Vikings in America Book Review

 BOOK REVIEW- Five Stars

Vikings in America by Greame Davis

This book is extensive, superbly documented, and well presented. After reading numerous Scandinavian history related books this one stands out. Edited to flow with the all encompassing continuum of fascinating events of the Viking era, this documented true presentation reads like a great novel.

Excerpts:

Viking archaeological remains have been found in some of the most unlikely locations, in lands no-one would have dreamed the Vikings could ever have reached.

The root cause of the destruction of Viking Greenland is most probably that of pirate raids. The official “royal ships” from Norway came primarily to extort taxes, and became little better than thieves. Over and above these state-sponsored raids, Greenland was increasingly subject to the attentions of pirates. Such ships were numerous in Europe, acting without the overt support of a nation state, trading where they could, and stealing with impunity. For centuries isolated communities on the European littoral feared the arrival of an unknown ship.

Greenlanders were especially vulnerable, for their tiny scattered settlements put them at the mercy of any visiting ship whose crew outnumbered them. Christendom condemned the activities of pirates, but only when they were directed against Christians. There were no restrictions imposed upon pirate activities against non-Christian people, whom the Church explicitly stated could be killed or enslaved,and their property seized. This was the way the Church recommended treating non-Christians. Popes began to assert that the Greenlanders had returned to paganism and the worship of the Norse gods. The import of this view is that it justifies the actions of the pirates, giving papal sanction to the killing and captivity of Greenland Vikings.

The balance of probability is that the Greenland colony in its last years was over-run by European pirates. They operated from Britain, Flanders, Denmark, and even, in 1453, a ship from Portugal. The systematic destruction of a people by Church- and State-supported pirates through theft, through carrying the Greenlanders into captivity as slaves, through burning of farmsteads and through murder.

This genocide was justified on the grounds that the Greenlanders had relapsed into the pagan.