Calamity after calamity befell Europe at the beginning of the so-called Dark Ages. The Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century. Volcanic eruptions in the mid-sixth century blocked out the sun, causing crop failure and famine across the Northern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, the Justinian Plague arrived, killing, by some estimates, nearly half of everybody in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and scores of others elsewhere.
With that description, the Vikings entered the annals of medieval history as merciless raiders, having also killed a local official in southern Great Britain in 789. From today’s perspective, these Norse seafarers burst into existence seemingly out of nowhere.
Exactly when and why the Vikings first turned their boats away from shore to sail south over the horizon and into the unknown is hotly debated. According to some historians, another development in the late eighth century offers a clue: Silver coins known as dirhams made their way to Europe from the Islamic world in the Middle East. Around this time, Viking men in what is now Norway and Sweden became obsessed with silver as a means to purchase brides made scarce by female infanticide, or so a popular theory holds. A desperate need for silver, it was thought, motivated the Vikings’ initial trips across the North and Baltic seas and somehow precipitated their infamous raids.
Other historians, however, suspect the Vikings’ first forays into the outside world long preceded their violent raids and had nothing to do with a quest for silver.
2023-07-23 06:00:00
Article from www.sciencenews.org