Viking Age
The Viking Age was a period of Scandinavian expansion through trade, colonization and raids. The first raid was against Lindisfarne in 793 and is considered the beginning of the Viking Age. This could take place because of the development of the longship, suitable for travel across the sea, and advanced navigation techniques. Vikings were well-equipped, had chain mail armor, were well-trained and had a psychological advantage over Christian counterparts since they believed that being killed in combat would result in them going to Valhalla. In addition to gold and silver, an important outcome from the raids were thralls, which were brought to the Norwegian farms as slave workforce. While the men were out at sea, the management of the farm was under control of the women.
The lack of suitable farming land in Western Norway, caused Norwegians to travel to the sparsely populated areas such as Shetland, Orkney, the Faroe Islands and the Hebrides to colonize—the latter which became the Kingdom of the Isles. Norwegian Vikings settled on the west coast of Ireland ca. 800 and founded the island's first cities, including Dublin. Their arrival caused the petty Celtic kings to ally and by 900 they had driven out the Norwegians. Norwegians discovered Iceland in ca. 870 and within sixty years the island had been divided between four hundred chieftains. Led by Erik the Red, a group of Norwegians settled on Greenland in the 980s. His son, Leif Ericson, discovered Newfoundland in ca. 1000, naming it Vinland. Unlike Greenland, no permanent settlement was established there.
In the mid 9th century the largest chieftains of the petty kingdoms started a major power struggle. Harald Fairhair started the process of unifying Norway when he entered an alliance with the Earls of Lade and was able to unify the country after the decisive Battle of Hafrsfjord. He set up the very basics of a state administration with stewards in the most important former chieftain estates. His son Håkon the Good, who assumed the crown in 930, established two large things, Gulating for Western Norway and Frostating for Trøndelag, in which the king met with the freemen to make decisions. He also established the ledang, a conscription-based military. After his death in 960, the war broke between the Fairhair dynasty and the Earls of Lade in alliance with Danish kings.
Read more about this topic: History Of Norway
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