The Making of the Eastern Vikings: Rus' and Varangians in the Middle Ages

The period from the earliest recorded Viking raids in the 790s until the Norman
Conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandi‐
navian history. In this broad meaning, which has become current in public and
academic discourse alike, the word Viking refers not only to pirates and raiders
but to Scandinavians in general, including both peaceful immigrants and kings
bent on conquest. Scandinavian seafarers used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea
to move southwards, and Scandinavian warriors were granted feudal suzerainty
of areas in northern France — the Duchy of Normandy — in the tenth century.
Geographically, a Viking Age may be assigned not only to Scandinavian lands
(modern Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), but also to territories under North
Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the
administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria, parts of
Mercia, and East Anglia. Nordic navigators opened the road to new lands to the
north, west, and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in
the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland; and L’Anse aux
Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, c. 1020.