The Norse Code: Vikings, Violence, and the Unexpected Birth of Empire

 

"The Norse Code: Vikings, Violence, and the Unexpected Birth of Empire"

You know, when most people think of European colonialism, they jump straight to the Spanish in the Americas, or the British in India, all red uniforms and tea. But long before that — before muskets, flags, and treaties — there were bearded men in boats, with axes, and an alarming tendency to show up uninvited. I’m talking, of course, about the Vikings.

Now the usual story goes: the Vikings were raiders. Plunderers. Pillagers. Yes, they were that — but also something more. Because while they were looting churches in England, they were also accidentally building the foundations of European expansion.

Take the year 793 — the infamous raid on Lindisfarne. It wasn’t just the shock of violence. It was the realization that the sea was a highway, not a barrier. The Vikings weren’t trying to build an empire. They were looking for farmland, trade, and a good reason to leave Scandinavia — where, incidentally, the soil was frozen half the year and inheritance laws meant your older brother got everything.

So what starts as raiding turns into settlement. They don’t just hit Paris — they move into it. They don’t just burn Irish monasteries — they stay and found towns like Dublin. By the 870s, they’re not just attacking England. They’re carving it up, administering it, taxing it. By the time Alfred the Great fights them, they’ve already built functioning systems of law and governance. That’s not random chaos. That’s colonization.



And it doesn’t stop there. They set up shop in Normandy — named for the “Northmen” — and, in a wonderfully ironic twist, their descendants eventually invade England again in 1066 as the Normans, wearing proper armor and pretending to be French.

Meanwhile, their cousins sail west to Iceland, Greenland, and — if you believe the sagas — North America. They don’t call it colonization, but it checks all the boxes: migration, displacement, cultural dominance.

The real kicker? Unlike later European colonialism, Viking expansion wasn’t driven by statecraft, or religion, or ideology. It was driven by desperation, opportunity, and a decent sail design. And yet it produced many of the same effects: settlements displacing locals, resource extraction, cultural erasure, and — eventually — stories justifying it all.

So the next time you think about European colonialism as something that begins in the Age of Exploration, remember: the Norse got there first. They just didn’t write about it in Latin.

Comments

  1. David Tyler Rand-McKayJune 3, 2025 at 8:06 PM

    TL:DR; What if I told you one of Europe’s first colonial empires was launched by people who didn’t even mean to start one?

    The Vikings — yes, the horned-helmet, longboat crowd (though the horns are a myth) — didn’t set out to conquer the world. They were just looking for farmland, silver, and maybe somewhere the winters didn’t last nine months. But by chasing loot and land, they accidentally built the scaffolding for European colonialism.

    They raided monasteries, then settled next to them. Dublin? Founded by Vikings. Normandy? Named after them. They even reached North America five hundred years before Columbus — no maps, no manifest destiny, just guts and a sail.

    And here’s the twist: their expansion wasn’t driven by kings or ideology. It was driven by desperation, opportunity, and a really good boat.

    So when we talk about colonialism in Europe, it didn’t start with flags and rifles. It started with an axe, a sea current, and a guy who just wanted a better farm.

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