Like you Italians were much better?Originally Posted by bizzarro
Or anyone in Europe or the world?
The point with the Vikings is that the longboats and their knowledge of navigation made them able to do shock attacks all over the world.
By the time the attacked state had time to react they were allready gone.
And while they were feared, they did just as much trading and such as attacking. The Norse were poor back then, but had mastered the sea unlike any other European nations. So expansion by trade or pillage was the logical outcome.
As to the culture; women had a high status and a lot to say compare to the time. In one of the sagas about an incursion into Vinland (America) the Indians/native Americans (which we called skraelingr, a denominantive term, which now a days means "thin/weaklings/scrawny")
attacked a Viking encampment, some of the men, caught by suprise started to retreat. But one of the women, angry cause the men seemed cowardly, tore off her shirt revealing her breasts while picking up a sword, and then ran towards the natives shouting and banging the sword against her chest in rage,
Which rallied the men and scared the natives so that the attack was averted.
How much is true or not one can't say for certain, but the fact that a women could behave like this and be written about in the 1100s, (and this is far from the only story about powerful women in the sagas) point to a culture where women could have high status.
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