Medieval Scandinavians, better known as Varangians, Vikings or Normans, left a huge mark on our history. The warlike tribes roaming the sea left behind not only destruction, but, at times, even quite decent states, as was the case with the Duchy of Normandy. However, some of their conquests were not as successful as the feudal state in northern France.
Many historians tend to consider these fierce warriors to be the discoverers of many lands and sea routes. For example, the theory is now extremely popular that the Vikings are the discoverers of North America - many centuries before Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus. In addition, they are credited with the discovery of the ever-cold island - Greenland.
At the end of the 10th century, the Scandinavian navigator Eric the Red was sentenced to exile from Iceland for murder. He decided to sail west to land, which in daylight could be seen from the tops of the western mountains. For three years of punishment, Eric did not meet a single person there, although, judging by the sagas, he passed most of the coast of the island. Returning home, he began to agitate the Vikings from the coastal villages to move with him to the "Green Land" in which they would be in power, and there would be no oppression and injustice.
For more than 250 years until the middle of the 13th century, the independent republic of the Greenland Vikings existed. But after swearing allegiance to the Norwegian king in exchange for a regular supply of resources, this civilization began to fall into desolation. Inuit, the ancestors of modern Greenlanders, began to inhabit the island, while the Normans, on the contrary, gradually abandoned their settlements. The last written certificate of the Varangian settlements is the church record of marriage in 1408. After this date, there is no evidence of the existence of life in the Norwegian colonies.
Promotional video:
So what happened to that Viking Republic? Historians have several theories on this score. According to the first, the return of the cold climate at the end of the 12th century made the territories of lands suitable for pastures or agriculture even more scarce. And since the culture of the Varangians involved cattle breeding and the cultivation of some edible crops, they simply could not adapt to the new conditions and left the island.
The second theory is closely related to the Thule civilization - the Inuit who settled the shores of Greenland at the end of the 11th century. Many Icelandic chronicles contain the memories of the inhabitants of those settlements about the attacks of the barbarians. And although some artifacts suggest that the Vikings traded with these settlers, and sometimes even married, there is still too much evidence of the unkind nature of this people. Archaeological excavations have established that by the beginning of the 13th century, the Inuit camps were very close to the Western Settlement, and the Normans left it around 1325, apparently unable to withstand constant raids.
The latest version is closely related to Europe. The fact is that the Greenland Vikings received their main income from the trade in walrus tusks, which they used as a replacement for ivory, the supply of which almost ceased during the Crusades. But as soon as relations with the Islamic world began to recover, the merchants, cut off by two weeks of sea route, were immediately forgotten. Be that as it may, there have been no Varangian settlements in Greenland for almost 700 years, and we can only guess what exactly caused the death of the republic of the great conquerors.