The vikings were talented sailors. Why was the fact important to the history of Europe?

Answer 1

The Vikings populated Greenland and Iceland.
See - 'Vikings During the Medieval Warm Period', by Scott A. Mandia.

Answer 2

the norsemen(vikings) were able to bring european culture/ideas to far flung places in the world, including north america at a time when the roman empire still ruled in europe. this had an impending affect throughout the dark ages becuase those few people who new of these far flung explorers kept the idea alive that the world was round, that the earth revolved around the sun, etc., etc. In other words....with the fall of the roman empire and the seemingly fall of knowledge in europe until the age of enlightenment, almost 1000 years later, the feat of those viking explorers meant that there were still a few brave souls left to challenge the supremacy of an all-controlling church and the heresies they pitched upon the populace, and kept the peoples from being totally trampled underfoot by all -too powerful kings. It meant that enough people were left to question the established authority and prove that that there laws were not finite nor moral.....because those viking explorers not only proved there were other lands beyond the horizon and that you would surely not sail off the edge of a flat world, but they brought back evidence of this in the form of traded goods. This lead some like galileo, newton, copernicus, davinci, and others to challenge and question the knowledge of things as it was presented to the people at the time. it lead to people like vascamo,amerigo vespucci and christopher columbus to explore beyond convential thought....so the viking explorers kept knowledge alive.... the kept society alive...by giving it a future..........

Answer 3

The Vikings' ability to sail well meant that they could attack anywhere along the coast and inlets of Europe without warning. They did this repeatedly. This caused the city-states of western Europe to remain in a steady state of military readiness. It turned Europe into a series of military encampments.
After the Viking threat ceased the armies of these city-states, vichys, dukedoms, and kingdoms set out to wage long wars of conquest in the middle east called the crusades. The riches brought back from the crusades further funded and intensified European militarism.
As the crusades faded, the later European states which formed from these smaller kingdoms inherited a militaristic political outlook which helped them conquer and colonize the rest of the world.
So the Vikings ability to master and attack from the sea set forth Europe's military obsession which survives to this day.

Answer 4

The vikings came to America many hundreds of years before the rest of Europe. Part of this was due to location... they could island hop across the norther Atlantic, and they were used to sailing wintery seas. Their ships were not nearly as good as European ships, but their location and the need to find arrable land drove them westward. So not so much an issue of their talent as sailors.

Answer 5

I think it caused the nascent nations of Europe to unite; this would have been the most immediate effect.

Thus helping to end the feudal states of the early middly ages.

Answer 6

The ability to transport your gene pool and to transport a fighting 'force' accurately and repetitively across a large portion of the world will make an impact.