Did Vikings exist before the 8th century? Were there any raids

Maybe there were some but not in large scale. The 'Viking Age' as is popular known only started after the Saxon Wars in which Charlemagne forbidded Christians from trading with pagans. That made the Scandinavians go apeshit and start attacking and looting the Christian world.

File: 1476111622761.png (100KB, 684x756px) Image search: [Google]

100KB, 684x756px

It really depends what you consider to be a 'Viking'. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were Germanic people who came from an area around modern Denmark/Northern Germany, and they raided and settled in England. They're not really considered "Vikings" though because they preceded the 'Viking age' and by the time the actual Vikings got there they had supplanted Britain's former inhabitants

>>2611143
Viking is a job. Its something farmer Joe does during the summer.
What the danish did was invasion and conquest. They came with an army and a king, not with a small crew of thieves.

It was traditional war.

>>2611301
So the only difference between Vikings and Anglo-Saxon/Jutes is that the former arrived later? I don't seem to find any other difference. Both were Pagans when they arrived, both were Germanic, both attacked the Christian population. At the end, Anglo Saxons stayed and converted to Christianism, while Vikings were mostly expelled, but some stayed in Northern England too. So I don't really understand...Maybe Viking is a shit term that doesn't really define anything.

>>2611322
see
>>2611305


'Vikings' weren't a race or group of people. It was a job like soldier or pirate or knight. The word viking is used to add clarity to a specific group and time period. They're essentially the same. Hell, if you REALLY wanted to stretch the word, you could say the Norman conquest was a viking invasion.

I think Vikings only became more famous because there are more historical records from the time they raided England. There are almost no recors from the period of 450-700, before Beda who is the father of English history. So maybe there were raids before but they aren't recorded. We might never know though

>>2611333
>Hell, if you REALLY wanted to stretch the word, you could say the Norman conquest was a viking invasion.

I am the >>2611305 poster you referenced, and I disagree.
Going viking is something localized, not state on state war. The norman invasion was in fact war. It was an army going to fight other armies with the goal of taking land.
On contrast, vikings were farmers and other "middle class" freemen from Scandinavia who supplemented their income by taking other people's things.

Compare taking the rest of the lads on a caravan raid to joining the khan's army to siege a city. It is similar.
If ye olden days warriors are modern "soldiers", then the vikings are like modern football hooligans, in the sense of their organization, goals and so on. Normans were an army.

>>2611371
I know, thats why I clarified with the term 'Really stretch'

>>2611345
Vikings became famous because churches wanted more money to defend themselves, so they wrote to the king that LITERALLY SATAN came, with horns and fire and hellhounds, and the devils attacked and raped, and they were eight feet tall and made of dragon scales, and they had axes the size of your head, and they rode dragons from the sea into the river, and so on.

Like when your uncle boasts about that fish he caught 20 years ago.

>>2611301
The Anglo-Saxons never supplanted the native Britons. Like 90% of modern British people are descendants of the Britons.

>>2611396
They settled there in massive numbers and overtook them culturally, to the point where the area they settled in and language spoken there are named after them.

I'd say supplant is a fair word to use

>>2611301
The continental man's guide to job opportunities in the British isles:

>if you come with your wife, children, hens and a goat, and plan to settle and live there, you are a colonist
>if you come with your officers, heavy cavalry and a siege park, and plan to take over and collect taxes, you are an invader
>if you come with your drinking mates and the deputy mayor, and plan on bringing whatever is not nailed down home, you are a viking
>if you come with your dad and you plan on working as a plumber and collecting welfare to send home, you are polish

>>2611301
Don't forget about the Goths! They came from the same region and culture as well, just a bit earlier.

>>2611484
I've never heard of the Goths raiding Bongland, they were more into Rome as far as I'm aware

>>2611322
Well Angles are from modern Denmark but Saxons mainly from (upper?) Saxony. I'm not sure whether Denmark would've been "Nordicised" at that time.

Though the only certain difference I can say is language and probably reasonably minor (in the grand scheme of things) culture differences

>>2611143
No. There were Scandinavians/Norse (the ethnic terms), but "Viking" was a job, roughly comparable to "pirate" in modern English.

The raid on Lindisfarne on June 8, 783 AD is considered the birth of the Viking Age. Before that time, there are no records of Viking raids.

File: wojak i en muffin.jpg (52KB, 912x960px) Image search: [Google]

52KB, 912x960px

We really can't know... No one was around to write stuff down. Norse sagas were transmitted orally until the Christians came with their fancy writing.