page_title: Viking expansion
section_title: Motivation for expansion
hierarchical_section_title: Viking expansion / Motivation for expansion
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: «&#160;Pirates normands au IXème siècle&#160;» (esquisse). Peinture d'Evariste-Vital Luminais (Nantes, 1822 - Paris, 1896). Musée de Melun - Maison de la vicomté.
context_page_description: Viking expansion is the process by which Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, sailed most of the North Atlantic, reaching south to North Africa and east to Russia, Constantinople and the Middle East as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries. Vikings under Leif Erikson, the heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up a short-lived settlement in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. Longer lasting and more established settlements were formed in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Great Britain, Ireland and Normandy.
  It is debated whether the term Viking represents all Norse settlers or just those who raided.
context_section_description: There is much debate among historians about what drove the Viking expansion.
  Researchers have suggested that Vikings may have originally started sailing and raiding due to a need to seek out women from foreign lands. The concept was expressed in the 11th century by historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his semi-imaginary History of The Normans. Rich and powerful Viking men tended to have many wives and concubines, these polygynous relationships may have led to a shortage of eligible women for the average Viking male. Due to this, the average Viking man could have been forced to perform riskier actions to gain wealth and power to be able to find suitable women. Viking men would often buy or capture women and make them into their wives or concubines. Polygynous marriage increases male-male competition in society because it creates a pool of unmarried men who are willing to engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviors. The Annals of Ulster states that in 821 the Vikings plundered an Irish village and "carried off a great number of women into captivity".
  Another theory is that it was a quest for retaliation against continental Europeans for their previous invasions of Viking homelands, such as Charlemagne's campaign to force Scandinavian pagans to convert to Christianity by killing any who refused to become baptized. Those who favor this explanation point out that the penetration of Christianity into Scandinavia caused serious conflict and divided Norway for almost a century. However, the first target of Viking raids was not the Frankish Kingdom, but Christian monasteries in England. According to the historian Peter Sawyer, these were raided because they were centers of wealth and their farms well-stocked, not because of any religious reasons.
  A different idea is that the Viking population had exceeded the agricultural potential of their homeland. This may have been true of western Norway, where there were few reserves of land, but it is unlikely that the rest of Scandinavia was experiencing famine.
  Alternatively, some scholars propose that the Viking expansion was driven by a youth bulge effect: Because the eldest son of a family customarily inherited the family's entire estate, younger sons had to seek their fortune by emigrating or engaging in raids. Peter Sawyer suggests that most Vikings emigrated due to the attractiveness of owning more land rather than the necessity of having it.
  However, no rise in population, youth bulge, or decline in agricultural production during this period has been definitively demonstrated. Nor is it clear why such pressures would have prompted expansion overseas rather than into the vast, uncultivated forest areas in the interior of the Scandinavian Peninsula, although perhaps emigration or sea raids may have been easier or more profitable than clearing large areas of forest for farm and pasture in a region with a limited growing season.
  It is also possible that a decline in the profitability of old trade routes drove the Vikings to seek out new, more profitable ones. Trade between western Europe and the rest of Eurasia may have suffered after the Roman Empire lost its western provinces in the 5th century, and the expansion of Islam in the 7th century may have reduced trade opportunities within western Europe by redirecting resources along the Silk Road. Trade in the Mediterranean was at its lowest level in history when the Vikings began their expansion. The Viking expansion opened new trade routes in Arab and Frankish lands, and took control of trade markets previously dominated by the Frisians after the Franks destroyed the Frisian fleet.
caption: A depiction of Vikings kidnapping a woman. Viking men often kidnapped foreign women for marriage or concubinage from lands that they had pillaged. Illustrated by French painter Évariste Vital Luminais in the 19th century.
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