What Made the Viking Culture Different?

The Vikings were a special breed, proud of their differences and often misunderstood. What made the Vikings different from the Anglo-Saxons was their failure to impose their culture on the people they conquered. They were content to rule and prosper, adopting the language and customs of the people they defeated. The different branches of Viking invaders — the Rus, the Normans, the Danes in England, the Norse in Scotland and Ireland — became, after two or three generations, indistinguishable from the folk they conquered. When Danish Vikings invaded and occupied large sections of England, the result was to cement the unity of the Anglo-Saxons against them.



The English accepted the Danelaw in northeastern England. They paid the price; however, over the next century the English gradually incorporated the Danes and merged with them.Their two cultures and languages were similar; hundreds of Old English words were so close to Old Norse that Danish versions supplanted the English ones. When the heathen Vikings converted to Christianity, there remained little to distinguish them from the English. By the time the Danish king Canute became king of England in 1017, the Danelaw and England had become a single culture.



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