Talk:Norsemen

What do REAL experts say?

History is no democrazy, and you cant vote which year a certain thing happened, it must be verified by citing prime sources.

Regarding the very unwise attempt to mixix this article with viking, I can add from a scientific article, written by professor John H Lind, at Copenhagen University:

The term ”Viking” appears in Anglo-Saxon or Norse sources in the so-called Viking Age. Here it simply denotes pirates, no more, no less. It had no geographic or ethnic connotations that linked it to Scandinavia or Scandinavians. By contrast, in these sources we find it used anywhere about anyone who to an Anglo-Saxon or a Scandinavian appeared as a pirate. Therefore we find it used about Israelits crossing the Red Sea; Muslims in Galleys* encountering Norwegian crusaders in the Mediterranean; Caucasian pirates encountering the famous Swedish Ingvar-Expedition, and Estonian and Baltic pirates attacking Scandinavians in the Baltic Sea. Thus the term was never used to denote Scandinavians as such. Therefore, if we wish to maintain Viking-Age studies on a scholarly level, we must stop acting as an appendix to the tourist industry by using the term Viking as if it was synonymous with Scandinavian and Scandinavians.

Source: https://www.academia.edu/8906219/_Vikings_and_the_Viking_Age

Dan Koehl (talk) 21:11, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit warring...

I see this edit is being reinserted after being reverted out three times. As I said in my edit summary when I removed it, it's got several issues. One, it's ungrammatical. "In Yngvars saga víðförla written in the twelfth century by Oddr Snorrason, is described when Yngvar and his fleet in the land of the Saracens (Serkland) is being attacked by Caucasian prates, referred to as vikings. Vikings was a prominent problems and the Norwegian king Harald I of Norway was the most radical, cleanings his land from vikings." That sentence is completely ungrammtical and has numerous mispellings and misuse of words plus problems with verb usage. Two, the whole section is irrelevant to the section its inserted in - which is about the history of the term "Norseman". Nothing in there addresses the history of the term "Norseman". Three, it has sections on the terminiology of OTHER words which is also irrelevant to an article on Norsemen. Fourth, it is unsourced except for one sentence and the block quote. Fifth, (and most minor) it breaks the MOS in numerous ways also, but if it was just that last bit, it wouldn't be so bad, but the other four issues are serious and it should not be edit warred into place without a strong consensus on the talk page. I count four insertions of the information which is verging into WP:3RR territory. The edits need to be removed and discussion should take place on the talk page before it returns. Ealdgyth (talk) 18:34, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I see further unsourced and irrelevant additions continue to be made. At this point, it's looking very much like there is a competence issue here - when other editors object to edits, the correct thing to do is not to keep making them, but to discuss on the talk page. Please do so. Just because other editors won't stoop to edit warring repeatedly, doesn't mean that they consider the edits proper or that they should be allowed. Ealdgyth (talk) 18:51, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Relevant: [1].--Ermenrich (talk) 19:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Merge to Vikings?

This article duplicates content from the Vikings article (only at much less length) and is mostly focused on the meaning of the word "Northmen". Is there a compelling reason for it to exist as an article, or couldn't we just mention "Northmen" as one of the contemporary terms used for the Vikings over there?--Ermenrich (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, not this again! See the many proposals above, and at Talk:Vikings. No. Johnbod (talk) 23:07, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Care to point to a proposal to merge Norsemen to Vikings above? I only see proposals to move it to other things. On Vikings I see this rather bizarre discussion from 2014 in which the person making the proposal opposed it and which saw limited engagement. Perhaps there are more but I haven't found them.

As things stand, Norsemen contains no information that is not at Vikings except perhaps for more information on etymology. What reason is there for keeping a stand alone article when we are in agreement that Viking is the WP:COMMONNAME for the group that was sometimes called "Norsemen" or "Northmen" in the Middle Ages?--Ermenrich (talk) 23:58, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, where are the archives for this page? They should be quite big from the history. Johnbod (talk) 03:47, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

This talk page includes discussions as far back as 2011. Not sure that anything before then is all that relevant anymore.—Ermenrich (talk) 16:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, both "Norsemen" and "vikings" are kind of exonymic dead ends, IMHO. The proper category for this is "History of Scandinavia in the Middle Ages", or even "History of (Denmark/Norway/Sweden) in the Middle Ages".

The "Viking age" and all that = " "History of Scandinavia in the Middle Ages" through the very narrow lens of Britainography", or UK-centric History, or whatever one may call it. Some might argue that e.g. Sweden wasn't a country before 1200 or so, otoh the wiki article on the history of France reaches back to 200 BCE, almost 1000 years before any Frank set foot on that land that henceforth was to bear their name. In the same way, the medieval culture of Denmark, Norway and Sweden continued through and well past 1066, with The Black Plague as a arguable cut-off date. There is archaeological evidence for trading between Britain and Scandinavia well before Lindisfarne, and historical evidence for raids, even warfare (Largs!) well after 25. September 1066. Local institutions like the leidang carried on into the 15. century. Etc., etc. I know, I know, go with the literature; but new finds, new studies are sources for a shift in the view of what this period was all about, so at least let's not lean as far as possible into old stereotypes. From that POV, "Norsemen" is still better than "Vikings", and should perhaps be the longer article. Sorry for the rant! T 84.208.65.62 (talk) 01:24, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Tend to agree with Johnbod, I think Norsemen as a term is discussed enough on its own to warrant its own article. TylerBurden (talk) 07:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Where did the name "Viking" originate?

This may or may not have been explained in the Vikings page, but I am curious where the name originates from, or is it a modern term made up? Even then I would like to know where it came from. Colestrelke (talk) 07:34, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not a modern made-up term but a very old one, first documented well over a thousand years ago. The etymology is somewhat disputed (see Vikings#Etymology), but the Old Norse word "vikingr" meant someone who went on a long sea-journey. - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk

Wīcinga in Sermo Lupi and Battle of Maldon

The term "Viking" appears in the Sermon of the Wolf (wīcinga[e?]), written by archbishop of York and bishop of Worcester Wulfstan in 1014, and in Battle of Maldon (wīcinga), written probably after 991. 82.128.217.39 (talk) 19:48, 10 May 2024 (UTC)