answersLogoWhite

0

It is unknown what triggered the Norse expansion and conquests.

The earliest date given for a Viking raid is 787 AD when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a group of men from Norway sailed to the Isle of Portland in Dorset. There, they were mistaken for merchants by a royal official. They murdered him when he tried to get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods.

8 June 793 Vikings destroyed the abbey on Lindisfarne, a centre of learning famous across the continent. Monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the sea to drown or carried away as slaves along with the church treasures.

There is no record of eye witnesses regarding the 787 AD event and the Norvegian side of the story was never recorded. The 793 AD event could be an act of revenge for what actually transpired six years earlier. We might never know for sure.

User Avatar

Wiki User

13y ago

What else can I help you with?