Vikings in al-Andalus and the Maghreb | Hacker News Reader

Vikings in al-Andalus and the Maghreb

alandalusylahistoria.com

97 pointsBluestein95 comments

https://web.archive.org/web/20240727170644/https://www.aland...

I am super fascinated with "norse" history, specifically the parts we don't talk about much. To me "viking" is only a period of heightened threat against christianity, but the northern european region had been a threat to the roman empire.

The east coast of England was dotted with roman forts, defended by fast moving Dalmatian cavalry against raids from the north sea. As soon as the romans left we see an invasion of people from Denmark and northern Germany.

So the word viking, and the period 800 to 1066, show a very limited view of the northern european history.

> So the word viking, and the period 800 to 1066, show a very limited view of the northern European history.

I'm Danish and I think that it's cool that you like our history, but I would encourage you to be a little more inclusive as far as the word "Viking" goes. As I understand it the word has an origin in what the people around "Viken" called them selves in the period. This is the area around the Oslo fjord and Skagerrak, and it's actually a lot less "sexy" when you know that the word "vig/vik" means "bay". Anyway in Denmark, Norway and Sweden (and possibly more Scandinavian countries) we actually call the period vikingetiden (The Viking Age). I know that a lot of the popular culture (and even academic) focus on the age is on the BERSERKERGANG parts. Probably not too surprising considering ordinary life was really rather mundane, with around 95% of populations in Denmark/Norway/Sweden being regular iron age farmers. I don't think this should discourage you from using the word "viking", however, I don't know any Scandinavians who would think less of you at least.

What we dislike is the cultural appropriation by far right fools. Which has gotten so bad, even here, that I sort of need to wear a giant rainbow hat to signal that I'm "safe" to be around if there is a pride or whatever going on in my town because I look sort of evil to some people. I'd probably describe me as a biker dadbod + beard and tattoos.

> The east coast of England was dotted with roman forts, defended by fast moving Dalmatian cavalry against raids from the north sea. As soon as the romans left we see an invasion of people from Denmark and northern Germany.

This part is especially interesting to me personally. Maybe not so much what happened in England, but the consequences of the Romans leaving France with France subsequently getting rather serious about "being good at civilization". Which meant that they attacked as far as into Danish Sønderjylland, pushing the northern germanic and scandinavian people toward expansion elsewhere. Which is what lead to we now know as the "viking routes"

Anyway, don't let certain representations of "viking culture" (whatever they may be) discourage you from using the word "viking".

The appropriation of the Scandinavian norrøn viking lore by the extreme right/nazi-adjacent/nazi groups is so annoying. I'm from around Tønsberg (look it up) and we have a lot of people with a healthy, normal interest in the old medieval stuff. We also have a lot of people that use it for their nazi feelgood shit. Problem is, you can't tell 'em apart unless you can see their other, less visible tattoos :(

And the other problem is many people call anybody interested in native culture and its preservation a nazi. Which is bullshit especially since original nazis didn’t give a damn fuck about preservation of anything, but tried to build a new superhuman based on their fantasies.

I think nationalism/ white supremacy are more so the issue. While they might not be Nazis, and in fact a lot of them really don't like Germans, I personally encountered a lot of the Scandanavian White purity types. They often use ancient Scandinavian history as a source of pride and to justify that type of superiorty. In fact I often tell people that Sweden and Norway have the most closeted racist society I've been exposed to. This is saying a lot considering I'm American!

What’s the problem with nationalism? Coming from Central Europe, here nationalism is anti-imperialist and about nations self governing themselves to promote native cultures. And as far as I know Scandinavian nationalism is pretty similar with no imperialist ambitions.

There's nothing wrong with being patriotic (usually), the problem is when your national identity gets roped in with the color of your skin, which is certainly something I've seen many times over Norway and Sweden. While they have incredibly fair and polite societies they say some insane things behind closed doors.

Skin color is most visible proxy of a foreign color. Let’s not pretend that those people blend in local cultures very well. Nor do people with white skin, to be fair.

Scandinavians are even more against central Europe migrants. While racism card silences some people regarding other skin colors, they double down on fellow Europeans. And knowing folks who emigrated there… I can’t say I blame Scandinavians for not liking them.

What a small world. I was just looking for wallpapers/ paintings of Tonsberg landscapes/seascapes yesterday. Off topic but didnt Edvard Munch have a summer house there and thus a lot of his settings are there? I'm from the States but I got to visit Tonsberg a few times when I worked in Norway Lovely little town that I hope I can visit again!

More topically, I encountered a lot of the latter group in Southern Norway and quite a few people from Sweden that were obsessed with Viking culture in a way that came off as Masculine cope.

Don't encourage me, encourage the researchers. It's a well established opinion that the so called viking-age was from around 789 (Lindisfarne raid) to 1066 (Harald loses England).

Simply because those are the written sources we have. But us laypeople are allowed to romanticize and consider other variables.

Btw I'm swedish and I speak fluent danish. ;) Lived 20 years around the Øresund region.

I don't think it's appropriation if they're ethnically nordic, is it? Whether they have a rainbow or a swastika.

Why base it on ethnicity? I'm not sure the original peoples would have focused on that rather than, say, culture, for the in/out grouping. It's my understanding that the ethnic focus came much later with the rise of nationalism and even later with genetics.

Consider that these seafarers would have habitually mated with people from Britain, Ireland and even the Maghreb as we see here. Do you think they would have considered the offspring of such pairings as less Viking?

For my that culture is essentially gone and it's basically appropriation no matter your DNA.

I've only ever seen people cry cultural appropriation in the context of someone not being the "correct" ethnicity.

Are you sure ethnicity was always mentioned as the factor that determine the in/out group? It could be projection, an assumption from your own cultural milieu.

For cultural appropriation, sure. A person born in the USA to a racially Vietnamese family isn't going to get shit for wearing Vietnamese traditional garb despite being raised in America. An American that doesn't pass as Vietnamese sure would.

That ethnicity can sometimes be a factor doesn't mean A) it's always a factor or always the primary factor or B) that we can assume it's how Vikings a 1000 years ago would have thought about it.

Consider also the cases of Americans who, despite being able to show "Irish ethnicity," are laughed at in Ireland for calling themselves Irish. Or people from around the world who take Islam as their religion and are accepted into Mecca despite their disparate ethnic backgrounds. I'd also point to multi-ethnic nations such as the British nation where Cornish, Scottish, Welsh and Saxon are all seen as equally part of the nation.

As I said in my other comment there are a variety of things like religion, cultural practice, common leadership/political belief, geography etc which can and do play roles in creating in/out groups.

I'm not saying ethnicity never plays a role in these things, only that there's little reason to assume that genetics would have been the main playing point in the mind of Vikings.

Just to add to this, people can define their in group by things like religion, cultural practice, geography, common leadership etc.

(I can totally see an AI running amok post-Singularity being "stopped" by being "fed" an incongruous rainbow-swastica and having it collapse :)

Well this just shows what an issue right wing extremists are in Europe. The rest of us are very mad about them using runes in their marches. Because they're all about hate and exclusion.

I think it's best to just ignore them and use the runes as you see fit. The wider the adoption of runes, the less associated they will be with extremists.

I am fascinated by them as well. Let me know if you know any of interesting documentaries out there.

William the conqueror [1] is a direct descendant of a viking, Rollo, who made a deal with the king of France: territory in exchange for protection against the other vikings. The name of this territory is relatively well-known for other historical reasons: Normandy. The conquest of England by William "the conqueror", duke of Normandy, is why the English language has a significant number of French origin.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_conqueror

Coincidentally, I was watching this BBC documentary on the dark ages tonight and the last episode is about Viking art and culture in the dark ages. Entire series is worth a watch if you can find it.

https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Dark_Ages:_An_Age_o...

It's on youtube too, great show.

Ah, presented by Waldemar Januszczak. He's produced quite a few great videos and series.

Not a video, but I was enthralled by https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-69-twilig... .

It's interesting that they were referred to as 'majus' or fire-worshipers, a term Muslims typically used for Zoroastrians.

A very interesting character of this period was Harald Hardrada. Prior to becoming King of Norway, he fought for the Kievan Rus and was captain of the Varangian Guard. He became King of Norway after scheming with the King of Denmark, then immediately after turned his back on his former ally to claim his throne too. Then the brother of Harold the Saxon invited him to conquer England, which he did almost successfully.

Almost successfully, because what happened next was the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and the end of the Viking era.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Hardrada

I'd love to read an alt history of what would have happened if Harald invaded a few weeks later, and William a few weeks earlier, and Godwinson was able to dispatch the Normans before having to deal with the Vikings.

All it would have taken is slightly different weather. Different sailing winds delaying or speeding some ships along. A few weeks ahead or a few weeks behind. And history would have changed forever ...

Vikings were amazingly influential in early modern history. They were the origins of Normans, who, quite apart from England and Northern France, founded successful kingdoms in the Mediterranean. They were also the original European Russians (the name "Russia" derives from "people who row", = Vikings)

It's even what suomi call Sweden - ruotsi

Rus was settled by people who migrated from what is now Sweden.

Rus is what these people called themselves. They were folks lured to that part of the Mediterranean by promise of work in the Byzantine military as Varangian Guards.

A subset of these Norsemen sailed up the Dniper to what is today Kiev and setup Kievan Rus. They ruled over and assimilated the the Slavic, Bulgar, and Turkic peoples of the area. In the Middle Ages, the Mongols came and destroyed Kiev, murdering just about everyone inside, leading to fragmentation into multiple polities like Moscow, the Novgorod Republic, and Vladimir.

The Rus ethnonym lives on in the name of the Russians, Rusyns, Ruthenians, Belarussians, and others!

You reversed the timeline a bit.

Varangians came primarily from todays Sweden, and were initially going inland into the today's Estonia, Belarus and Russia from north, from the Gulf of Finland, using rivers. The group of them called Rus under the leadership of Rurik created Novgorod in 862. About 20 years later they've also conquered Kiev (some 900km more to the south). They were initially raiders, but over time they've conquered the local Slavs, established their rule and became very important traders, as they've created the trading (and also slave) routes all across the continent from the Baltic in the North down to the Black Sea - using huge rivers like Volga and Dneper - trading in south with Byzantin empire and Abbaside Caliphate. It was one of the main trading routes between West/North Europe and Arab world of that age.

And as their presence grown stronger, the Rus started more frequently raiding the Byzantin Empire, sacking even the big Constantinople a few times. To stop these attacks, in 10th century the Byzantines did the same move as king Charles the Simple did in Francia with Normans, they gave Varangian leaders some titles and employed them all as a royal guard. Problem solved.

And then, as you've said, the viking era was over, and they assimilated into the Slavic population (just like Bulgars and others did).

Another interesting note, the Rus ethnonym also got into many Slavic languages as a word for fair blonde or reddish-blonde hair ("русая" in Russian, "rusa" in Serbian/Croatian, etc.). In Serbian 'rus' was historically used in folk language with a meaning 'red', for instance for skin rush, names of some herbs, etc.

> traders, as they've created the trading (and also slave)

So much so that the word “slave” in Greek and other languages comes from “Slavs”?

The ancient Greek word for "Slave" is δοῦλος, pronounced "doulos". I'm struggling to see how that comes from "Slav". The sources I've looked up say the derivation is uncertain, but noone mentions "Slav" as a possible origin[1]

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%BF%E1%BF%A6%CE%BB%C... and https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1... for example

Yes, but I believe it was Latin, not Greek (Constantinople was a capitol of Easter Roman Empire, and they used both Latin and Greek). Latin term Sclavi that meant Slavs started to be used for slave servants, because there was so many of them.

> the Mongols came and destroyed Kiev, murdering just about everyone

I wonder to what degree - if any - these poor people served as a "buffer" against the Mongols, saving Europe from the slaughter ...

> these poor people served as a "buffer" against the Mongols, saving Europe from the slaughter ...

You mean saving Western Europe :)

Mongols ran over (and did a lot of slaughter in) the most of Eastern and Central Europe, including Poland, Czechia, parts of todays Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia and Austria. There was no "buffer" that stopped them, they've stopped eventually because their Great Khan died. As the leadership broke down and fights for power arose, they've been forced to return back home.

Mongols invaded Eastern and Central Europe several times, but they always turned back. There are at least two common explanation for that.

First, European countryside was infested with castles. Defeating the king and sacking his capital wasn't enough to pacify the land. Mongols would have had to deal with every local warlord separately, and Europe wasn't worth the trouble.

Second, Mongols were getting too far away from the steppe. Their armies could not stay in Europe in the long term due to the lack of large enough pastures.

The hills and forests of Western Europe were also unfavourable for their preferred cavalry based tactics. And even the damp weather was against them since they couldn’t use their compound bows in the rain.

It really makes sense, on all counts, logistics, weather, terrain, tactics.-

> Defeating the king and sacking his capital wasn't enough to pacify the land

So, decentralization, in a way. Nice.-

> There was no "buffer" that stopped them, they've stopped eventually because their Great Khan died.

Basically unstoppable, eh? So, basically, an "accident" of history they did not take over the Mediterranean ...

Well, they were basically a highly-mobile light cavalry/archers combination, so while they progressed very fast they were not spending much time sieging heavily fortified cities or going into mountains and other hard to cross terrains. Also it took Europeans a while to learn how to fight them efficiently, but eventually they did figure out that European heavy cavalry is a good match for them. So it's not they were "unstoppable", they simply avoided hard targets, and pillaged the villages and other less defended areas, and moved quickly through disorganized European kingdoms fighting each other.

That's not unique to the Mongols. Another easy example would be Alexander of Macedon. History is filled with great empires, many of them expanding, which fell or contracted after the leader passes.

Point.-

PS. I wonder what - if anything - implications that has for leadership or management - you know, the whole achievement falling apart, missing one individual ...

(Or, to project management - low "bus factor", so to speak ...)

The land was already settled by slavic and finnic tribes, whose experience of this is lost to us. The norse made their own settlements and assumed rule over the existing groups. Eventually the norse and finnic groups had more or less fully assimilated with each other and into the local slavic population forming the rus'.

If you go even further back, it was people from the Caucasus/modern day Ukraine that wiped out the male population of Europe and settled Europe. The same group of people that also branched off and settled in Iran and India. The speakers of PIE. Fast forward about 2000 years and the Scandinavians went back and assimilated with local tribes to form the Rus.

> PIE

Proto-Indo European if I am not mistaken.-

PS. Now that would have sounded interesting I bet ...

Various linguists have done reconstructions of what PIE might have sounded like from projecting back through the descendent languages. There are several examples on YouTube.

Obviously none of them are 100% accurate but they may capture some of the feel of the language.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCI4Y8VneP0

The next stop down the rabbit hole is Indo-Ugric.

Oh, grief. Thanks :)

PS. "Earlier" or "more basic" than PIE I take it ...

Sure. Try this video, and its Part 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKZx8dU1clU

> people who migrated from what is now Sweden

a.k.a. vikings

Modern Sweden was only a part of origins of vikings. If it is known that those people are specifically Swedish vikings, then it makes sense to highlight that.

It actually makes very little sense to “highlight” that in the context above.

It would perhaps have been interesting to point out that that region of Sweden is called Roslagen today, and has been since those times.

If there are even more historical details known… The more precise it is, the better.

Indeed. They are 'seminal', in many ways.-

PS. Apparently, someone objects to - I gather - my use of "seminal" here ...

(By which no pun - even given ample pillaging and raping by the vikings - was intended ...)

I just meant they are influential, even genetically.-

This is a weird half apology. You used seminal and it makes sense with all the raping - it’s a good pun tho clearly it is offending some. No need to pretend it wasn’t a pun tho mate

Thanks. I actually realized after the fact.-

Ah right it happens to me too sometimes

Graffiti evidence of Vikings in Athens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piraeus_Lion

Also in Istanbul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_inscriptions_in_Hagia_So...

Interesting. It is worth noting that the presence of Germanic tribes in Spain goes back much farther in time. and The name Al Andulus for instance comes from the Arabic name for the Vandals: a Germanic tribe who settled in Iberia.

Yeah, it’s always surprising to learn that Spain in the 400s or so was a battleground between at least three different Germanic tribes: the Visigoths, the Suebi and the Vandals.

The article mentions Vikings in the Maghreb as well, but obviously the Vandals under Gaiseric have them beaten there too, having ruled most of the western Mediterranean as far as Tripoli in his time. Germanic tribes, ruling North Africa, building amphitheatres and writing Latin poetry no less.

For those interested in the topic, I highly recommend this book: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-long-ships

At no point the article provides evidence of the Vikings presence in North Africa. But we have archeological evidence that the Vandals came to and lived in North Africa.

The Normans, who were basically descendants of Vikings established a short-lived kingdom in North Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Africa

looks like it was hugged to death

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Shame, really.-

Further sad, no Internet Archive nor archive.is, which, funny, has snapshotted this moment (facepalm):

- https://archive.is/https://www.alandalusylahistoria.com/?p=4...

Alright. Appears back - probably recuperated somewhat :)

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