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Final Exam Vikings in the Celtic World
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Final Exam Vikings in the Celtic World
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Balemans-Højberg 1Cecilie Balemans-Højberg
Linda Doran
Vikings in the Celtic World (CCIV10040)
22 December 2021
2803 words
Final Assignment
The final assignment (which accounts for 50% of your final grade) consists of two 1250– 1500
word essays, this wordcount does not include the bibliography. The essays must be fully footnoted
and the bibliography should contain a minimum of three items.
Choose one topic from Section A and one from Section B
Section A
What were the principal causes for Viking raiding into the Celtic-speaking world?
The Viking Age started in the late 8th century and came to an end towards the middle of the 11th
century.1 It is hard to pinpoint the exact causes of the raids as there was a lack of written sources
from Scandinavia, meaning that most sources were written by the victims of the Viking raids.2
However, there are a few theories on what exactly caused the Viking raids. Barrett separates these
speculations into technological, environmental, demographic, economic, political and ideological
determinism.3
When looking at technological determinism, you can look at two things, their technology
and their military organisation. The Vikings were already quite advanced when it came to their
boats and ships before the Viking age even started.4 Therefore if technology had an impact on
causing the Viking raids, it would likely have been due to a change in the use of this technology, for
example, by shifting to 24-hour sailing.5 When looking at the techniques the Vikings employed, it is
striking that they knew what to do and when to do it as the “raiding bands were fast, adaptable, and
cleverly opportunistic.”6 The Vikings were great at strategising, as they were able to join forces at
1 James H. Barrett. “What Caused the Viking Age?” Antiquity vol. 82, no. 317 (2008): 671.
2 Anders Winroth. “The Raids of the Vikings.” In The Conversion of Scandinavia (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2012), 33.
3 Barrett, 2008, 672.
4 Barrett, 2008, 673.
5 Barrett, 2008, 673.
6 Winroth, 32.
, Balemans-Højberg 2
short notice and split apart if that led to a more profitable outcome.7 The Vikings were able to
estimate what their best option was at a given time, like fighting, escaping, accepting tribute and
raiding.8 This, coupled with their ability to seemingly appear and disappear out of nowhere, led to
the successes of the Viking raids.9 Since the ability to raid was already there before the start of the
Viking age, because of their advanced ships, the reason for the beginning of the raids seems more
likely to be due to a change in “motivation to travel further and quicker.”10
When it comes to environmental determinism, there is only one explanation as to why the
Vikings left to raid other places. This theory suggests that the migration patterns were influenced by
the climate.11 The Vikings left the icy cold Scandinavia in search of a place with “favourable
climatic conditions.”12 This search for a better climate might have landed them in the Celtic
speaking world as, depending on where in Scandinavia they left from, most parts of Scandinavia are
further up north than the Celtic speaking world, thus creating more favourable living and or raiding
conditions.
For demographic determinism, there are a few different theories. First of all, the leap-frog
hypothesis suggests that distances to sail and row in northern Europe at the time were relatively
small.13 Due to it taking less than two weeks to sail from Norway to Ireland it was not strange that
the Vikings ended up in the Celtic world so early as it was quick to reach.14 The Vikings initially
came to the northern isles of Scotland first, after which they used that as a hub from where they
travelled to “mainland Britain, Ireland and sometimes even continental Europe.”15 Another theory
about why the raids started is due to population pressure in Scandinavia.16 At the time, there was a
preference towards male children, which could have led to female infanticide.17 According to the
7 Winroth, 32.
8 Winroth, 32.
9 Winroth, 32.
10James H. Barrett. “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects: Causation and the Viking Age Diaspora.” In The Global Origins
and Development of Seafaring, ed. A. Anderson, J.H. Barrett and K.V. Boyle (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for
Archaeological Research, 2010), 290.
11 Barrett, 2010, 290.
12 Barrett, 2008, 673.
13 Barrett, 2010, 292.
14 Barrett, 2010, 292.
15 Barrett, 2008, 674.
16 Barrett, 2008, 676.
17Steven P. Ashby. “What Really Caused the Viking Age? The Social Content of Raiding and Exploration.”
Archaeological Dialogues vol. 22, no. 1 (2015): 92.
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