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Vikings - also called 'Norsemen' or 'Northmen', member of the Scandinavian seafaring warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the 9th to the 11th century and whose disruptive influence profoundly affected European history.

These pagan Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish warriors were probably prompted to undertake their raids by a combination of factors ranging from overpopulation at home to the relative helplessness of victims abroad.

The Vikings were made up of landowning chieftains and clan heads, their retainers, freemen, and any energetic young clan members who sought adventure and booty overseas.

On the other hand, the nonmilitary colonization of the Orkneys, Faroes, and Iceland was clearly due to the Norwegians.

The Vikings' everyday life was influenced not only by their view of the physical world around them, but also by their religion. They knew the gods lived in Asgard. They knew the gods could help them against evil forces, but they needed to treat their gods well.

To sacrifice a valuable animal (blota) to the gods put them in a good mood. To worship the gods was an important part of Viking life. Christianity changed the Vikings' religion, but many of the old customs continued unchanged for hundreds of years.

Before his death in 924 the small Danish states on old Mercian and East Anglian territory had fallen before him.

The more remote Northumbria resisted longer, largely under Viking leaders from Ireland, but the Scandinavian power there was finally liquidated by Edred in 954.

Viking raids on England began again in 980, and the country ultimately became part of the empire of Canute. Nevertheless, the native house was peacefully restored in 1042, and the Viking threat ended with the ineffective passes made by Canute II in the reign of William I.

The Scandinavian conquests in England left deep marks on the areas affected, in social structure, dialect, place-names, and personal names.

The Isle of Man

Man, Isle of, also spelled MANN, Manx-Gaelic Ellan Vannin, or Mannin, Latin Mona, or Monapia, one of the British Isles, located in the Irish Sea off the northwest coast of England. The island lies roughly equidistant between England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

The Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom but rather is a crown possession (since 182 cool that is self-governing in its internal affairs under the supervision of the British Home Office.

The Isle of Man is about 30 miles (48 km) long by 10 miles (16 km) wide, its main axis being southwest to northeast. It has an area of 221 square miles (572 square km).

The island consists of a central mountain mass culminating in Snaefell (2,036 feet [621 m]) and extending north and south in low-lying agricultural land. Man's coastline is rocky and has fine cliff scenery.

Among its earliest inhabitants were Celts, and their language, Manx, which is closely related to Gaelic, remained the everyday speech of the people until the first half of the 19th century.

The number of Manx speakers is now negligible, however. Norse (Viking) invasions began about AD 800, and the isle was a dependency of Norway until 1266.

During this period Man came under a Scandinavian system of government that has remained practically unchanged ever since.

In 1266 the king of Norway sold his suzerainty over Man to Scotland, and the island came under the control of England in 1341.

From this time on, the island's successive feudal lords, who styled themselves "kings of Mann," were all English. In 1406 the English crown granted the island to Sir John Stanley, and his family ruled it almost uninterruptedly until 1736.

(The Stanleys refused to be called "kings" and instead adopted the title "lord of Mann," which still holds.)

Though fishing, agriculture, and smuggling were formerly important, offshore financial services, high-technology manufacturing, and tourism from Britain are now the mainstays of the island's economy.

The island's annual Tourist Trophy motorcycle races (in June) attract many visitors.

The island's farms produce oats, wheat, barley, turnips, and potatoes, and cattle and sheep graze on the pastures of the central massif.

The principal towns are Douglas, the capital; Peel; Castletown; and Ramsey.

There is an airport near Castletown, and packet boats connect Man with the British mainland. Pop. (1995 est.) 69,600.

Scandinavian invasions of Ireland are recorded from 795, when Rechru, an island not identified, was ravaged.

THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE AND FRANCE

Viking settlement was never achieved in the well-defended empire on the scale evidenced in the British Isles, and Scandinavian influence on continental languages and institutions is, outside Normandy, very slight.

Sporadic raiding did occur, however, until the end of the Viking period; and, in the 10th century, settlements on the Seine River became the germ of the duchy of Normandy, the only permanent Viking achievement in what had been the empire of Charlemagne (see Norman).

Farther south than France - in the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean coasts--the Vikings raided from time to time but accomplished little of permanence.

Vikings (variags as they were called in Rus) merged with the local population. Chieftains married daughters of nobles, while "druzhyna"(footmen, small army) blended with freemen, so that by beginning of 1000's only names reminded of variags presence.

The Rus were clearly in the main traders, and two of their commercial treaties with the Greeks are preserved in the Primary Chronicle under 912 and 945; the Rus signatories have indubitably Scandinavian names. Occasionally, however, the Rus attempted voyages of plunder like their kinsmen in the West. Their existence as a separate people did not continue past 1050 at the latest. The first half of the 11th century appears to have seen a new Viking movement toward the East.

A number of Swedish runic stones record the names of men who went with Yngvarr on his journeys. These journeys were to the East, but only legendary accounts of their precise direction and intention survive.