Why did Western and Southern Europeans allow these barbarians to bully them so much when they had like 100x the population of the Nordic countries?Why didn't they band together and exterminate the Viking threat once and for all?
>>18429517I kind of pisses me off how these maps always count the normans as 'vikings', or 'scandinavian', or whatever.
Medjeets after 5 seconds of silence:
>>18429517Wars weren't fought for ideological or long term strategic reasons in those times (with the one semi exception of Crusades), just resources or immediate territorial gain. Invading Scandinavia as a lord from France or England would be unlikely to yield much of value on either front, and considering the difficulty of policing such a large empire before modern communications, probably wouldn't even stop the raids.
>>18429517Because the Meds vs Nords debate/Rivalry didn't even exist? Yes, they viewed them as inferior but it wouldn't make sense that they'd go out of their way to genocide an entire group purely out of spite without there being something to gain. Its really easy to force feed modern concepts into history.
>>18429554>purely out of spitethose Nords were coming in to pillage and rape, these fuckers were a pain in these ass for everyone. Like >>18429547 said, they didn't go north and genocide the shit out of them because they can't. You seriously think people were cool with viking raiders?
>>18429693oh i forgot the main point>without there being something to gainnot being raided and raped anymore was obviously the thing to gain
>>18429517If Franks in their own borders had a tough time with the Norse in pitched battles, no one else in Europe or probably elsewhere at that time stood any chance of conquering the Norse in their homeland.
>>18429517>decentralized mystery snowniggers invade from bumfuck nowhere>they focus civilian settlements and churches>they fuck offIt was less risky to stay put, improve defenses and maybe even hire them as mercs. Sending an army to nord territory would have been terrible expensive and ineffective in the long run.
>>18429517>when they had like 100x the populationBecause the population was not unified under a state. During the viking era most of Europe was carved up into small feudal domains. Viking raiders actually outnumbered any military forces they encountered, unless their intended victims had time to call a muster / for aid from their liege, who could summon his vassals. But raising a feudal army is a slow, ponderous process. By the time a muster call goes out, the vikings are already gone, your town is burned to the ground, your women are raped, your valuables are stolen. Having more people doesn't make you safer when there's no coordinated organization for defending them and most of those people are farmers who don't even own weapons or know how to fight even if they did.>Why didn't they band together and exterminate the Viking threatBecause they were still more worried about each other than the vikings. They fought generational wars against one another over claims to land and title, by comparison the vikings were a much more recent and less persistent threat that could sometimes be bribed to stay away. Unlike covetous neighbors who would remain on your borders, as well as their descendants, plotting to steal your lands, in perpetuity. Compared to that, Viking raids were of a lesser concern.And as to the prospect of "wiping them out", how exactly? Undertaking such a massive military expedition requires three things that the medieval kings of Europe lacked:1) sufficient knowledge of the territory to actually stage a campaign there (few people ever journeyed to Scandinavia and returned, and little was known in Europe about that country beyond a few port cities in the southern edge of it, and most maps of the time reflect this lack of knowledge)2) Sufficient sea-faring capability to actually reach the viking homelands... and to contend against the vikings at sea as they would inevitably intercept any fleet approaching their shores.3) money to pay for it
>>18429523Because they were.
>>18429738To continue: large scale military coalitions simply didn't happen in Europe during the viking era. The closest thing to it is Charlemagne's Frankish Empire, which arguably could have mobilized a tremendous army against the Norsemen, except that he had far more dire military threats on his borders than sea raiders, he could not have marched his men off to Jutland without exposing a large part of his land to those threats, which would have inflicted far worse harm upon them than what the raiders did in their deprivations. Such is the choice offered to a king: no matter what you choose, people die and suffer. You choose the path that hopefully preserves the greater part of your realm.The First Crusade was the first real instance in medieval Europe of a large scale coalition, and it was not even really intended to be a military expedition at the outset, it simply evolved into one. And the Crusades had an ENORMOUS amount of planning and coordination underpinning it from the start. To re-address my three things the kings lacked to fight the vikings and wipe them out, they had all 3 for the first crusade: the holy land was well-documented and there were numerous reliable reports from pilgrims and merchants who had traveled there recently. They could plot with confidence a general course of action upon reaching the territory. They knew the locations of every major city, they knew how long it would take to travel between them, they had guides who could show them which roads to travel by, and could be secure in finding food and other supplies because the entire thing was being financed and supported by Italian city states like Venice, and also had at least the nominal support of the Emperor in Constantinople. If not his military support, then at least his provisional support. They were about as well prepared and supplied as they could be for such an expedition in well-understood territory. And they still only won due to luck or divine favor, if you like.
>>18429695A military expedition wouldn't work. You'd have to raid them much in the same manner they raid you. The entire raiding culture of the vikings developed because of the climate and geography of Scandinavia. The fjords are impassible in the winter due to ice, traveling overland is effectively impossible especially for a foreign army. You'd have to sail there in the warm months, do damage, then leave. If you stay too long you get iced in and have to winter in the place. If you thoughtlessly burned everything to the ground, then you're in for a cold, probably fatal winter. So either you have an army go up there, capture a fjord and spend a winter there, and use it as a staging ground to repeat the process on other fjords, or else you do a series of quick, viking-esque raids hitting multiple fjords in each raiding season. But of course, the vikings pioneered this type of warfare. They practiced it on each other before they attacked the rest of Europe. If they're unprepared for the strength of a knightly army, they're still masters of the sea, and well acquainted with the land they live in. Catching them unawares would be difficult, and doing significant damage with raids would be hard for those unused to the tactics involved. The worst danger for any punitive European army would be getting pulled into a lengthy stay in a fjord and missing their window to sail home. That would doom the entire army.
>Be Italian peasant, proud Terroni>Life is good>Then one morning>Over 300 Norman Knights roll up to your doorstep, the heads of both the Lombard Prince and Byzantine Strategos on their lances>"This village now belongs to Roger de Hauteville"How do you respond without them burning down your house?
>>18429523Their Scandinavian heritage is what made them sail away and conquer foreign lands while the pure Frenchies stayed at home.
>>18429523Normans were distinct enough to be referred to by their own appellation (Norman) rather than simply being called French by their contemporaries, so whence comes this distinction? Why did people bother to distinguish Normans at all, if there was nothing distinctive about them? Clearly people at the time felt there was something different and identifiable about the Normans. What's the most immediate, obvious thing we know about them that is different? Viking heritage.
>Finland>Subjected to frequent viking raidsMap is bullshit.Meanwhile swedes are busy trying to not mention third of norse myths because closests correspondense is uralic.
>>18429866>"Bjǫrn and Ígulfríðr raised the stone in memory of Ótryggr, their son. He was killed in Finland.">"Brúsi had this stone erected in memory of Egill, his brother. And he died in Tafeistaland[Tavastland/Häme], when Brúsi brought (= led?) the land's levy(?) (= army) in memory of , his brother. He travelled with Freygeirr. May God and God's mother help his soul. Sveinn and Ásmundr, they marked.">"Sigtryggr's(?) heirs had the stone made over Auðvaldr(?), their brother, who died in Finland"
>>18429884Depends on what people mean with frequent.I think scandinavians fought with finnic people as often as they fought among themselves.
>>18429896>Depends on what people mean with frequent.Doubt it could have been less frequent than to the Caspian sea.>I think scandinavians fought with finnic people as often as they fought among themselves.Well they did fight amongst themselves very frequently, actually too frequently for this statement to hold up.
>>18429866Interesting, do you have some examples of these myths?
>>18430689Baldr and Lemminkäinen is easiest myth to point towards.Lemminkäinen also takes a lot of Lokis aspects in being asshole who demands mead and kills people in house of gods.And hides in forms of an otter and salmon.Odin and Väinämöinen share a few aspects and in the myths they both take shapes of snake and eagle while seeking knowledge or escaping, they both are associates with wolves and blindness, Odin rules in hall of warriors, Väinämöinen sometimes rules in hall of warriorsEncyclopedia had almost exact human creation as ask and embla.Three gods walked the earth and found first humans from a tree and each god gave humans something that makes us human.Vollund and Ilmarinen have somewhat similar storyboard.Finnic versions of merse urg charm Lemminkäinen and Väinämöinen are most common if we do not count jesus.Other deities mentioned in aforementioned runes appear to have similar position in finnic and norse mythos.Like norse mythos in finnic mythos gods are descendants of thursar or jotnar.Mythic fornjot and associates have lines and names eerily similar to some runes abouth birth of frost.Vollunds or his son is said to have learned smithing from mimir or dwarves in mount kallava.In finnic mythos Kaleva guards well or spring where from witches drink.Finnic mythos mention great oak which warriors walk to Pohjola, in pohjola there are men who drip blood and they drink mead and eat meat of a great ox Iso Härkä.One myth tells how thor ordered jotnar back to wherever he came from, pretty much same short story happens to Väinämöinen.In wider uralic mythos there is all seeing deity on a fastest horse who travels world tree between this world and gods.There is also similar deity on a six legged moose.And furious one who is water deity who always vages war, is associated with water wolf aka pike and dogs, which had eight legs, and he likes to take peoples sight forcing shamans to get that sight back.
>>18430968Encyclopedia of uralic mythology Komi.In uralic belief there is soul bird that resides on top of the head and heroes can send this bird to fetch knowledge.Heroes eating hearts to gain power or knowledge is a thing.Watching over a doorframe in certain day allows people see to afterlife. Ibn fadlads story on rus.Yule is apparently time when people of that furious one come from waters and might kidnap people, weird version of wild hunt.Salt mill and Sampo.A lot of this is just my own notions based on youtube, eddas, skvr, few books on pagan believes.Fenrir might mean swamp dweller, swamp dog, lake wolf is a pike so I do not think it is improbable connection even if we lack the stories.Great oak had golden rooster on top of it, one finnic rune mentioned red rooster in a stone pile.Later was sacrifice to underworld practiced among finnic, saami and some komi or udmurt people.Finnic runes mention similar faith to nastrond to dishonorable, being eaten by snakes.River of weapons.House of afterlife appears to be built from bones and snakes and whatever.Thors goats might have been influenced by bear worship, and hrolf kraki and his champions has some obvious bear worship influence.I probably forget as much as I remember and all this is just my burger brains pseudoscientific work.I think uralic influence on norse mythos is obvious as is norse influence on uralic mythos.
>>18429740They weren't. Hybrid culture at best. And at least as far as England goes, two thirds of William's army wasn't actually Norman. >>18429852Somehow this makes it so the Normans are indistinguishable from Scandinavians and just extensions of Scandinavia, clearly. Not like Normans are their own thing, no no, they're just Scandinavia plus.
>>18429517Because Western/Southers Euros were all sluts for BVC. Everywhere from the English to the Arabs mentions the Norse as being exceptionally handsome and good with women.
>>18429852They identified as Normans at home and as Franci (Franks, French) abroad, precisely when fighting foreigners alongside other Frogs.
>>18431011>Everywhere from the English to the Arabs mentions the Norse as being exceptionally handsome and good with womenThe 'English source' is John of Wallingford, a monk of Norman origin writing in the 13th century.Normans emphasised their Danish and Norwegian ancestry as the thing that set them apart from the effeminate French and unwarlike English.
>>18431011Even if that was true, which is not, that would mean vikings are the ancestors of southern/western euros, not scandinavian cucks.
I am going to add a little more shared mythos.Man gave birth to a horse.Väinämöinen raised long dead witch.Kullervo was hanged and was found carving on a tree trunk.Blood flood myth, in finnic myth Väinämöinen accidentally axed his own foot.In encyclopedia komi it is told that dwarves were born out of giant's corpse.Sometimes seas were formed by blood.I have read some mentiin that saami have myth where world was created from a corpse of reindeer.Furious one set wolves after the sun and the moon because they were getting a bit too incestuous.
>>18431008>two thirds of William's army wasn't actually Norman.You don't know that.
>>18429523There are fairly recent studies on Norman genetics from Britain. There were actual Norse with more French and Saxon ancestry than several who had been living and been buried outside of Scandinavia. Danish and Swedish was overwhelming, several Normans still plotted within Scandinaviaan clusters between Sweden and Denmark. Which would make sense because many were from Scania to Jutland specifically, they were Goths or Gutes or some close variant, I don't really understand the different terms for these tribes that seem to all be some variation of the exact same thing genetically and culturally. I don't know why this is contentious either. Many of them brought their wives from the North. There are laws about Danish weddings (which is to say, there was no wedding, kind of like a common law marriage). it wasn't just them picking off local Romano-Gaul women exclusively and them becoming indistinguishable from the local French was a many centuries long process. And when this all started, many Franks were still plotting in the South Scandinavian/Danish cluster, some still at 100% even. Not Continental/Saxon heritage but south Scandinavian. AndreiDNA has a video or two on the Franks.
>>18429517I'm not typically one for zoomerspeak but this gave me a sensible chuckle.
>>18431313The Chudic Homeland... Estonia.
>>18431313https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chud#Chuds_in_folklore>In Russian folk legends, the Chuds were described as exalted and beautiful. One characteristic of the Chuds was 'white-eyed', which means lightly colored eyes.
>>18431363> D. V. Bubrih in his book The Origin of the Karelian People suggested that the ethnic composition of the historical Zavoloch Chud was heterogeneous; it was formed by representatives of the Ves ("white-eyed Chud") and Meryans ("black Chud").Fuuuck they even had groypers.
>>18431302French 'men' are serial copers
>>18429523>>18431302Rollo was the brother of Gorm the Old whose real name was Tore Ragnvaldson. Their Orkney-Læsø heritage forms the basis for the mythic marriage between Freyr and Gerdr,- which is why he took on the additional name "INGWAZ" after HER ancestor Aengus.
>>18431313Chud are kind of interesting because same name is used for wide variety of uralic people and mythological beings.I think historical chud was just exonym for whatever tribes uralic people recognized as similar to themselves.A lot of folklore on these historic chud is about conflict, it is often mixed with fool and troll like figures.Then there is entirely mythological chud that wary from giants to dwarves to people before us who became underground folk.One of my favourite chud myths is how one of them cut his own head off with a sickle and out came a human.Other chud got so scared that they dug underground and they have stayed there forever afterwards becoming landfolk or vettr.
>>18431367kek
>>18431363>>18431367I have found my new philosophy
>>18430984yeah a lot of religions descend from the indoeuropean religion.
>>18431738Uralic religions have ultimately descended from different stock.I think spread of some of mythos point towards uralic origin.Thor is almost completely foreign being to uralic mythos.But vollund, odin, loki and baldr are influenced to direction or other or just plain shared mythology.I think culture, development of society and livelihood are important things to consider.Apparently uralic people had important role in bronze age and bronze was dependent on trade.It could explain few similarities.
>>18429806Dunno broIn the century Norman conquests of England and Sicily happened (the 11th century), they French seemed more prone to conquering distant lands than ScandinaviansHow any Scandis took part in the First Crusade?
>>18431909Interestingly enough, King Sigurd of Norway had a very successful crusade.
>>18431909Harald Hardrada tried to conquer England at the same exact time as William...
>>18431909Norman chroniclers in England were still emphasising Danish and Norwegian ancestry as demarking them from Franks in the 13th century
>>18431909>Normans were bigger conquerors than the French>I dunno bro, the Normans conquered a lotDo you have brain damage?
>>18429517And how exactly are you going to do that? Sail there? Most of the frequent raid targets had no major fleets nor were they particularly competent seafarers and if they then even make it there on their owns, they risk getting intercepted and wiped out at sea. That leaves over land and unless you're German, that's a long way to march. Basically chances are your army gets fucked by the logistics of even getting there before they even get to fight any vikings. Then once you're there you also have to actually fight them, and the only region you're likely to find is the most densely populated one that conquered huge swathes of England 3 times and was building forts between the first and second time. Also while you're away with your army, you're leaving your home turf vulnerable to attack from neighbors or whichever vikings you're not currently attacking.
>>18431975Some amerimutts in 2026 are still calling themselves "Germans" (despite not speaking the language or knowing anything about the culture) because their great great grandfather moved from Germany to the US in the 1910s
>>18429852>Normans were distinct enough to be referred to by their own appellation (Norman) rather than simply being called French by their contemporariesThis is hardly an argument.Back then French identity was at its very beginning, and Frenchmen (even those without Scandi ancestry) used to refer to themselves through their regional identities a lot, especially when among fellow French people.The non-Norman French troops in William's army during the invasions were refered to as Bretons (from Brittany), Poitevins (from Poitou) or Manceaux (from Maine)....etcCollectively, alongside the Normans (from Normandy) they were French.Hic Franci Pugnant.
>>18429852>>18432035As a matter of fact, Normans were more French than many inhabitants the Kingdom of France at the time, as they were part of the oil language area, unlike Brittany, Flanders or the entire southern half...
