Incubator escapee wiki

Norsemen

Article Discussion

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:For-multi Template:Redirect-multi Template:More citations needed Template:Norse Anthropology The Norsemen (or Northmen) were a cultural group in the Early Middle Ages, originating among speakers of Old Norse in Scandinavia.<ref name="Fee">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="McTurk">Template:Cite book</ref> During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a large-scale expansion in all directions, giving rise to the Viking Age. In English-language scholarship since the 19th century, Norse seafaring traders, settlers and warriors have commonly been referred to as Vikings.

Historians of Anglo-Saxon England often use the term "Norse" in a different sense, distinguishing between Norse Vikings (Norsemen) from Norway, who mainly invaded and occupied the islands north and north-west of Britain as well as Ireland and western Britain, and Danish Vikings, who principally invaded and occupied eastern Britain.Template:Efn

History of the terms Norseman and NorthmanEdit

Template:Further The word Norseman first appears in English during the early 19th century: the earliest attestation given in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is from Walter Scott's 1817 Harold the Dauntless. The word was coined using the adjective norse, which was borrowed into English from Dutch during the 16th century with the sense 'Norwegian', and which by Scott's time had acquired the sense "of or relating to Scandinavia or its language, esp[ecially] in ancient or medieval times".<ref>"Norseman, n.", "Norse, n. and adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/128316 Template:Webarchive, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/128312 Template:Webarchive. Accessed 10 September 2018.</ref> As with modern use of the word viking, therefore, the word norseman has no particular basis in medieval usage.<ref>"Viking, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/223373 Template:Webarchive. Accessed 10 September 2018.</ref>

The term Norseman does echo terms meaning 'Northman', applied to Norse-speakers by the peoples they encountered during the Middle Ages.<ref>"Northman, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/128371 Template:Webarchive. Accessed 10 September 2018.</ref> The Old Frankish word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("Northman") was Latinised as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and was widely used in Latin texts. The Latin word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} then entered Old French as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. From this word came the name of the Normans and of Normandy, which was settled by Norsemen in the tenth century.<ref>Michael Lerche Nielsen, Review of Rune Palm, Vikingarnas språk, 750–1100, Historisk Tidskrift 126.3 (2006) 584–86 (pdf pp. 10–11 Template:Webarchive) Template:In lang</ref><ref>Louis John Paetow, A Guide to the Study of Medieval History for Students, Teachers, and Libraries, Berkeley: University of California, 1917, Template:OCLC, p. 150, citing Léopold Delisle, Littérature latine et histoire du moyen âge, Paris: Leroux, 1890, Template:OCLC, p. 17.</ref>

The same word entered Hispanic languages and local varieties of Latin with forms beginning not only in n-, but in l-, such as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (apparently reflecting nasal dissimilation in local Romance languages).<ref>Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 15–17.</ref> This form may in turn have been borrowed into Arabic: the prominent early Arabic source al-Mas‘ūdī identified the 844 raiders on Seville not only as Rūs but also {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref>Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 23–24.</ref>

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written in Old English, distinguishes between the pagan Norwegian Norsemen (Norðmenn) of Dublin and the Christian Danes (Dene) of the Danelaw. In 942, it records the victory of King Edmund I over the Norse kings of York: "The Danes were previously subjected by force under the Norsemen, for a long time in bonds of captivity to the heathens".<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia Template:ODNBsub</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Other namesEdit

File:Viking clothes.jpg
Norse clothing

In modern scholarship, Vikings is a common term for attacking Norsemen, especially in connection with raids and monastic plundering by Norsemen in the British Isles, but it was not used in this sense at the time. In Old Norse and Old English, the word simply meant 'pirate'.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

The Norse were also known as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, ashmen, by the Germans, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Norse) by the Gaels and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Danes) by the Anglo-Saxons.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The Gaelic terms {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Norwegian Viking or Norwegian), {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Danish Viking or Danish) and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (foreign Gaelic) were used for the people of Norse descent in Ireland and Scotland, who assimilated into the Gaelic culture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Dubliners called them Ostmen, or East-people, and the name Oxmanstown (an area in central Dublin; the name is still current) comes from one of their settlements; they were also known as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, or Lake-people.Template:Citation needed

The Slavs, the Arabs and the Byzantines knew them as the Rus' or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), probably derived from various uses of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, i.e. "related to rowing", or from the area of Roslagen in east-central Sweden, where most of the Northmen who visited the Eastern Slavic lands originated.<ref>Thunberg, Carl L. (2011). Särkland och dess källmaterial. Göteborgs universitet. CLTS. pp. 20–22. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Archaeologists and historians of today believe that these Scandinavian settlements in the East Slavic lands formed the names of the countries of Russia and Belarus.<ref name="Popularhistoria.se 2001">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians (Template:Langx, meaning "sworn men"), and the Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard.<ref>Sverrir Jakobsson, The Varangians: In God's Holy Fire Template:Webarchive (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Template:ISBN Template:Pages needed</ref>

Modern descendants of Norsemen are described as Scandinavians.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

GeographyEdit

File:WikingerKarte.jpg
Exploration and expansion routes of Norsemen

The British conception of the Vikings' origins was inaccurate.Template:Citation needed Those who plundered Britain lived in what is today Denmark, Scania, the western coast of Sweden and Norway (up to almost the 70th parallel) and along the Swedish Baltic coast up to around the 60th latitude and Lake Mälaren. They also came from the island of Gotland, Sweden. The border between the Norsemen and more southerly Germanic tribes, the Danevirke, today is located about Template:Convert south of the Danish–German border. The southernmost living Vikings lived no further north than Newcastle upon Tyne, and travelled to Britain more from the east than from the north.Template:Citation needed

The Norse Scandinavians established polities and settlements in what are now Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales), Ireland, Iceland, Russia, Belarus, France, Sicily, Belgium, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Greenland, Canada,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Faroe Islands.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Notable Norse peopleEdit

{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= {{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Ambox }} }}

See alsoEdit

Template:Sister project

NotesEdit

Template:Notelist

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

Template:Viking

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Norsemen&oldid=112030"