Viking Raids (Ethelred the Pious)

The era of the Viking raids in Western Europe began in the late eighth century and continued throughout the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Centuries. The era extended longer than in OTL.

Causes
The continued widespread practice of paganism was largely to blame for this. For one thing, there was less of a moral check on rape, pillage, and plunder for their own sake. The enslavement of Christian neighbors remained acceptable, profitable and widespread. Finally, the persistent practice of concubinage on a large scale meant that every king, jarl, and lord in England had a host of sons with no land but plenty of ambition. In England's neighboring countries, they sought lands and fortunes.

The unstable zones of fighting became as a sort of proving ground for Danish and especially Norwegian leaders. Many future kings of Norway speant their youth based in England and fighing in Ireland, France, or Spain.

Locations of the raids
Some areas were closed to the Vikings. Some tried to attack mainland Scandinavia, but it was difficult for raiding parties to unseat established and prosperous Viking rulers. The northern Celtic kingdoms of Alba and Strathclyde were perennielly allied with one or another of the Scandinavian rulers; while many a Viking launched an attack on one of them, it was dangerous.

Northern France was largely blocked as a Viking target after 911, when the French king granted the Duchy of Normandy to the chieftain Rollo, in exchange for his defending France's coast. Sigtryggr the Suinty, a scion of the deposed rulers of Østangeln, was granted a similar fief on France's west coast in 920, the Duchy of _____. Between the two Franco-Norse duchies, the French coasts were reasonably protected during the later tenth and eleventh centuries.

Ireland was to suffer the brunt of Anglo-Nordic restlessness. By 1000 the island was dotted with petty kingdoms and jarldoms. The strongest Norse state remained at Dublin, which became united with the Suð-ejar (South Islands, i.e. Man and the Hebrides) and later with Østangeln. Others went to Iceland in the hopes of finding open land, fighting with the Norse already there. The early history of Icelnad was therefore more turbulent than in OTL, and the establishment of the council called the Althing was delayed several years. However, Iceland was also left with a larger population and closer ties to the rest of Scandinavia, particularly England.

English Norse also raided the coasts of Spain. The Kingdoms of Navarre and Leon-Asturias were devastated by wars on two fronts, against the Norse and the Moors. The Norse invaders established a string of small states in the northern mountains, mostly in vassalage to the Umayyad Caliph at Cordoba. In 985 the Caliph burned Barcelona in the Spanish March, the last major Christian state to resist Moorish expansion.

Most of the Norse rulers in Spain would convert to Christianity or Islam. The small Norse territory in Galicia became the Christian Kingdom of Sant Jakob, or Santiago.