Artistic License History / Vikings

Russians dressed as Mongols? That's some nice Interchangeable Hordes from the East over there!

Vikings is based on legendary Norse sagas set during the single murkiest period of Medieval history, so liberties with historicity are to be expected.

Spoilers will be unmarked, as much of the Artistic License employed in the show concerns crucial plot elements.

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The Norse

• Timeline of the Viking Age:
  • The concept of Ragnar Lodbrok and Rollo being brothers is an original idea of the series. No historical record has ever suggested that the two were related in any way, let alone brothers. The real Ragnar is much more Shrouded in Myth (like King Arthur for instance) while the real Rollo is attested as the first ruler of Normandy (and a direct ancestor of King William the Conqueror and Elizabeth II); he was born between 846 or 860, not almost a century earlier. To put it in perspective, assuming it is true that in 865 the Great Heathen Army invaded England to avenge Ragnar's death, Rollo was barely in his twenties if not just a child when it happened.
  • The attack on Lindisfarne happened in 793, Ragnar Lothbrok was presumably killed in the 860s. While not totally impossible, especially since the dates concerning him are not very precise, it is highly unlikely that he lead the attack on Lindisfarne, or was even born at this point.
  • Similarly to Rollo, King Horik is around way too early. Horik became king around 813 and sole king of the Danes in 827.
  • The assertion that Horik somehow "rules" Sweden. No saga or historical source makes that claim.
  • Harald Finehair, the equally semi-mythological first king of Norway, appears in Season 4. He is generally thought to have lived (if he ever existed at all) during the latter half of the 9th century, well over 80 years after the raid on Lindisfarne, and his surname of "Finehair/Fairhair" was an acquired nickname he obtained upon founding the kingdom of Norway (traditionally held to have happened 872, 7 years after Ragnar's death). It's worth noting that, after recent analysis of sources, many historians concluded that "Harald Fairhair" was actually another nickname for Harald Hardrada, king of Norway around the year thousand. In other words, his nickname was used to call a fictious Norwegian king invented by the Sagas, and who supposedly predated the actual Hardrada by two centuries.
  • Halfdan the Black was another semi-mythological Norwegian king, who allegedly ruled over Vestfold. Sources don't describe him as Harald's younger brother, but rather as his... father.
  • Olaf the Stout is also around a century and half too early, as he was king of Norway in the year thousand (and was half-brother of the aforementioned Hardrada). Thanks to the (often brutal) advancement of Christianity in Norway during his rule, he was subsequently canonised and today he's better known as Saint Olaf. This isn't the case of the Olaf in the series, who's pagan as almost all the other Norse characters, save for his Last Words before his execution when he senses the presence of Christ besides him. The same historical figure was eventually reintroduced again in Vikings: Valhalla, this time as the "true" historical Saint Olaf, rather than a character loosely based on him.
• Names:
  • The Kattegat is a purely geographic term, indicating the sound that separates Jutland from the west coast of Sweden. At no point in history it ever designated an inhabited place or a political entity. Ragnar Lodbrok is always indicated in sources either as King of Sweden or Denmark. Most importantly, the name didn't even exist during the Viking Age: Kattegat is a term of Dutch origin (roughly meaning "narrow passage") and was first mentioned by captains of the Hanseatic league, which was formed in the late 12th century.
  • "Lodbrok" is sometimes used as a surname for people related to Ragnar. However, Lodbrok is a nickname for Ragnar specifically (meaning "Hairy Breeches"), much like "Ironside" for Bjorn and "Boneless" for Ivar. The Vikings had no concept of surnames and used patronymics (naming after one's father) instead. Ragnar's actual "surname" was "Sigurdsson," and all of his sons would have been "Ragnarsson."
  • "Rollo" itself is the Latinized form of the Norse "Hrólfr", the modern form being "Rolf" - which makes the entire baptism scene (where Rollo is given the ostensibly Christian name "Rolf" and then gets mocked for that) completely nonsensical: If anything, Rollo should have been named "Rolf" for the series and then renamed as "Rollo" after his conversion, instead of vice versa.
  • Similarly, "Lagertha" is a Latinized form of the Norse "Hlaðgerðr" or "Hladgerd".
  • "Hvitserk" (meaning "White shirt") was in all likelihood a nickname, not a first name. Many historians believe Hvitserk to have been the same as Halfdan, another son of Ragnar, on the basis that the two are never mentioned together in any source; it would make sense that Halfdan was the first name and Hvitserk the nickname of the same person. The fact that no other son of Ragnar in the series is called "Halfdan" implies that the writers went along with this theory, but Hvitsekr in the series is never called any other way, as if that was his first name. This was likely done to avoid violating the One-Steve Limit with Halfdan the Black.
  • Regarding Ivar the Boneless, this is a less egregious case, but we don't actually know what kind of disability his nickname referred to. In Norse language the word for "bone" is the same for "leg", which could mean he wasn't suffering from a bone disease but was simply missing a leg (or both). Then a passage in Ragnar Lodbrok and His Sons seems to imply it referred to male impotence. That the show combines these theories by having Ivar suffering from a brittle bone disease at the legs and from impotence is an reasonable interpretation, but again, it can't be completely confirmed.
• Norse laws, customs and culture:
  • The presentation of Norse law: Haraldson is shown prosecuting a man for murder. In actuality, that would have fallen to the deceased's next of kin.
  • Norse people didn't practice capital punishment as such. Rather, those convicted of heinous crimes were declared outlaws; which is to say, they are literally outside the protection of the law, and may be killed with impunity. This in fact what happens to Ivar's collaborators at the beginning of season 6, but even there, Bjorn announces outlawry as a far more humiliating alternative than a death sentence, when in Norse society it would have been its closest equivalent.
  • Women are shown casting votes in Norse society. While it may be true that Norse women enjoyed a better position than that of mainland European women, the Norse weren't quite this progressive. Voting would be cast in the name of the whole household.
  • Historians have pondered the plausibility of the accounts of shield maidens being a real aspect of ancient Norse culture outside of the sagas, with no real conclusion. However, because the show is based on the sagas, and Action Girls fulfill the Rule of Cool, shield maidens are decisively portrayed as very commonplace.
  • Some of the Vikings' clothing and gear is not appropriate to the period. For example, Ragnar's signature chainmail is very form-fitting, when the actual Viking mail was always quite loose.
  • A lot of Norsemen seem to have no trouble with letting their wives getting on top of them during sex, while in history it was considered something of a taboo. A man who allowed such a thing to happen was reckoned by other Norsemen to be unmanly and submissive. The show portrays it with modern sensibilities in mind. When Lagertha gets on top of Ragnar during one of their sex scenes, she compares him to "a wild bull," with no connotations of submission.
  • Athelstan explains to Ecbert that the Norse "can't read nor write, except for their runes". Well, let's point out the obvious contradiction: why wouldn't a writing system such as runes count as reading or writing? Secondly, while consensus is far from unanimous, several historians suggest that the opposite was true: that in Scandinavia and Kievan Rus' literacy was higher among the common folk than in mainland Europe. One reason mentioned is simply the higher availability of writing media: birchbark for example, as birches are ubiquitous in Northern Europe. In mainland Europe, papyrus had the downside of being too fragile and susceptible to cold climates, while parchment was too expensive for mass production.
  • The "Blood Eagle" is introduced in Season 2, a particularly brutal Norse ritual execution involving slicing open the back of the victim, removing the ribs from the spine, and pulling out the lungs and placing them over the shoulders so they and the skin can make grisly "wings", notably leading to the deaths of Jarl Borg and King Aelle. Historical debate has argued that the rite was a folk-legend, with a lack of contemporary sources besides Norse saga's that have scant mentions like King Aelle, which were written several centuries after the Christianization of Scandinavia. Many scholars argue that later writers misinterpreted poetic phrasing, with the "blood eagle" in particular being a misinterpretation of eagles or other birds feasting on the backs of slain men on battlefields. In any case, the actual passage from the saga describing Aella's execution is borderline incoherent in the original Norse.
• Other Norse stuff:
  • Earl Haraldson describes Britain as a mythical land to the west, even though archaeology indicates that the British and the Norse had been trading for centuries if not longer.
  • It is said that Horik's father was killed by his brothers and that he ascended to his throne by defeating them. In history, Horik's father, King Gudfred was killed by a housecarl. After that, Horik's uncle Hemming (a cousin of his father) took the throne but did not last long. Then, Horik drove out Harald Klak and thus became sole king of Denmark as he was the only son of King Gudfred alive.
  • Horik I did not die at the hand of Ragnar Lothbrok. But then, they also might have been the same guy.
  • Ragnar never converted to Christianity. Not even, as shown in the series, as a ruse to infiltrate and sack Paris. Amusingly, a chronicle tells that it was Bjorn who pulled off this same exact trick in the Italian town of Luni (which he had mistook for Rome).

The Saxons

• King Ecbert already being a famous king when the Vikings raid Wessex around 800 AD, when in reality he just assumed the crown at best. His characterization on the other hand, is accurate. He did actually try to become Bretwalda, at least.
• Ecbert briefly notes a wife is the husband's property and the husband is free to do to her what he likes. This was not the case in Anglo-Saxon culture, which esteemed women very highly for the time and as equal companions to men. The attitude of "a woman is a man's property" would only become a part of Anglo-Saxon culture in the Norman Conquest and beyond.
• In Season 2, episode #4 ("Eye for an Eye") former monk Aethelstan gets captured by the Saxons, who proceed to crucify him for apostasy; he only gets saved by the intervention of King Ecbert and despite the protest of an Anglo-Saxon bishop. Crucifixion was not a lawful punishment anywhere in medieval Europe; it had been abolished by the Christian Roman Emperors in the 4th century because by that time the Cross was adopted as a symbol of Christianity, and its further use as a means of execution would have appeared impious if not sacrilegious to a Christian. While the Middle Ages considered apostasy a severe crime that could result in capital punishment, even a bishop could not lawfully order an execution without a trial.
• Aethulwulf of Wessex never married a daughter of King Aelle. He did marry a woman named Judith, but she was the daughter of the Frankish King Charles the Bald, and she didn't bear him any sons because he died shortly after. All of his known children with no exception were beared by his first wife Osburh, a woman whose existence is only known thanks to Assers's The Life of King Alfred, and who's described as a distant descendant of King Cedric but not related to other important political figures of the time.
• When Aelle and Ecbert join forces, the gathered Saxons begin chanting, 'God save England!'. In truth, the concept of a united country called England wouldn't emerge until some time after the period this show is set.
• King Ecbert never slaughtered an entire village of pagans for no reason. Though this is probably more due to the fact that there weren't any pagan villages in England during his reign. The settling of Danish and Norwegian pagans on English soil wouldn't begin until the 860s with the Danleagh, or Danelaw.
• No matter how much of a man crush Ecbert had on Athelstan, the idea that he let the guy impregnate his daughter-in-law (thus accepting the risk of an illegitimate heir who is not of his blood) just because he liked both of them better than his own son is pretty ludicrous. It gets even more ludicrous when exactly what the idea of marital fidelity was supposed to avoid happens - a bastard becoming the heir and the future king of England. Needless to say, the idea of Alfred not being the biological son of King Aethelwulf is an entirely original idea of the series.
• That poem Ecbert recites to Judith is from T. S. Eliot. No wonder she says that she can't understand a word he's saying.
• When Aethelwulf and Alfred visit the Pope in Rome, the guards are seen dressed as Centurions from the Imperial era, a type of armor that had been long since abandoned before the Western Roman Empire fell, let alone in the 9th century.
• Aethelwulf had four sons with Alfred being the youngest. Alfred's brothers all became King of Wesex before him but did not reign long and the succession passed to the next brother. Aethelred was king before Alfred and when he died, Alfred became king. Alfred was already a seasoned warleader and served as his brothers Number Two for a while. Alfred was chosen king by the nobles because he was the most experienced of all the candidates. The series has this somehow inverted by adapting out all of Alfred's brother except Aethelred, then having Aethelred immediately renounce the crown (under his mother pressure) in favour of the young Alfred, with great protest of the nobility and clergy who see Alfred as unfit and too sickly.

The Franks

• The show interchangeably refers to the language spoken by the Franks as "Old French" and "Old Frankish", but the two are distinct languages, despite the name. "Old Frankish" was a Germanic language, as the name suggests it was originally the language of the Franks, which in modern times evolved in Dutch and the dialects spoken in Western and Central Germany (this dialectal continuum is in fact called Franconian). "Old French" is the correct name for the older stage of French, the Romance language that is used in the show. When the Franks invaded modern France, their name stuck to indicate the country and its people, but they eventually adopted the native romance language spoken there. Modern French actually doesn't owe much to Old Frankish besides its name, and descends mostly from the language spoken by Romanised Gauls.
• Season 2 is set in the year 800, and has characters talk about the late emperor Charlemagne. Charlemagne was actually crowned emperor in 800.
• The Siege of Paris as presented in the show is a fusion of The Siege of Paris of 845, the only fully historical appearance of a Viking chief named Ragnar, from which the show takes the King being Charlemagne's grandson and Ragnar Lothbrok's presence, and the Siege of Paris of 885 from which the show takes the presence of Rollo, the figures of Count Odo, Sinric and Sigfred (Siegfried in the show) and the overall set up of the battle.
• The Oriflamme was never used by the Franks. It's first use was by the medieval French Kingdom during the 12th century.
• The Emperor wears a crown styled with the lilies of France, and also his throne displays them. This famous symbol of France was not acquired by Charlemagne's descendants, but rather by the House of Capet, who didn't exist yet.

The Mediterraneans

• Sinric refers to the Eastern Roman Empire and its inhabitants as "Byzantine". It's basic knowledge for every history buff that the term "Byzantine" was first employed during the Renaissance period and the Eastern Roman Empire was never called that during its existence. Its subject simply called it "the Roman Empire" and called themselves "Romans" because, legally speaking, it was in full continuity with the Roman Empire of the classical age, even if it was geographically reduced to the Balkans and Anatolia and Greek supplanted Latin as the dominant language. Contemporaries in Western Europe called it more often "Empire of the Greeks", as they attributed the legacy of Rome to the Holy Roman Empire founded by Charlemagne instead.
• Ifriqiya, or rather, el-Maghrib el-Adna; the Lower-Western Maghreb, isn't a desert. In fact, you would have to pass an immense swathe of the area before you even hit the desert, which is located in the far south.
• It was also a rich, highly developed city from 745 AD. More than 60 years before the events depicted on the show. In series 4, it isn't even a city, but is rather depicted as a series of lavish tents belonging to a seemingly mostly nomadic people.
• Zidayat Allah probably would never have offered slave women to satisfy his guests sexual urges, as Islamic law, as it was understood at the time, expressly forbade coercion of slave women to perform sexual favors given that intercourse has to be consensual or else it is considered to be deviancy as far Islamic morality is concerned. On the other hand, those laws would not have been in place if they weren't commonly broken, and slaves had very few ways of actually legally accusing their masters of abuse. And as some slaves were specifically trained for providing sexual pleasure, their consent would have been taken for granted. Not to mention that Zidayat Allah is decidedly not portrayed as a virtuous Muslim.
• While Zidayat Allah and the Aghlabid dynasty was heavily criticized by the Qadis (Islamic religious authorities) for sinful behavior (mainly due to their decadent and extravagant lifestyles), it's very likely he probably never engaged in cannibalism. There's also little indication in contemporary sources that he was quite as Machiavellian as the show depicts, nor is it likely that he had extensive links with the Rus Vikings.
• Euphemius was never placed under house arrest, executed, and then cannibalized by the Aghlabids. He was actually stabbed to death by a Byzantine garrison when he went there on behalf of the Aghlabids to negotiate their surrender in around 828 CE, after he defected to the Aghlabids to conquer Sicily.
• Euphemius never abducted a nun named Kassia from the Byzantine Emperor. It's possible that this was based on a Byzantine account that Euphemius rebelled against the Roman Emperor when he was denied the opportunity to marry his betrothed, Homoniza.
• The Byzantine garrison at Sicily looks more like Seljuk Turkic warriors rather than 8th century Eastern Roman men-at-arms, and are also wielding the same curved scimitars the Aghlabids are using. Even more strange, they're all wearing riding boots despite being stationed on an island.
• Likewise, the Aghlabid warriors would have worn mail or gambesons and would be wielding maces or straight Arabic swords modeled after the Roman gladius during the 8th and 9th centuries. Instead, they're wearing robes and wielding the more iconic curved scimitar; itself a Turko-Mongol weapon that would only be adopted by Islamic kingdoms after the conversion and rise to power of Turkic Muslim Khanates after the 10th century.

The Rus

• In general the Rus would still have been Swedes at this point. Only in the latter 11th century do the Rus develop a cohesive Slavic identity.
• While it may be interpreted as a Translation Convention, Earl Haraldson mentions Russia, but in the late 8th century (when the first season takes place), there hardly was any "Russian" country to speak of. Norse people called nowadays Russia Garðaríki, which means "realm/land of cities". The colonisation of Garðaríki by Rus vikings had barely started at that point; it was around mid 9th century that the Rus Vikings were assimilated by the local Slavs, their name was taken over by Eastern Slavs and so called Kievan Rus' emerged (around the fourth season). Even there, it's incorrect for Sinric and Zidayat Allah to use the terms "Kievan Rus" or "Kievan Empire", as both are inventions of Russian historians of the 19th century, to indicate this historical period when Eastern Slavs had their capital in Kiev, until the invasion of the Mongol Empire. During its existence, "Kievan Rus" was called "land of the Rus'" or Rus' by its inhabitants, while in the rest of Europe the terms Russia or Ruthenia were used^note Suffice to say that the ethnogenesis of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians as different peoples as we intend them today hadn't started yet.
• Habard mentions in a conversation with Aslaug that one of his bastard sons became Olaf, Grand Duke of Kyiv. Not only is there no such figure amongst the Ruthenian princes (there is a prince after Rorik called Oleg, but the Norse rendering of his name is Helgi), but Kievan Rus wasn't anywhere close to being created in the early eighth century. On the other hand, Ragnar is reported to have lived in the mid 9th century, when Kievan Rus was being formed, so this may just be another example of the show fast-forwarding history.
• So, so much about the Rus, who resemble more the city state of Muscovy than they do the loosely confederated Slavic, Norse and Uralic tribes of the Kievan Rus'. They seem heavily influenced by Mongol culture, despite the show taking place 400 years before Batu Khan's invasion.
• Despite the show taking place in the mid ninth century, the Rus are characterized as staunchly Christian, in contrast to the pagan Norse. The first Christian ruler of the Rus was actually Olga of Kiev, in the early 900 AD, but it was her grandson Vladimir the Great who officially Christianized the Rus in 988. Before then Christianity had only a limited presence among the Rus.
• Ganbaatar appears to be some Turkic nomad recruited by the Rus, which wouldn't be absurd given that the Rus bordered with Khazars, Kipchaks and Bulgars. But he has a Mongolic name, which is rather implausible since Mongols back then didn't have yet a meaningful influence in Central Asia.

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