i'm doing some research on this right now, and it's largely the conclusion i'm coming to. the reality is that charlemagne attacked them first. maybe they went a little overboard in their response, but it's not like the church had a good track record by the year 800.

if you look at the larger context, it wasn't just the vikings. even around the year 800, the areas north of the rhine and the danube were still mostly wilderness, inhabited by wandering tribes of various ethnicities. berlin wasn't founded until 1237, probably by poles, who migrated as far west as denmark. charlemagne fought remnants of iranian tribes living near belgium. the whole wide swath of territory from the atlantic to the caspian was just forests, small farms and huts.

...and they all worked together to fight the empire. it's tempting to almost build the context up of a world war, a clash of civilizations. i mean, that context is there. you don't have to look hard to find it. but it's usually presented in a colonialist narrative about how the christians came in and civilized the backwards barbarians.

but there's enough evidence to piece together a counter-narrative about a collection of intertwined peoples who were struggling to maintain their way of life.

i've never understood some of the viking tactics. i mean, it's one thing to pillage and plunder. it's another thing to burn down entire cities. the vikings specifically targeted churches and mosques. that's not plunder. that's war.

http://medievalnews.blogspot.ca/2010/01/viking-attacks-on-europe-were-self.html

as an "advanced civilization", northern europe (including germany) is not much older than the united states is.

seems a little romantic, but the norse did in fact practice direct democracy. it would have looked sort of like the "loya jirga" you hear about in afghanistan, where the whole tribe gets together and tries to reach consensus. even in the norman invasions of italy, around the year 1100, they were still electing leaders rather than passing power through paternal links. it took papal hard power to put an end to it, and a dozen histories by monks to erase it.

http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=483