Settlements

History of Colonialism

The Vikings, people from what is now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, established colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland, but the settlements failed because the Vikings were unable to supply them.

The Vikings were more successful in establishing colonies in parts of Europe, including northern France, Sicily, England, and Ireland. Eventually the people who settled in these areas were called Normans.

France, History, Merovingians and Carolingians

By the end of the 5th century, Gaul was rapidly becoming a land of Germanic tribes, who mixed with the much larger number of native Gallo-Romans. Of these tribes, Franks dominated in the north, Burgundians in the east, and Goths in the southwest. But many other peoples lived in the area as well, including Jews, Greeks, and Syrians. They made post-Roman Gallic society highly cosmopolitan. The nature of the interchange between the Germanic tribes and the Gallo-Romans is not well understood, but apparently no violent shock of opposing cultures occurred. First, some of the Germanic tribes, including the Franks, had lived for centuries on the outskirts of Roman civilization. They had become partly Romanized before they settled within the limits of the old Roman Empire. They were familiar enough with Latin to use it when they drafted the first written Germanic law codes. Second, the incoming Germans seemed inclined to settle on previously unoccupied land, generally allowing the Gallo-Romans to keep theirs. Finally, intermarriage was common; hence, most tribal distinctions disappeared by the 8th century.

The Franks conquered almost all of what had been Roman Gaul and gave the region a semblance of political unity. Under their leader, Clovis, of the Merovingian dynasty, the Franks conquered the lands of the Alemanni to the east, including much of present-day Germany, and those of the Goths in present-day southwestern France. Only Brittany, in present-day western France, and the Mediterranean coast remained outside Frankish control. Clovis, who ruled from 481 to 511, was a capable, occasionally ruthless military leader, but he understood the importance of symbols and ideology in strengthening his rule.

The Merovingians considered their kingdom a personal possession. Following Germanic practice, Clovis deeded his kingdom to his four surviving sons, who divided it among themselves at his death. Although in later years the kingdom was temporarily unified, the Merovingians never developed effective means of imposing centralized control.

During the 7th century, power within the royal government began to shift from the often ineffectual kings to increasingly influential court figures known as the mayors of the palace. This position was frequently held by the Arnulfing family, later and better known as the Carolingians. This family had strong ties to the great nobles of the kingdom and gradually strengthened the position of mayor of the palace. By the early 8th century, the Carolingians had become the real, if not the official, head of government.

Charles Martel became mayor of the palace in 714 and consolidated military control over outlying regions of the kingdom.

Charles Martel's sons, Pepin the Short and Carloman, succeeded him. By 751 he had largely abandoned the title of mayor of the palace in favor of the Latin title princeps (source of the title prince). Pepin was ready to end the pretense of serving a king. The last Merovingian was bundled off to a monastery that year, and Pepin became the first Carolingian monarch.

Pepin was succeeded in 768 by his two sons, Charles (later known as Charlemagne) and Carloman, who divided the kingdom between themselves until Carloman's death three years later.

By the end of the 8th century, Charlemagne had made his empire reasonably secure militarily and had enriched it with plunder.

The reign of Louis I from 814 to 840 has traditionally been viewed as the gateway to disintegration and decline of the empire. Louis's chief problem was the endemic conflict among the magnates. Toward the end of Louis's reign, this conflict became enmeshed in the struggle among his sons—Lothair, Louis, and Charles the Bald—over the division of the empire.

Charles's reign was partly disturbed by the incursions of the Vikings, a marauding people from the north who plundered many regions of western Europe beginning in the late 8th century. Historians are now less impressed than they once were with the destructiveness of the Vikings, pointing out that conflicts among the magnates might well have caused just as much damage to lives and property. Still, the Vikings were at the very least a destabilizing force in Charles's kingdom and dealt an unwelcome blow to an already shaky regime.

France, Normandy

Under Roman domination the region formed part of Gallia Lugdunensis (Celtic Gaul). With the Frankish invasions it was made a constituent part of the kingdom of Neustria. It came to be known as Normandy about 911, when Charles III, king of France, turned it over to Rollo, the leader of a menacing band of Viking raiders. In 1066 a descendant of Rollo, William II, duke of Normandy, led an invasion of England and established himself there as William I, king of England. Normandy remained an English possession until conquered in 1204 by Philip II Augustus, king of France.

Finland, the Viking Age

During the age of the Vikings the Finns became exposed to both eastern and western influences. Vikings from Sweden used the Åland Islands (colonized by Swedes in the 6th century AD) as a base for their journeys of pillage and trade into Russia as far south as the Black Sea. Although they did not actually participate in these Viking expeditions, the Finns benefited by the growing contact and the establishment of trading colonies in their country by merchants from Sweden and Gotland.

At the end of the 11th century three Finnish tribes had spread as far north as the 62nd parallel: the Finns proper in the southwest, the Tavastians in the interior lake district, and the Karelians to the east. Saami were also living in the wilderness to the north. No unified government or state existed.

Ahvenanmaa

Ahvenanmaa, province of Finland, composed of the Åland islands, situated at the northern end of the Baltic Sea, at the mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland.

The Ahvenanmaa have been inhabited since prehistoric times, and Åland has many Viking settlement sites and graveyards. The islands were Christianized by Sweden in the 12th century.

Jutland

Jutland (Danish Jylland), in physical geography, peninsula in northern Europe. In political geography, Jutland comprises part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and all of mainland Denmark.

The Jutes were succeeded on the peninsula by the Vikings, the ancestors of the modern Danes.

Russia, History, The House of Ryurik

In the 9th century Scandinavian Vikings invaded and settled a number of regions in northern Europe, from Russia in the east to Ireland in the west. From these eastward-moving Scandinavians, called Varangians or Rus, came the name Rossiya, or Russia, meaning "land of the Rus." (Scholars debate the origin of the word Rus, which also may have been derived from ruotsi, the Finnish name for the Swedes, or from Rukhs-As, the name of an Alanic tribe in southern Russia.)

Scandinavian princes from the house of Ryurik organized the East Slavs into a single state. According to tradition recorded in the Primary Chronicle, the chief East Slavic source of much of early Russian history, internal dissension and feuds among the East Slavs around Novgorod became so violent that the people voluntarily chose a Scandinavian chief, Ryurik, to rule over them in AD 862. In fact, Ryurik is a semimythical figure and his precise relationship with subsequent princely rulers of Rus is debated.

Ukraine, History

Ukraine's geographic location between Europe and Asia was an important factor in its early history. The steppes were the domain of Asiatic nomads, the Black Sea coast was inhabited by Greek colonists, and the forests in the northwest were the homeland of the agrarian East Slavic tribes from whom, eventually, the Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian nations evolved. As the East Slavs expanded, they accepted, in the 9th century, a Varangian (Viking) elite (see Harald III) that led them to establish a vast domain, centered in Kyiv (Kiev) and called Kievan Rus. It became one of the largest, richest, and most powerful lands in medieval Europe.

Ireland, The Early Period

The progress of Irish civilization was checked by the incursions of the Scandinavians, which began toward the close of the 8th century and continued for more than two centuries. The Vikings established settlements on the east coast of Ireland and conducted raids in the interior until their signal overthrow at the Battle of Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014, by the Irish king Brian Boru.

Scotland, Hebrides

In ancient times the archipelago was known as the Hebudae or the Ebudae. In 563, the Irish missionary St. Columba established a Celtic monastery on the tiny island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides. During the 8th century the islands were invaded by the Norsemen, and Norway retained control of the Hebrides until 1266, when the archipelago was transferred to Scotland.

Shetland Islands

In the 8th and 9th centuries the Shetland Islands were invaded by the Vikings, who ruled them until 1472, when they were added to the domains of the kings of Scotland.

Iceland, History

Some Irish monks may have reached Iceland before AD 800, but it remained largely unsettled until about 870. Norwegian Viking Ingólfur Arnarson is traditionally considered the first permanent settler; he established his farm at Reykjavík, now the capital. During the next 60 years, other settlers flocked to the island from the Scandinavian countries and the British Isles. In 930 a central organization for the whole island was superimposed on the already existent regional polities in the form of a general legislature called the Althing.

see also Invaders & Invasions & Explorers & Exploration

From: "Colonialism and Colonies ," - "Finland," - "Ahvenanmaa" - "Russia," - "Ukraine," - "Ireland," "Hebrides," - "France," - "Normandy," - "Jutland," - "Iceland," - "Shetland Islands," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.