What have the Vikings ever done for us? Actually, save the cradle of Christianity!
THEY are often portrayed as bloodthirsty warriors with an insatiable appetite for rape and pillage.
But new research suggests that the Vikings may have been unfairly maligned.
An archaeologist who has studied Viking activity in Scotland suggests that, despite their reputation for violence, they were surprisingly peaceable and respectful.
Dr Adrián Maldonado, Glenmorangie Research Fellow at National Museums Scotland, found that the Vikings who attacked Scotland’s most important religious community more than 1,000 years ago did not destroy it but actually left it thriving.
The monastery on the Inner Hebridean island of Iona, founded by St Columba in AD 563, is widely thought to have been wiped out in a series of Viking raids between AD 795 and AD 825.
But Dr Maldonado believes that the monastic community was never abandoned. He said: ‘The traditional story of Iona is that it was a major place of pilgrimage, and then the Vikings arrived and that was the end of that.
‘We do know that the Vikings raided Iona but there is none of the traditional evidence of burning events or skulls with blade wounds.
‘The Vikings knew about Iona as a famous place where there was a lot of money to be had. People without swords to defend themselves were an easy target. But we have this cartoonish image of Vikings destroying everything as they went along and it’s just not the case.
‘The reality is a lot more complicated. Not only was the monastery not abandoned, but it continued to thrive.’
St Columba is widely revered as having brought Christianity from Ireland to Scotland when he landed at Iona.
Dr Maldonado, whose findings are published in a new book, Crucible of Nations: Scotland from Viking Age to Medieval Kingdom, said pilgrims would come from all over to visit Iona, putting it on a par with ‘the Holy Land or Rome’. He said: ‘The first Viking raid on Scotland was at Iona in AD 795, so the fame of Columba had reached them – they knew where to go, even though they were not Christian.
‘By the 10th Century, the Vikings who lived in the Hebrides were becoming Christian themselves and it was Iona where they wanted to be buried, because of the fame and power of St Columba.’
Crucible of Nations is the latest Glenmorangie Research project. The book looks at the impact of the Vikings, the disappearance of the Picts and the emergence of Alba, the Gaelic-speaking kingdom that formed the core of the medieval kingdom of Scotland.