Talk:Norsemen

See also Talk:Scandinavians/version 2. Tbe old page Scandinavians is now at Scandinavians/version 2.

older entries

Not a bad start user:vikings but this article is far too POV at the moment.Unfortunately you need to temper you passion a little and try to stick to cold hard facts. Everything you state should be backed up by evidence, and you should write your article as if you were writing about people whome you neither particuly like or dislike. Hope this helps Theresa knott 14:55 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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thank you, Theresa, we are learning - we are happy to see that much more survived editorship than the last time we tried Vikings 16:31 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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I don't know what a major part of this article tries to say. Stuff that is truley "subjective" belongs on the discussion side, so I past it in below. // Rogper 22:41, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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In the year 1005 they sailed to America. They were never much interested in becoming the ruling force. The structure was patriarcatic, but they had a high respect of women and idolize or honoured the elderly. Many females had high positions and were very influential (Freydis - see Norse Saga). They were interested in good education.

On a Norse ship ("viking ship"), there was one captain (chief), elected from the crew: the strongest, smartest, wisest, once wildest, with lots of experience, lots of friends and political supporters, with fame on many oceans and shores, with all authority. In moments of danger and in battle he made the decisions and strategy, all crew followed without any questioning. In times of peace they stood in the back. All younger warriors were allowed to challenge and question the chief in the time between wars. All trusted him and he backed all to the outside.

If the majority of the crew asks him to step down he does so and falls back to the role as advisor and teacher.

Many companies of modern Norse countries are operated in the same way as the wooden ships, and some world-leading businesses evolved (Nokia, IKEA, Ericsson, Maersk) - again influencing, navigating, moving, communicating and educating on global scales.

For more information see viking.

Proposal to move to "Norseman"

In keeping with the naming conventions for articles, I'd like to propose through the Wikipedia:Requested moves process that this article be moved to "Norseman" and that it be converted to a redirect. The relevant Wikipedia Policy is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals). Thanks for considering this for discussion. I'll not nominate for moving until some time/input has passed here. Courtland 11:59, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not going to do this proposal as I think it is probably best as it stands .. one would more frequently refer to the group of Norsemen rather than a single Norseman. Courtland 04:29, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

• I fully support the creation of a redirect, but I think the two articles should be reworded (so they do not have so much overlap) and then merged (at the very least to acknowledge "Norsemen" within the article as a seperate term). It seems better to have one comprehensive article rather than two smaller articles, especially since Norsemen and Northmen are generally considered interchangeable. Markovich292 21:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

See also

• Talk:Norseman

whatever

Can

Can we change the name of the article?100110100 11:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

it has to be added in the article that norse isnt an ethnicity... norse are north germanic peoples... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.204.171.167 (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Sources?

is there any source for Vikings has been a common term for norsemen in the early medieval period, especially in connection with raids and monastic plundering made by norsemen in Great Britain and Ireland.

What I refer to specifically is Vikings has been a common term for norsemen.

I belive there is not one single source, in the early medieval period, using the term viking as a common term for norse, so this statement should be removed.

Dan Koehl 03:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dan Koehl, the cited sentence above is somewhat misleading. The term "Viking" should be referred however, since it (regrettably, IMO) is the most popular term in modern usage. Proposal for rephrasing:

Since the 18th Century "Vikings" has been in popular use as a term for norsemen in the early medieval period, especially in connection with raids and monastic plundering made by norsemen in Great Britain and Ireland.

See also Etymology of Viking.

P.S. Spellingcheck most welcome ;-) Finnrind 23:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I dont agree with you.

Even if its popular to call all nortern people during vikinga age vikings, today by common people, its wrong.

If Wikipedia would state in articles populair beliefs, rather than prooven facts, it would not be a quality encyclopedia.

Here below I show several sources that does not support this "populair" view.

It seems like the english speaking encyclopedias in early 1900 were well defined on the word viking:

Websters (1903) definition:

Viking \Vi"king\, n. [Icel. v[imac]kingr, fr. v[imac]k a bay, inlet.] One belonging to the pirate crews from among the Northmen, who plundered the coasts of Europe in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. [1913 Webster]

further on:

Note: Viking differs in meaning from sea king, with which it is frequently confounded. "The sea king was a man connected with a royal race, either of the small kings of the country, or of the Haarfager family, and who, by right, received the title of king as soon he took the command of men, although only of a single ship's crew, and without having any land or kingdom . . . Vikings were merely pirates, alternately peasants and pirates, deriving the name of viking from the vicks, wicks, or inlets, on the coast in which they harbored with their long ships or rowing galleys." --Laing. [1913 Webster]

Brewer's Dictionary:

Viking A pirate. So called from the vik or creek in which he lurked. The word is wholly unconnected with the word "king." There were sea-kings, sometimes, but erroneously, called "vikings," connected with royal blood, and having small dominions on the coast. These sea-kings were often vikingr or vikings, but the reverse is not true that every viking or pirate was a sea-king. (Icelandic vikingr, a pirate.).

source

WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University:

Any of the Scandinavian people who raided the coasts of Europe from the 8th to the 11th centuries.

Viking Age England" by Julian D. Richards, published in 2000 (pages 10-11):

Contemporary chroniclers called the raiders by many names, including heathens and pagans, as well as Northmen and Danes, but one of the names used to refer to them by the English was `Viking', and this is now used to describe not only the raiders, but also the period during which they carried out their attacks. These centuries, from the ninth to the eleventh, have become known, therefore, as the Viking Age. [...] In the icelandic sagas, víkingr came to be used as a noun to refer to a warrior, or pirate, víking was used to refer to an expedition. The majority of Scandinavians, therefore, were not Vikings; only those who went a-viking could really qualify for the description.

I therefore ask for written sources that viking was used as a term for norsemen in the history

Im pretty sure this is a misunderstanding, and todays habits are only some 20-30 years.

Dan Koehl 06:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that we disagree, that is, (I think) I agree with you but I don't seem to have explained myself very well.

1. I agree with the definitions above, using viking as another term for norsemen is wrong
2. In the medieval sources I have studied, i.e. Irish annals, never uses the term Vikings. The monastic raiders are generally referred to as Gall (strangers) og Gennti (pagans), later also Gall-gaidel, understood as equivalent of [Norse-gaels]] (It is assumed that Gall in these sources always refer to people of norse origin.

I do not have the time to dig up references of when the term viking started being used in the general way it is used today, but that is not my point either. If it so pleases the good editors, I only want the article about norsemen to clarify that viking is not another word for norse, which I take it is Koehls interrest here too...? New Proposal for rephrasing:

The term "Vikings" is popularly used as a term for Scandinavians in general and norse settlers in Gerat Britain and Ireland in particular. In its original contaxt Viking denotes pirates, and should be used for norsemen only in connection with raids and monastic plundering made by them in Great Britain and Ireland.

If you still disagree, please give an alternative suggestion for what the wording of the article should be. Finnrind 10:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:30, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Confusing statement regarding connotation of profit

"The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians (ON: Væringjar, meaning sworn men or from Slavic варяги supposedly deriving from the root "вар" - "profit" as coming from North they would profit by trading goods and not producing them, which had a negative connotation in Slavic culture of that time)..." I believe what is meant is that the failure to produce goods had a negative connotation. However, the wording also leaves open the conclusion that it was the production of goods that was deprecated. Could someone tell me what was intended here? --AlanUS (talk) 18:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Assessment

Some time ago I was asked to look this article over and I have now combed through it and made numerous edits. A few comments:

1. ) Large sections of the body are totally unreferenced, which is a major issue that needs to be solved before this article moves any further forward.
2. ) References should be removed from the lead, and the lead should be a simple summary of the body of the article (see WP:LEAD).
3. ) Caveats are needed for a lot of these sources referred to (i.e. add "according to legend"). A problematic example is "Iceland was discovered by Naddoddr, one of the first settlers on the Faroe Islands, who was sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands, but got lost and drifted to the east coast of Iceland". With this it would be wise to include the primary source from which the legend stems along with the secondary source discussing it in the footnote.

After this, the material in the body needs a closer looking at. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

copyvio?

Containing copyright violations?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ACopyright_problems%2F2011_September_18&action=historysubmit&diff=451193757&oldid=451185299

• Norsemen (history · last edit) from Harold I First King of a United Norway http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Norsemen&action=historysubmit&diff=445237081&oldid=444258174 --Diwas (talk) 22:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it may be a false alarm. The date of that website says 18 September, Alphasinus' edit seems to date to August. I checked a few other 'articles' on that site, and it seems that a few of them are pulled from other websites (for example, this [1] contains the exact same text as on this (undated) webpage [2]). Alphasinus may be a confirmed-sock with little credibility now, but I don't think that this is a case of him copying and pasting someone else's work, it looks to be the other way around.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 05:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know who are the original author, but where you found 18 September and which year? --Diwas (talk) 12:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Follow the link you gave, under the article's title "Harold I First King of a United Norway" is "Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:23:00 | European Peoples".--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 05:11, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

What a luck, just the day I was read this article first and set a “copyvio?” In my cache and googles too, there is “Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:41:08 | European Peoples”. --Diwas (talk) 18:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This was listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2011 September 18. While I am also having difficulty with the date of the tagged source, Diwas points out that the section beginning "The tension between increasingly centralized groups and independent warrior societies may have furnished part of the impetus behind the Viking raids and the Scandinavian migrations to other parts of Europe that began in the late eighth century, as warriors sought to expand their territorial holdings and were unable to do so in neighboring lands. " is copied from the Encyclopedia of European Peoples, beginning on page 831. I can see this, in Google book, and it clearly predates the placement of the text here by several years. It would probably be safe to revert to the edit prior to the influx of this content, but content placed by this user seems rightly suspect, given that some of it is blatantly pasted. Since the article was not blanked, previously, I am extending the listing at the WP:CP board. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I just noticed the recent comment on Talk:Normans#Clean-up_needed, and have noticed that Alphasinus indeed has a history of copying and pasting large swathes of text off the net [3]. It must go deeper than these two articles. I remember he was edit warring with another editor over Varangians-type topics for instance.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 21:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Somehow somebody managed to destroy all edit history between April and October. I cannot be bothered to do detective work on what exactly went wrong or who is to blame, but clearly the cause was some merge attempt gone disastrously wrong. Behind the merge attempt there seems to be a "Scandinavians" article which treated "Scandinavians" as a contemporary "ethnic group". Then somebody had the glorious idea to merge this already misguided article with the article on medieval Scandinavians to create an even more broken page. Seeing as there are perfectly valid articles on Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, there is clearly no reason to write an article about ("Danes+Norwegians+Swedes"), even if these are summarized as "Scandinavians". The article about the modern concept of Scandinavia is, of course, to be found at Scandinavia. This page here is about medieval history during the 8th to 10th century. It is spectacularly misguided to water down an article about a medieval topic with modern demographics. --dab (𒁳) 08:29, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're talking about the revision deletion, I managed to do that, and it had nothing to do with the merger. See the logs: [4]. The content was deleted following the copyright problems board listing. It seems like the merger was proposed as uncontroversial: [5]. I have no idea why this would be seen as a desirable or uncontroversial merger, since the two articles don't seem to have had anything to do with each other. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Map Problem

Norse settlements in Sicily and in the south of Italy, who says that ? It is a joke ? There were some Norman adventurers and knights banished from Normandy that went there to make money and get power. They founded there principalities, became lord or king, but the Normans are not Norsemen and the Norman presence in Italy is not a settlement.Nortmannus (talk) 23:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Exact numbers?

There is a table called "Distribution" in the article. According to that table there are 8,260,987 "Norsemen" in Sweden. In what way are they defined. There is no source for this. What is the definition? Citizenship? "Ethnic origin" is not registred in Sweden and many people have multiple origins. So it must be imposible to count such an exact figure. --Muniswede (talk) 10:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC)