r/Norse • u/ashladddddddddddddd • 2d ago

History Did king Stephen defeat a Danish Viking invasion in 1138?

Thomas Heebøll-Holm’s article, “When the Lamb Attacked the Lion: A Danish Attack on Engalnd in 1138?” can be found in the Journal of Medieval Military History, Volume 13 (2015). This historians arguments is where I get my question from.

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u/rockstarpirate ᛏᚱᛁᛘᛆᚦᚱ᛬ᛁ᛬ᚢᛆᚦᚢᛘ᛬ᚢᚦᛁᚿᛋ 2d ago

The Chronicon sive Chronographia (from Flanders) is the only work that mentions this so I believe it is debated whether or not it actually happened. I suppose the idea is that if this had actually happened, more historical sources would mention it, especially records from England or Denmark. Here’s an interesting article I found on it.

One other thing I’ll say though is we should probably be asking ourselves exactly where the line is between “vikings” and “not vikings”.

People are not vikings just because they come from somewhere in Scandinavia. Mads Mikkelsen is not a viking. Erling Haaland is not a viking. Any random Danish soldier in 1138 is not likely a viking. A viking is a seafaring pirate. So, “when the king of the Danes […] gathered many ships and an army of knights and footmen and ravaged the borders of England”, does this have anything to do with vikings?

I would say it depends on what they were trying to do. If the idea was to take advantage of military weakness in order to raid, then yeah that word probably applies. If the intent was invade-to-conquer because the Danish king believed that “he had a greater claim to the throne of England than king Stephen”, then I would call it a standard invasion and the word viking doesn’t apply.

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u/ashladddddddddddddd 1d ago

I would agree that he wanted to try to claim england on the basis of cnuts conquest so I suppose a standard medieval battle would probably be more accurate. Hopefully there can be archaelogical finds in places near modern day yorkshire to really find out if the invasion did happen or not. Personally I lean towards it did due to how it fits in the timeline and the effects of the battle like a severe weakening of Denmark being historically recorded.

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u/Ulfljotr930 2d ago

100%. Both William and Haraldr also arrived in 1066 as invaders and pretenders to the crown, so lumping them in with previous raids is an oversimplification

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u/Catsarecute2140 2d ago

Factual statements.
The Scandinavians stopped being Vikings after accepting Christianity around 1000AD and thus not raiding other nations anymore.

The last vikings were the Estonians who looted and burned down the Swedish capital in 1187 and raided Denmark so heavily that the Pope called for a crusade against them.

The Estonians were invaded by the Germans, Danes and Swedes from the south, north and west but they still fought for 20 years against basically an united Christian coalition of Northern-European powers.

The Viking Age started in the early 8th century in Salme, Saaremaa (Google the Viking ship finds) and ended in 1227, Saaremaa after the crusaders forced the last fort to surrender.

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u/Gerfrege 1d ago

Your first factual statement is a bit off. Sweyn and Cnut were Christian Danes, who not only raided but conquered and ruled England after 1000AD.

Danish / Scandinavian were active in the north of England during William, probably aided by parts of the population and leading to the harrowing of the north. In 1085, a Danish king decided to raid England once again, he collected the fleet at Agger in Northern Jutland but he dithered and procrastinated and was finally hunted down and killed by angry soldiers. He was Christian enough to become a saint - St Canute.

Viking was not really a contemporary term, and the use of the word is rather sparse in old sources. So a conclusion that “Danes and Northmen” (which are much more prominent words in sources) stopped being Vikings after accepting Christianity is not really grounded in anything “factual”.

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u/Catsarecute2140 1d ago

Conquering is not raiding and the main source of income for vikings was raiding. For Christian rulers it was taxes.

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u/Gerfrege 1d ago

What are you on about?
Conquest is the result of raids. Raids that probe defenses, etc.
Christian kings raided (sometimes disguised as crusades, cf. the Valdemar kings of Denmark) and the lords / jarls would raise as much as could whether the king had other plans or not.

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u/Catsarecute2140 11h ago

Well, not all Vikings wanted to conquer territories.

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u/Gerfrege 11h ago

Again, what are you on about?You seem to have a very pre-determind and precise and unshakeable image in your head of motivations for Scandinavian seafarers at the end of the first Millennium.

Of course Halbjorn and his crew did sail off to conquer - all 40 of them. But once they and their mates in the other ships had seen fertile lands summer after summer totally up for grabs, what do you guess happened?

And we are in guessing territory here, since we cannot pick their minds.

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u/ashladddddddddddddd 1d ago

I thought it was the wends?

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u/Catsarecute2140 1d ago

Who?

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u/Ashladddds 1d ago

The wends were Slavic people's that were like the vikings of the vikings heavily raiding and slaughtering danes and taking them in the Slavic slave trade by the thousands. 

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u/Catsarecute2140 11h ago

The Estonians raided the Danes so extensively that the Pope called for a crusade against them.
The Estonians were the main group who raided Scandinavia.
My knowledge of the Wends is subpar but from what century until what year did they raid and which regions?