Before we had the Mafia there was the "Brotherhood of the Coast". The Brotherhood of the Coast might go back all the way to the Knights Templar or much further. Piracy and freebooting along the coast of the North Atlantic are an ancient trdition. Freebooting has a long tradition in the North Atlantic that runs from the Bronze Age thru the Vikings, and to modern times.
Vikings Attack on Lindisfarne
Wikipedia dates the Viking age to a raid on Lindisfarne in 793:
"...the Viking Age began on 8 June 793[3] when Vikings destroyed the abbey on Lindisfarne, a centre of learning that was famous across the continent. Monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the sea to drown, or carried away as slaves along with the church treasures."
But Scandinavians were spotted in Britain before the attack on Lindisfarne.
"Three Viking ships had beached in Portland Bay four years earlier (although due to a scribal error the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates this event to 787 rather than 789), but that incursion may have been a trading expedition that went wrong rather than a piratical raid. Lindisfarne was different."
Lindisfarne was different because it was not only looting it was privateering/war.
"The Viking devastation of Northumbria's Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote:
And it frightened the Anglo Saxon establishment
"Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared".[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age]"
Looking at other materials on the middle and dark ages, one finds that long before Lindisfarne there were pirates operating out of the Pictish lands (Scotland) and among the Britons and Irish themselves. And that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, all practiced longship burials long before the Viking age officially happened. Those burials ceased when the Anglo Saxons became formally Christian. The Angles and Saxons were converted by a common effort from both Ireland and Rome. But Rome, through its agency in the Frankish Empire, was not just going after British Gauls and Germans, but Germans in Germany.
Thus While going "a viking" was a wonderful way to make money the motivation for the viking attacks may well have been self defensive war.
Charlemagne's attack on Saxony
The bulk of attacks occurred as Denmark was defending itself against Charlemagne and waging a defensive war against the Franks. The vikings weren't "pirates" they were waging war on behalf of governments (and were led by nobles so were part of government). They were "privateers" not "pirates."
In Charlemagne
This also can be said to be the beginning of a tradition of freebooting that continues to this day. Now those Vikings rapidly had gone from peaceful trading sea captains to ruthless warriors seeking loot, and the reasons are obvious to modern historians. They were at war with Christian Europe. Charlemagne had attacked Saxony and was at war with the North Germans. To the Norse, Christians were at war with them. Charlemagne had ruthlessly conquered and forcibly converted Saxon Germany and were a threat to their survival as a culture. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Wars]
Some Official histories tell us that the evil Vikings appeared out of nowhere and piracy went away when they became Christian. That is Bull. When William the Conqueror cross over from Normandy to England and marched to Hastings to fight the last Anglo-Saxon king, he sailed the channel in boats identical to Vikings ships in design. Why? Because the Normans were, mostly, descendants of Viking invaders. But it gets richer, there are links to piracy among the Celtic peoples of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons themselves and piracy never ended with the arrival of the Normans. The Normans gave way to British Pirates who predated across the Atlantic. Sir Francis Drake of fame in founding Virginia was a pirate. Some of his captains were also.
More importantly, the East India Company, was founded by high ranking pirates and was explicitly a piratical organization. The British Royal Navy has pirate origins. The United States Navy as well. The East India Company,
But of course when piracy is practiced by States (aristocrats are usually the leader of a small state) then the distinction between a brigand, a pirate, a warrior or a "privateer" is one of POV. The Northmen "pirates" were doing something perfectly legal (and lucrative) in fighting their enemies. It's no coincidence that the Viking age ended with the end of a period of warming in the North of Europe and the conversion of the last of the Vikings to Christianity. Christianity put a chill on all kinds of piracy by pagans, and Christian nobles enslaved the common people and weren't interested in free and bold vikings roaming untamed. They wanted good Peasants who paid taxes or fought in their wars.
Normans
But of course the viking age was followed by Crusades in the middle east and the Mediterranean, so maybe the Vikings didn't entirely give up. Maybe the end of the little warming just sent them south to greener (or at least warmer) pastures. Indeed the Christian descendants of Vikings became "Normans." And of course the Normans, Franks and other violent buccaneers were the ancestors of the Royal Houses of Europe (including Russia):
Wikipedia quotes "The 11th century Benedictine monk and historian, Goffredo Malaterra" who characterised the Normans thus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans]:
"Specially marked by cunning, despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imitation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavishness and greediness, that is, perhaps uniting, as they certainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the very boys were orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans]
And of course the Normans were all over the mediterranean Sea, conquering Sicily, Cyprus, looting, burning, conquering, destroying; allying with Turks against Armenians, with Byzantines against Turks, and generally causing havok in the name of acquisition all over Europe. So I guess the Vikings didn't really all get subjected to serfs. Some of them just went off trying to make names for themselves by freebooting all over the known world. And of course they filled orders like the Templars, Hospitaliers and similar that continued operation. So we can see that the tradition of pirates and privateers goes back, way back.
But of course privateering got it's rebirth with "Good Queen Bess" and her efforts to fend of the Spaniards. The British used local ship captains and let them loose on the Spaniards. But even before Sir Francis Drake and Good Queen Bess, privateers or pirates were active all over the Mediterranean in regard to the wars between the Turks and Christian Europe. The
Sources and Further Readings
This is one post of a series.
Post Script
I started this post more than 6 years ago as I developed the realization that piracy was alive and well, and embodied in the Corporate Form. It sat while I read articles, dug into the subject and learned that my intuition and observation was only the tip of an iceberg. So I finally finished the draft post that started the whole thing!
