CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2009
| Author | Somogyvári, Miklós |
|---|---|
| Title | Forging Ninth and Tenth Century Western Europe: A Comparative Study of the Viking and Hungarian Activities |
| Summary | Viking and Hungarian attacks on the Frankish Empire and Northern Italy in the ninth and the first half of the tenth century, contrary to visible differences, shared basically the same features and contributed to the development of the West in the long term. General but separate overviews of different subfields of early medieval Norse and Hungarian societies have concluded that besides military prowess, the reasons for temporary Viking and Hungarian success in Western Europe also had environmental and social aspects. These studies, however, never attempted to compare and contrast these pagan cultures and never emphasised the long-term contribution that Scandinavia and Hungary added to Europe’s eleventh-century revival and expansion. In this thesis I examine military, social, and historical aspects to show the similarities of the two societies and their contribution to Europe through the destruction they caused. Based on primary sources and archaeological data I created action radiuses for the Vikings and Hungarians. I examined weaponry, transportation (ships and horses), intelligence gathering, and social structures. Looking for reasons for their success, I concluded that their worldview, religion, trading system and social structure were invaluable in helping them defeat the armies of the West. |
| Supervisor | Jozsef Laszlovszky |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2009/somogyvari_miklos.pdf |
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