the northern seas, the Viking warrior is still revered.
41:56His ferocious training, devastating fighting technique, and unique combination of strategy and brutality earn him a rightful place among history's
42:10greatest warriors.
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