Transcript for Vikings, Ragnar, Berserkers, Valhalla & the Warriors of the Viking Age | Lex Fridman Podcast #495

This is a transcript of Lex Fridman Podcast #495 with Lars Brownworth. The timestamps in the transcript are clickable links that take you directly to that point in the main video. Please note that the transcript is human generated, and may have errors. Here are some useful links:

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Episode highlight

Lars Brownworth (00:00:00) The Viking long ships could average 70 to 120 miles a day. They could hit a place, raid it, drag off whoever they wanted, and get away before you could get your army there. That’s just absolutely terrifying.
Lex Fridman (00:00:13) What do you think it felt like for Alcuin and the monks to see the Viking ships on the horizon?
Lars Brownworth (00:00:21) Honestly, I think it’s the end of the world, and I don’t think they were wrong to think that. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says the night before Lindisfarne, the monks saw sheets of lightning in the sky in the shape of dragons, and this was obviously meant to foreshadow the dragon ships coming up. But if you were brave, then you got taken to the House of the Dead, which was Valhalla. Every day you would fight, and whatever wounds you got would be magically healed that night, and then the next morning, you’d get up and do it again, so you’re essentially practicing for Ragnarok, the final battle. You know, there’s this poem by Tennyson, Ulysses, my favorite poem. I think it captures the Viking spirit.
Lars Brownworth (00:01:01) The last line of it is to strive, “To seek, to find, and not to yield.” I think that’s very much like the Viking, you know, my purpose holds, to sail beyond the baths of all the Western stars until I die. We may die, but I’m gonna do this, I’m not gonna yield.

Introduction

Lex Fridman (00:01:17) The following is a conversation with Lars Brownworth, a historian and author of many excellent history books, including The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings and The Normans: From Raiders to Kings. He’s also the host of two history podcast series. The first, called 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire, is one of the first, if not the first ever, history podcasts launched over 20 years ago in June 2005. His second series, Norman Centuries, explores the remarkable rise of the Normans from Viking raiders to the rulers of kingdoms stretching from England to Sicily.
Lex Fridman (00:02:03) In this conversation, we focus primarily on the Vikings, the seafaring Norse warriors and explorers who, over a period of just 300 years, reshaped the medieval world and the trajectory of Western civilization as we know it. This is a Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback, and so on. And now, dear friends, here’s Lars Brownworth.

The start of the Viking Age

Lex Fridman (00:02:37) Your writing and podcasts take us from the Vikings to the Normans to Crusades, to the collapse of the East Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. There’s a thread, I think, that connects the Vikings through all of it, so let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start with the Vikings.
Lex Fridman (00:02:58) So the age of the Vikings was intense and violent, as you write about, often dated from 793 AD to 1066 AD. It lasted less than three centuries. So the start is often dated to June 8th, 793. What happened on June 8th, 793?
Lars Brownworth (00:03:23) In June of 793, a group of Vikings, probably originating from Norway, arrived at the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, which was a monastic community, and they essentially slaughtered everyone, burned a couple of buildings, and grabbed everything that had any value and left. And that was the first Viking raid that came in force. And I do think Lindisfarne is a good beginning date because the terror that it brought really signified what was to come for the next two to three centuries.
Lex Fridman (00:03:55) So the word of it has spread. Like there’s a- there’s a bunch of accounts, like the monk Alcuin wrote about this event in a letter to King Ethelred of Northumbria, quote, “It is nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have inhabited this most lovely land, and never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made.” What made this race so psychologically devastating to this monk and to the many other monks on the island and then to all of Britain?
Lars Brownworth (00:04:36) That’s a great quote. Alcuin was not just a regular scholar, he was Charlemagne’s favorite scholar and he’s largely responsible, as much as one person can be, for the Carolingian Renaissance that had done so much to elevate the early medieval world. In fact, the spaces we have, the punctuation we have, spaces between words are likely a result of Alcuin’s work. He was an extremely literate man, and you can hear the terror creeping into that.
Lars Brownworth (00:05:06) And part of that has to do with monastic communities, the Church and the- what they thought a monastic community was. So the Church was viewed as a sacred place. Everyone in Europe, everyone in quotes, is nominally Christian, and the Church is an area of safety. It’s a literal ark from the troubles of the world that you can flee to. I believe there are even rules in England, for example, that if you had killed someone, you could flee to a church and the civil authorities were not allowed to enter for up to 40 days. So you could have sanctuary there. And to violate this would’ve been the worst possible offense you could have given, which is why, you know, Thomas Becket’s murder is so, so horrible in England.
Lars Brownworth (00:05:50) And the monks had dedicated themselves to a life of studying the Bible, to copying scriptures to prayer, to removing themselves literally from the temptations of the world. And so they would seek monasteries that were remote, and the most remote locations you could find were islands in the North Atlantic, because it’s just so difficult to get there…. So the ocean was considered a place of safety. Not sailing on the ocean, but these- these islands were- were literal havens of peace and security and closeness to God. And so the fact that the Vikings hit this place of all places you could hit was the worst, the most terrifying kind of offense against medieval sensibilities.
Lex Fridman (00:06:33) So there’s a kind of line that you understand you don’t cross. Like, everybody agrees.
Lars Brownworth (00:06:38) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:06:38) It’s the kind of thing that there’s a social contract that most societies, most civilizations sign. There’s a line that we don’t cross. Let the scholars do their scholarly work. That’s one line. The other line is more kind of from a military perspective, from a mobility perspective, you just assume the sea is not a place from which a threat could come-
Lars Brownworth (00:07:00) Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Lex Fridman (00:07:00) … especially the north. So your conception of the world is shattered by, one, the brutality that can come, two, that the sea can bring a threat, and three, that you don’t give a damn about any of the lines that we as a society, as a Christian society, have established.
Lars Brownworth (00:07:20) That’s exactly right. I mean, even Alcuin, I think he writes a little later on that the dead were left as dung in the streets. So he’s describing dead monks as literal dung in the streets. And, you know, who would do this to men of God? Inhuman monsters.
Lex Fridman (00:07:34) So who were they, the Vikings, coming from the north? How did they think of the violence that they were doing?
Lars Brownworth (00:07:42) Now, that’s a very good question because… and it brings up a central problem of looking at the Vikings, which is the story is almost always told from somebody else’s perspective, largely from the pens of those they’re attacking. So they’re not gonna come across well. They’re often portrayed as demonic and inhuman. The Vikings themselves though, as much as we can piece together from archeology, from the stories they wrote later—but that was another problem there, the written alphabet, the runes. It was mostly used for spells, name your sword, things like that, curse someone, but it wasn’t really useful for writing long poetry or literature.
Lars Brownworth (00:08:22) So the only Norse literature we have comes at the end of the age when they had adopted the Latin alphabet. So it’s… you can almost never see the Vikings in their own words as they saw themselves. But we can piece certain things together. Most importantly, Viking was not their day job. They were mostly merchants and farmers, mostly farmers who lived in little bays called Viks in Old Norse, which is probably where we get the word Viking from. One other note about how hard it is to tease apart what’s happening here is the English and the Frankish and the Irish writers all call them Danes, no matter where they came from.
Lars Brownworth (00:09:08) They didn’t stop to ask, “Now, excuse me, are you from Norway, or are you from…” So they’re all called Danes or Pagans, heathen, or Northmen. So this is not very helpful in figuring out where they came from.
Lars Brownworth (00:09:22) The language was interchangeable. You know, Old Norse was spoken in all three of those Scandinavian countries. But living in the north, so far up near the Arctic Circle, is… that’s at the very limit of where technology of the time could allow humans to survive. And that kinda harsh climate bred, I think, very hard people. Mercy was not a quality they seemed to favor or value. There’s a very famous story of a Swedish Viking putting a sword in the crib of his newborn son, and saying, “May you have nothing in this life but what you can gain with this.” I mean, I can’t imagine doing that. You know, to any of my children, you know, putting a gun in the crib, or-
Lars Brownworth (00:10:05) … you know, I’d be carted away. But the… I think that kind of underscores the kind of violent life that was… you could expect as a Viking. I mean, strength was valued more than anything else.
Lex Fridman (00:10:17) So the understanding of the world is harsh, and that strength is the way you must face that world. So when you have those people, and especially the ones that self-select to get on a boat, to face the ocean with all the uncertainty, that results in the kind of brutality that we got to see.
Lars Brownworth (00:10:35) I think so. I mean, the way they would build their ships, they were clinker built, so they were overlaid, like planks overlaying. So they were undecked as well. And so they’d have tents. So can you imagine crossing the Atlantic, the northern Atlantic, you know, with these huge waves splashing over with an inch of oak between you and the ocean? I mean, the amount of bravery that must have taken to undergo is astounding. Plus they didn’t have a compass. They navigated by, “Where’s the sun? Where are the stars? What… are there birds in the sky? Do I see a different color of water? Do I see leaves floating?” I mean, it’s terrible. If you’re traveling 2,000 miles, that’s not great.
Lars Brownworth (00:11:15) So it’s kind of an intrepidness to them that I think is part of the reason why they’re so fascinating to us in our sanitized, more or less sanitized world. That this incredible courage to do this, and some horror at what they did on the other end when they arrived. But, you know, we’ll talk a little bit more about their religion, but they do not view the Christian God in particularly flattering terms. I mean, to them, he’s a weak God who won’t protect his adherents, and they can just come in and plunder as they… I mean, they’ll… One Viking famously says, “On land, I’m a Christian. When I’m on the sea, I worship Thor.” It was very much the kind of pragmatic take that the Vikings had.
Lex Fridman (00:12:01) Yeah. There are gods, and they have many, but Odin and Thor are pretty hardcore gods. So everything, just their whole philosophy on life is pretty hardcore. Probably some of the toughest humans to have ever lived.
Lars Brownworth (00:12:15) I think so. Yeah. I mean, their gods are horrifying. They’re polytheistic. There was no universally accepted head god. I think Marvel has also led people astray in this.

Viking military strategy, tactics & technology

Lex Fridman (00:12:29) Well, we’ll talk more about religion, but since you mentioned the boats, what do we understand about the technology that they were using? Can you just speak a little bit more to this one-inch-of-oak idea? So, these were these longships that were also able to travel on rivers. So they’re not… Like, what is structurally, do we know about the boats that allowed them to be so flexible in terms of where they can travel?
Lars Brownworth (00:13:01) Yeah. I mean, and this was the Vikings’ great secret, and I think it’s underappreciated. They built different types of ships, obviously for different purposes, but the thing that blows my mind is that they built these ships that could cross an ocean, cross the Atlantic Ocean, and at the same time, when they had a draft of less than two feet, so they could sail up rivers that were two feet deep. And if they came to an, you know, a block or something, 20 men could pick up the ship and port it around. They were incredibly portable and their speed, the speed was the most frightening thing about the Vikings.
Lex Fridman (00:13:38) So the… These are the same kind of ship that they sailed the ocean on.
Lars Brownworth (00:13:41) Yeah. I mean, it’s insane.
Lex Fridman (00:13:44) So they’re pretty sufficiently robust to handle the ocean and sufficiently mobile to travel on rivers and do so really fast, so- … you mentioned speed. That seems to be, from a military perspective, the great advantage of the Vikings- … because they can move much faster than the land armies can. So, and not just the element of surprise, which they often had, but the element of speed was the thing that gave them such an extreme advantage against the British armies.
Lars Brownworth (00:14:17) That was the big one. So, an English army, if it had access to a good Roman road that was well maintained, which frankly there weren’t tons of them, but they could average something like 10 to 15 miles per day- … on a good day, if they didn’t have a large baggage train to slow them down. If you had a cavalry unit that didn’t have to travel with the army, they could average about 20 miles a day. The Viking long ships could average 70 to 120 miles a day. So, they’re just moving in super fast motion. They could hit a place, raid it, drag off whoever they wanted, and get away before you could get your army there. That’s just absolutely terrifying.
Lex Fridman (00:14:56) What do you think it felt like for Alcuin and the monks to see the Viking ships on the horizon? Do you ever think about trying to put yourself in the mind of those folks and imagining… In that time, you don’t have a full map of the world, right? And the oceans are not mapped, and you have a hazy conception of the world. And so out of the darkness from the ocean where you thought nothing can come, comes this terrifying, this brutal force. What do you think that felt like?
Lars Brownworth (00:15:30) Honestly, I think it’s the end of the world, and I don’t think that’s… I don’t think they were wrong to think that. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says the night before Lindisfarne, the monks saw sheets of lightning in the sky in the shape of dragons. And this obviously meant to, you know, foreshadow the dragon ships coming up. I can’t imagine the horror. It would shake my faith, I’m sure, to have these giant men jumping out of their ships with swords raised. And you’re… What do you have? Your cross?
Lex Fridman (00:16:04) Were the Vikings aware of the fear that they had caused? So, did they use fear as a kind of weapon, or was this just a side consequence of their actions, or did they understand and use it? Like the Mongols, Genghis Khan, the Mongols used the fear and the terror on purpose- … to increase the chance that they wouldn’t have to avoid fights, basically.
Lars Brownworth (00:16:29) Yeah, yeah. The Vikings absolutely used terror. It was a main weapon in their arsenal. They would attack specifically on high holy days like Easter, Christmas, because they knew there’d be higher value targets there with richer clothing, richer offerings. There’d be a lot of money available. So they were rather sophisticated, which I think is something also that they don’t get much credit for. It’s like they were just dumb brutes attacking and just destroying. But they were… It was very sophisticated. They would show up. That’s what I mean when I say Viking wasn’t their day jobs. They would be traders in say an English port, kind of looking around.
Lars Brownworth (00:17:08) They’d get everyone’s schedule, then they would sail away and come back as Vikings, and they knew exactly where to go. They knew where all the money was held. They knew where all the, you know, the churches were, when to attack. They knew the entire Christian calendar. They knew when someone’s baptism was, when someone’s confirmation. I mean, they were aware of all of this. And they would… They would definitely attack to increase terror.
Lex Fridman (00:17:32) One of the signs of the intelligence of the Vikings is that the Viking Age is so short. So what happens is these explorers and these rough men who do the raids, they very quickly are good at conquering and then start state building, or conquering and then establishing trade routes and stop being the quote, unquote, “Vikings.” So basically, they just… They conquer, and then they start doing the usual build the institutions, start a state, and now they’re normal kind of nation, civilization kind of thing. So this kind of force that is the conquering, raid, violent, intense explorers, it’s like a short-lasting thing, a couple of generations at most.
Lars Brownworth (00:18:25) Yeah, that’s right. I mean, the Vikings were ultimately a pragmatic people who, if it worked, they would keep it, which is frustrating because they disappear so quickly because of that.
Lex Fridman (00:18:38) With very little trace in the records-
Lars Brownworth (00:18:40) With very little trace. That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:18:41) … with very little writing.
Lars Brownworth (00:18:42) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:18:44) No time for writing it down.
Lars Brownworth (00:18:46) No. Yes. Not doing that.
Lex Fridman (00:18:48) Yeah. Why were monasteries such good targets for these early raids?
Lars Brownworth (00:18:56) This is where I imagine myself as a Viking and one of my ancestors perhaps. And sailing in… I mean, they must have thought they had won the lottery. You got this rich, these rich buildings, rich gold everywhere. Decorated books, jewels, all guarded by old men who don’t know how to fight. You just take it.
Lex Fridman (00:19:17) I mean, we should make clear that the monasteries had… They were used as almost like storage for gold.
Lars Brownworth (00:19:24) Yeah. And this goes all the way back to, you know, the Roman Empire where, you know, think of, for example, the Emperor Augustus. When he was writing his will, he put it in the Temple of the Vestal Virgins as well as Mark Antony and Cleopatra. They’d all done that because there’s this additional protection of religion-
Lars Brownworth (00:19:41) … and this taboo against violating that. And the same thing happened when Europe was Christianized. Monasteries were pla— I mean, rich people, their faith had to be an active faith. They had, they couldn’t just say their prayers and go to church on Sunday. They would have to do something to publicly show that they were, you know, worthy of forgiveness or, or whatever. And so they would donate huge sums to the church. I think, you know, by the time of the French Revolution, which is obviously way in the future, the Church is the largest single landowner in France. I mean, the monasteries were… These, these monasteries filled with monks who had taken vows of poverty were some of the richest places in Europe. It’s kind of a strange dichotomy here.
Lex Fridman (00:20:25) And then we should also say that the Vikings, many of them pragmatic people, so a lot of them would eventually then convert to Christianity, so you get-
Lars Brownworth (00:20:33) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:20:33) … you integrate yourself into the system.
Lars Brownworth (00:20:35) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:20:36) In some sense, religion creates this backbone of a society that stabilizes it, and then you create a bunch of rules about behavior, how you’re supposed to behave. One of the rules is you don’t mess with the church buildings and- … the religious- … institutions and therefore they become great storage places for gold. And then the Vikings here just test the system. I mean, it’s the fortune of geography for them and the fortune of their way of life to be able to raid, to become extremely rich and therefore this… It both spreads the terror across England, and the message across Scandinavia that there’s a lot of riches to be had. And so the raids, that’s why there’s an explosion of raids.
Lars Brownworth (00:21:23) That’s right. And I think it’s not a coincidence that it happens when it does. I mean, you have both… So there’s two main theories about why the Viking Age starts. The first, Will Durant puts it, I think, the best. He says, “The fertility of the Viking women outstripped the fertility of the Viking land.” It’s basically overpopulation. And then they’re searching for food. And then the second is there’s this technological breakthrough with the keel and maybe pressure put on Charlemagne’s consolidation and a little worries like that. I don’t see why both can’t be true, but I do also think Europe… Like, Charlemagne puts together this vast empire that, you know, fairly approximates the Western Roman Empire. If you squint-
Lars Brownworth (00:22:09) … it looks like the Western Roman Empire. He’s calling himself the new Roman emperor. This will eventually mutate into the Holy Roman Empire. But it, it, it’s very much this idea that it’s back. The Roman Empire is back. He’s crowned on Christmas Day in the year 800, and the empire is back. Unfortunately, it was sprawling. It hadn’t been thought through. There was… The communication was terrible. You just couldn’t do it. And so it was wealthy and weak, and that kind of attracts predators. By the time the Vikings crash into it, you also have the added bonus for them of really feckless rulers.
Lex Fridman (00:22:52) And we should say, going to Perplexity here, that Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great, is the Frankish king who became emperor in 800 and ruled much of the Western and Central Europe in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. And there’s a theory that the Viking age was also a reaction to the South expanding north, as you’re talking about. You tell the story of Charlemagne weeping because he foresaw the evil his descendants would suffer. Did the Franks accidentally wake the sleeping giant by crushing the Saxons and removing the buffer zone between them and the, and the Vikings?
Lars Brownworth (00:23:31) I’m sure that had something to do with it. But yeah, as power was consolidated throughout specifically Central Europe, it did put a little pressure on the areas of Denmark. And those are the areas that first kind of erupt down toward… Norway and Denmark contribute most of the early Vikings that hit the Franks. And the Frankish Empire is the most wealthy state in Europe. It’s poured money into religious houses for the reasons you outlined. And all sitting there, easy pickings for people who’ve just developed the keel.
Lex Fridman (00:24:10) And so they, the word of the raids sent terror through England and through Europe. How much of the raids were reconnaissance, and how much was it just raids, and how much was it preparing for greater scale?
Lars Brownworth (00:24:29) That’s a good… That’s a really good question. I think a lot of the early raids are probing raids, to see what’s there.
Lars Brownworth (00:24:37) Definitely when Ragnar Lothbrok, for example, sacks Paris in 845, that definitely results in waves of Viking attacks throughout the 860s, trying to copy that. And he actually is the template which everyone wants to follow. And so that provokes large-scale invasions. And they hit England. They kind of switch off. When France is pretty much exhausted, they switch over to England, and then when England is pretty much conquered, they switch back to France. So I think a lot of these are just probing raids at first, but they’re proof of concept and then they come in force. For example, there was one king in England, his name was Ethelred the Unready, which is a pretty fun, funny… Pun on his name.
Lars Brownworth (00:25:26) But he paid, in one year, 7.5 million silver pennies to the Vikings to get them to go away, which is a bit like someone’s mugging you, so you pay them more money so they’ll go away. It’s-
Lex Fridman (00:25:36) That’s not gonna work, is it?
Lars Brownworth (00:25:37) It’s not gonna work, but it will bring more muggers. So he paid the equivalent of 50 adult elephants, 48,000 pounds of silver, to get the muggers to go away. And it’s unsurprising that throughout the course of his reign, he paid something like 20 tons of gold and silver, which he had to tax his people for.
Lex Fridman (00:26:02) Yeah, the Vikings are not the kind of people that that would make go away, right?
Lars Brownworth (00:26:07) Nope. That’s not gonna happen.
Lex Fridman (00:26:08) Yeah, they would just come back in force.
Lars Brownworth (00:26:10) Yeah, they trust silver to do the work of swords.

Ragnar Lothbrok

Lex Fridman (00:26:14) You mentioned Ragnar Lothbrok. Who was Ragnar Lothbrok? Did he actually exist? Some people believe he’s a composite from several real ninth century Viking leaders, versus an actual singular human.
Lars Brownworth (00:26:30) Yeah, I’m a romantic. I would like to believe he existed. I think probably he’s a compilation of a lot of different… There probably is a seed of truth there. There probably was someone named Ragnar. The last name’s a little suspicious. Lothbrok means hairy breeches. He supposedly had magic pants that would prevent him from being poisoned by dragons or snakes. That’s maybe a clue. We’re dealing with myth here. But he is really the template for Vikings. You want to figure out, like, what the Vikings wanted, who’s their success story, it’s Ragnar Lothbrok. He’s born Norway, Denmark—countries argue over that. Maybe Sweden. Some sagas say he’s in Uppsala.
Lars Brownworth (00:27:17) Anyway, he is, you know, penniless, and when he is in his late teens or early 20s, he decides to invade, sail up the Seine. There is a well-known city on the Seine and he raids it. Supposedly, he takes the hinge of one of the gates from Paris to prove that he’s been there. The- the Frankish king, I love the Frankish kings because they- their citizens give them names based on how much they hate them. So you have- you have Charles the Great, right? Charles the Great, Charlemagne. He’s followed by Louis the Pious. That’s probably the best one. And Louis the Pious is followed by Charles the Fat- … who’s followed by Charles the Bald- … who’s followed by Charles the Simple or Stupid.
Lex Fridman (00:28:06) Nice. So you can trust the names-
Lars Brownworth (00:28:08) You can trust-
Lex Fridman (00:28:09) … to give you the TL;DR of how good of a ruler they were.
Lars Brownworth (00:28:12) Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Lex Fridman (00:28:14) So Charles the Great, widely acknowledged as sort of one of the great leaders of the Frankish Empire- … aka Charlemagne.
Lex Fridman (00:28:22) So what- what else do we know about him? So, there’s going to Perplexity, “Ragnar’s portrayed as a Scandinavian warlord, often called a Danish or Swedish king,” like you mentioned. Uh, “Active in the ninth century during the height of the Viking raids.” And then descriptions of the raids and the exploits. “Medieval traditions link Ragnar to famous raids on the Frankish realms, especially the attack on Paris in 845, where he reputedly sails up the Seine and extorts a huge ransom from King Charles the Bald.” He’s also associated with repeated attacks on Anglo-Saxon England, embodying the archetypal Viking chieftain, charismatic, brutal, and focused on wealth, fame, and honor in battle. So that, those are the ideals of the- of the Vikings. Charisma, brutality-
Lex Fridman (00:29:22) … and focusing on wealth, fame, and honor, especially honor in battle.
Lars Brownworth (00:29:27) Then also, what does he do with it, right? What does he do with it? So, he gets about 7,000 pounds of silver from Charles the Bald, which destroys, essentially destroys Charles the Bald’s kingship. But he goes back home to Denmark, and the Danish king doesn’t want him around, because he’s too powerful; he’s too rich. He’s a ring giver. You know, think Beowulf here, right? He’s got this large personal army which wants to join him for ad- he can do, you know, they’ll follow him, and he is a threat, and so he kind of is encouraged to go elsewhere.
Lars Brownworth (00:30:00) He ends up raiding England for something like 15 years, and then there’s a, probably the most famous bit of the story is he- he’s shipwrecked, and King Ælla of Northumberland captures him and decides to kill him by throwing him into a pit with vipers.
Lars Brownworth (00:30:17) They throw him in this and the snakes are biting him, but he’s got his hairy breeches on, so it’s not working. So, he’s singing a hymn to Odin and he gets pulled out and he’s asked why he’s not dying and he explains, rather foolishly, that he has these hairy breeches. So, they take the pants off and throw him back, and his last words are “When the boar bleats, the piglets come.”… by which he means, “My- I have sons,” he had 12 of them, “and they will avenge me.” And they do; they lead the the Great Heathen Army to invade and eventually conquer England. Ælla, fun fact, not so fun for him, is the, supposedly was captured by the son of Ragnar, his name is Ivar the Boneless, which is somewhat terrifying of a name. And he is, he’s the first person that a blood eagle was performed on.
Lex Fridman (00:31:09) What’s the blood eagle?
Lars Brownworth (00:31:10) It’s when they remove the lungs, they, while you’re still alive, they cut you open and remove the lungs and put the lungs on your back. And then when you try to breathe, they flutter like wings, so it’s called, like an eagle. It’s called the blood eagle.
Lex Fridman (00:31:24) That is horrible.
Lars Brownworth (00:31:24) It’s disgusting, yes. And this is what Ælla, you know, deserves, according to, you know, Bjorn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless, the sons of Ragnar. Like, this is what they get.
Lex Fridman (00:31:35) Offense.
Lars Brownworth (00:31:35) This is the piglets coming- … to their own boar, you know? One last thing about Ragnar, is his wife is also an important part. He had something like 12 sons, the accounts differ, and probably three marriages. But his most famous wife was named Aslaug, and she fell in love with him. He was on a ship, he was passing through, so- … kind of a glamorous sea king, right? With his, he’s the, he’s living the dream. And she sees him and she wants to be married to him, and- and he- he says no. He says, ’cause he wants a clever wife, and so he says, “If you can accomplish these three things, you can marry me. So tomorrow, I’ll be here tonight, and then tomorrow, I want you to come to my ship. I want you to have no clothes on-
Lars Brownworth (00:32:26) … but not be naked. I want you to have not eaten a meal, but not have fasted. And I want you to come without a companion, but not alone.” And so she shows up with a dog. She doesn’t have a companion, but she’s not alone. She’s taken a bite out of an onion, so she’s eaten. She hasn’t fasted, but she hasn’t had a meal. And then she has very long hair, and so she’s using the hair to cover herself. So she has no clothes-
Lex Fridman (00:32:54) Oh, she shows up naked, but she’s-
Lars Brownworth (00:32:56) … but clothed.
Lex Fridman (00:32:57) Right. Wow.
Lars Brownworth (00:32:58) Yeah, so in this, so this is kind of the cleverness that would be expected of a Viking woman. So they’re well matched, they’re like the ideal couple. And then they have 12 kids, 12 sons. Not just 12 kids, 12 sons.
Lex Fridman (00:33:10) And many of them end up…
Lars Brownworth (00:33:11) Many of them end up almost as famous as their father.
Lex Fridman (00:33:14) Ivar the Boneless. Bjorn Ironside, and many others. These sons later appear as leaders of major Viking forces in England, particularly the so-called Great Heathen Army- … that invades in 865.
Lars Brownworth (00:33:28) And they are historical. They are—I mean, there’s no—these were the names of Vikings who attacked and conquered England. They end up attacking Islamic Spain. They go all over Europe.
Lex Fridman (00:33:41) Well, for them, it sounds like glory in battle is really important.
Lars Brownworth (00:33:45) That’s right, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:33:46) And so it’s not even- It’s just part of the culture, it’s part-
Lars Brownworth (00:33:49) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:33:49) … the honor culture.
Lars Brownworth (00:33:50) Men die, but names live forever.
Lex Fridman (00:33:53) As a small aside, since Ragnar is the star of the Vikings TV series, I don’t know if you’ve gotten a chance to watch any of it. Is there any accuracy to it?
Lars Brownworth (00:34:08) I think it’s well done. My one quibble, Ragnar’s brother is Rollo in the show, right? They weren’t brothers. In fact, by some accounts, they were born 80 years apart. But as a storytelling device, I applaud that.
Lex Fridman (00:34:25) Yeah, they basically take all the main Vikings and put them all together. Just so it’s a-
Lars Brownworth (00:34:31) I mean, I get it. I get, it’s confusing. Honestly, in writing a book about it, the hardest part was coming up with an organizational scheme. Like, what’s the overarching thing that links them together?
Lex Fridman (00:34:40) Well, there’s certainly an overarching thing, but we don’t have information about it. This is, the problem is we get to see just slivers of the information-
Lars Brownworth (00:34:52) That’s right, that’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:34:52) … from the raids. There might be just this rich history that we know nothing about. Like where did this warrior culture come from? Like, what was the evolution of these ideas of honor and battle? I mean, maybe it’s being overly romantic, but you can imagine the ideals of battle from the Roman Empire, from the Roman Republic and the early imperial period coming up north to Scandinavia. And we just know very little traces about that.
Lars Brownworth (00:35:26) Yeah. Even the name Scandinavia is from a Roman author. I mean, they thought it was an island. They thought Scandinavia was an island with one tribe, the Scandia tribe, but you know, close enough.

The Great Heathen Army

Lex Fridman (00:35:39) And who was the, what was in this Great Heathen Army that invaded England in 865? What can we say about that?
Lars Brownworth (00:35:51) Well, there’s this famous scene in the Viking siege of Paris in 845, which is really the Europeans’ introduction, or Europe as a whole, to a Viking army, not just a raid and then what it could do. And the king, the emperor, Charles, said, “You know, let’s find out what they want and how much do I have to pay to get them to leave?” And so his ambassador went to a Viking and said, “Who is your king?” And the Viking looked at him, he didn’t understand, and he said, “We have no king. We are all kings.” So they’re very like decentralized, tough. They only valued leaders who could prove that they had won. You know, could give out the rings.
Lex Fridman (00:36:34) So flat organization, very meritocratic.
Lars Brownworth (00:36:37) Yes.
Lex Fridman (00:36:37) If you’re good at what you do, you demonstrate that skill in battle. That means you get to have maybe a leadership position.
Lars Brownworth (00:36:45) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:36:45) And the moment you’re no longer effective, you don’t get to have this leadership position. “We’re all kings.” That’s gangster. Throughout history, the Mongols—Genghis Khan was famous for this meritocracy.
Lars Brownworth (00:36:59) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:37:00) That’s one of the components of an extremely effective military force, is if meritocracy is prized. Same is true for who gets to rule. How do you determine the succession? If you’re just giving it to your oldest son, that’s gonna be a problem.
Lars Brownworth (00:37:16) Yeah. Yeah, that… I could not agree more. There are some problems with meritocracy in civil war because it tends to… The only way you can find out, like Alexander the Great, right? Who does your empire belong to? To the strongest. That kind of guarantees the civil war. At least with giving it to your older son, you know who’s gonna be… There’s an element of stability there although you may end up with a Caligula. More likely than not, you’re gonna end up with a Caligula, I would say, human nature being what it is.
Lex Fridman (00:37:47) It’s- It’s… Yeah, yeah, it always converges to the asshole, and the asshole holds power, a crazy asshole. So yeah, Great Heathen Army, 865.
Lars Brownworth (00:37:58) So the Great Heathen Army, they were war bands that… Each followed this guy and this guy. “And I’m gonna sit you down in this room. I’m gonna tell you my plan. You’re gonna listen or you’re gonna push back. I’m gonna push back, and we’ll just have this kind of creative discussion and come up with a plan we all agree on.”
Lex Fridman (00:38:13) So it used to be relatively small Viking groups that were doing raids.
Lars Brownworth (00:38:17) Right.
Lex Fridman (00:38:18) And then the Great Heathen Army is this large coalition of Viking groups-
Lars Brownworth (00:38:23) That’s right
Lex Fridman (00:38:23) … without a real leader that was able to somehow stabilize enough to have something like governance. Basically, there seems to be a very rapid evolution of a Viking in every part of the world they touch. You go explore raid, conquer, establish state- … And trade routes, and always maintaining a grand ambition, but no longer doing the violence, and always being sufficiently programmatic and flexible where you can accept a conversion to Christianity, for example, if it’s useful-
Lars Brownworth (00:39:07) That’s right
Lex Fridman (00:39:07) … and then they accept the culture, accept the language. So that’s why they integrate, and the thing that we think of as Viking dis- kind of dissipates and disappears pretty quickly.
Lars Brownworth (00:39:17) Yeah, and I think the best example of this is France, right? So the Vikings, which is—we’ll talk about this more probably with Rollo—but, you know, the Vikings settle in France, in the North Man’s Duchy, which is shortened to Normandy. And they, within a generation… I mean, Rollo, whose real name is Hrolf Eric, he names his son William. That’s not a Viking name. And within a generation, the language is gone. The Viking names are gone. The worship of Odin is, as far as we can tell, gone. And the Normans are building churches and marrying into the local aristocracy in there. Their…
Lars Brownworth (00:39:58) Essentially, their Viking-ness is gone except for one thing, their, like, incredible vitality, which the Normans essentially conquer kingdoms at both ends of Europe, Sicily and England, and found two of the foremost powerful states in medieval Europe.
Lex Fridman (00:40:15) Yeah, so the ambition is there.
Lars Brownworth (00:40:17) Is there.
Lex Fridman (00:40:17) The vitality is there, but it’s-
Lars Brownworth (00:40:18) The methods have changed.

Rollo and Normandy

Lex Fridman (00:40:20) Yeah, and they change rapidly, which is fascinating. So you have a book. You have a podcast series on the Normans, so let’s talk about Rollo. Who was Rollo? The famous Viking war leader who became the first ruler of Normandy, Northern France.
Lars Brownworth (00:40:38) Well, first I should say, as someone of Norwegian descent, I’m gonna fall down on the Norwegian side of the argument here because- … Norway and Denmark almost came to blows over which was the birthplace of Rollo. But the consensus seems to be Norway- Not just biased.
Lars Brownworth (00:40:56) So he was… The only thing we… The only glimpse we get of Rollo as a young man is he was very tall, so he’s called Hrolf Walker, Hrolf Ganger, because he was so tall he couldn’t ride the little Viking ponies. So he had to walk everywhere. But… Kinda poor, probably raised on stories of Ragnar and the other Viking lords, and he goes. He may have participated in some of the earlier, like the 860 raids that the Vikings did on Paris or the Seine, you know, and then he eventually ends up plundering what will become the Norman coast. And in the year 911, he makes a treaty, the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, with the Frankish King, Charles the Simple, which is not stupid. It’s more like straightforward.
Lars Brownworth (00:41:52) There’s no guile in how he talks. And Charles makes a really interesting deal with Rollo, which is, “Why don’t you settle here, integrate into the local aristocracy and defend the Nor- the French coast against the Vikings?” Which I don’t know. It’s like putting a burglar in charge of your security or some- I don’t know, but it works. It works. And Rollo, by the time he makes that deal, he’s probably in his mid-fifties to mid-sixties. It’s unclear when he was born, but the point is he’s lived the Viking life. He’s got something like 20 or 30, if you add up all the sagas they say that he… they gave him this many coins or whatever. He has probably 20 or 30 tons of silver that he has acquired and then probably given out to whatever. So-
Lex Fridman (00:42:46) So yeah, so he’s done the full-
Lars Brownworth (00:42:48) He’s done the thing.
Lex Fridman (00:42:49) … the raid- … and then the conquering and then-
Lars Brownworth (00:42:51) And then the king says, “Can you settle here?” “Can I give you legitimacy?”
Lex Fridman (00:42:55) So he does the diplomacy of a treaty. … Then he does the good state craft and state building and then becomes, I mean, European. In one life, he goes through the full journey.
Lars Brownworth (00:43:08) It’s… Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:43:09) And then his son, William Longsword-
Lars Brownworth (00:43:11) William Longsword
Lex Fridman (00:43:11) … succeeded him and …
Lars Brownworth (00:43:14) Gets assassinated, but he does enlarge Normandy. So basically, every ruler after Rollo enlarges Normandy until it essentially becomes more powerful than the king- … By far. There’s a wonderful scene when- when Rollo signs the treaty. He becomes a liege lord of the French king, and there’s this- this great scene ’cause Rollo has to bend down and kiss the foot of the king. So Rollo’s probably, you know, he’s a Norwegian Viking. He’s probably, I don’t know, six foot.
Lars Brownworth (00:43:47) Charles, this little Frank, he’s probably five ten. So he’s like Rollo’s towering over him, and he’s- there’s a large- both armies are watching. There’s a bunch of people who have come in from the countryside. They’ve heard something’s going on, and this important part of this feudal ceremony, you have to kiss your lord’s foot to- to, you know, be in a subservient role. And Rollo says, “I’m not gonna do that.” So he turns to one of his guards and says, “You kiss the foot,” and the guard’s probably taller than he is. So he bends down and he picks the king’s foot up to his mouth-
Lex Fridman (00:44:19) That’s the way to do it.
Lars Brownworth (00:44:20) … which Charles goes falling on the back. I mean- … I can’t think of a better example of the relationship between the Norman dukes and the French kings. I mean, it’s perfect. It’s perfect.
Lex Fridman (00:44:29) Oh God, I love the Vikings. So as you’ve covered, and maybe you could speak to that a bit more, for a long time to come, Normans have influence on Europe and beyond.
Lars Brownworth (00:44:42) Yeah, it’s hard to overstate Normandy’s impact on Europe in the Middle Ages. Of course, they’ll go on to conquer England as well. But Rollo, when he signs the treaty, it’s an ambiguous treaty. He’s given a title which is rather ambiguous. He’s not a duke, and it’s not clear. He’s not an earl. He’s not a duke. He’s just subservient to the king. Which means Normandy is not a duchy. It’s not a principality. It’s kind of this ambiguous, no one really knows what it is. And so Rollo, being a good Viking, and his descendants being good Vikings, despite becoming French, they just call themselves Duke.
Lars Brownworth (00:45:27) And they essentially seize whatever power they want. There’s one Norman duke, I think he’s the grandson of Rollo. He’s kidnapped by the French king when he’s 14. He escapes the captivity and kidnaps the king. As a 14-year-old, I mean, it’s just—these are—these guys are crazy.
Lex Fridman (00:45:50) How far geographically and in time does the influence of the Normans and Normandy go? So what should we understand about the impact of Normans- … in history?
Lars Brownworth (00:46:05) I’m a romantic, so I, when I read history, I usually end up rooting for the losers. I want Harold Godwinson to beat William the Conqueror. You know, I want Hector to beat Achilles. Never works, no matter how many times I read it. But I was always interested in the Normans because of the Norman conquest of England. And I have a twin brother, and he asked me, we were taking a walk and he asked me, “How did Europe…” Because I was reading about the Dark Ages at the time, the early Middle Ages. “And how did Europe, this kind of backwards place, become the dominant-“
Lars Brownworth (00:46:39) “… force in the world?” And I started thinking about that, and my answer really is the Normans. The Normans, that’s the great change between Europe as a backwards, inward-looking place, and Europe as a kind of confident, outward-looking place. And that change happens under the Normans. I mean, the Normans, it’s not a coincidence that they lead the charge in the First Crusade. They create the state of England. If you look at England before the Vikings arrive, there are seven, it’s the Heptarchy, there are seven kingdoms in England, and the Vikings destroyed all but one. Only Wessex is preserved, and they’ve conquered about half of Wessex. And there’s a young king. What’s he gonna do?
Lars Brownworth (00:47:27) But that king is Alfred the Great, and he conquers the rest. And then his grandson, Athelstan, is the first man called King of England, king of all Angles. And then they do the same thing almost wherever they go. They help create modern France by ripping apart Charlemagne’s empire, which was unwieldy. It looked good on paper, but it was unwieldy. It was replaced by this leaner, meaner, compact thing. They figure out how to deal with the Vikings by essentially building fortified bridges, changes to their army, and so forth. The Vikings, I like to call it creative destruction. They, by destroying the things they destroyed, they cleared the ground for something stronger to grow.
Lex Fridman (00:48:11) That’s brilliant. The creative destruction engine that created Europe was the Normans and the Vikings. And then you also, you have another book that talks about the Byzantine Empire, so you have the creative destruction that resulted in Europe, that Europe led to this Western, quote-unquote, civilization that we think of now. And the thing that protected Europe for centuries was the existence of the Byzantine Empire, the East Roman Empire, because of all the threats- … That came towards Europe. This strong, stable empire that is the Byzantine Empire protected the forces from everything that came from the east. They were a buffer.
Lars Brownworth (00:49:02) They were a buffer, giving Europe this kind of vital time to develop the way it needed to develop.
Lex Fridman (00:49:07) So it’s interesting to think that the world as we see now was a results- … of a sequence of quite lucky geographical and leadership decisions in history. I mean, it really does pivot on a few points of geography and a few special leaders- … that conquer.
Lars Brownworth (00:49:30) Yeah. Had Constantine chosen his side a little less wisely, the world’s gonna be very different.
Lex Fridman (00:49:37) Yeah, so Constantine is the guy who moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Constantinople, thereby giving a lot more focus to the east. Thereby protecting Europe from the gigantic threats that- … loomed in the east.
Lars Brownworth (00:49:56) That’s right. And the Islamic invasions of the seventh century, they couldn’t get past that choke point of Constantinople. So they had to take the long way across Africa. You know, and by the time they get to Spain and conquer Spain and into—that’s the Battle of Tours, you know—Charles Martel is able to stop them, and they’re, they’re massively overextended. You know, I think it’s a very different story if they can come in through the Black Sea.
Lex Fridman (00:50:21) And all the times the East Roman Empire almost died from all the invasions, all of those invaders would have just conquered the entirety of Europe.
Lars Brownworth (00:50:31) Yeah, I mean, I don’t think they would’ve met much resistance.

Viking religion and Valhalla

Lex Fridman (00:50:34) Yeah. So rewinding back, what was the religion, the religious beliefs, the gods that the Vikings believed that we’ve mentioned a little bit of? Thor and Odin, how did they see this, this world and the universe?
Lars Brownworth (00:50:51) It’s, so the Viking gods are… I mean, they’ve been sanitized, but they’re quite terrifying. But at their basic conception of the universe is an eternal struggle between chaos and order, which chaos will eventually win. So I think the best view of cosmology is of concentric circles, with Utgard as the outer realm, and that’s where the chaos is. And those are the, that’s where the frost giants are, all the monsters that seek to destroy. The gods represent order and stability, and the monsters represent chaos, and it’s an eternal war between the two of them.
Lars Brownworth (00:51:30) So there are different categories of gods depending on which circle you come from. The gods don’t all like each other. They’re not… Sometimes they engage in wars. Some of the most famous gods, the Norse gods, you know, Loki or Freya, come from outside the Aesir, the main gods. So it was kind of a fluid thing.
Lex Fridman (00:51:53) It’s more a way to understand the world.
Lars Brownworth (00:51:55) I think so, yeah. The thunder is Thor fighting the ice giants, and that’s what that is.
Lex Fridman (00:52:03) Going to Perplexity. Vikings followed the polytheistic, ritual-heavy religion centered on a pantheon of gods and spirits with no single holy book or unified church, and practices varied a lot by region and family. And so the major gods were Odin and Thor and Freya. Odin was—his domain was war, kingship, wisdom, death. Thor was protection, thunder, fertility. Freya was love, magic, battle dead. Typical worshipers for Odin were chieftains and elite warriors and poets. Typical worshipers for Thor were farmers and “ordinary people,” and typical worshipers of Freya were women, magic practitioners, and lovers.
Lars Brownworth (00:52:52) Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve heard it… I think you can break it down saying like, Odin was the elite. He’s kind of more aristocratic, right? He, he’s the god of poetry; you need to read, et cetera. Only the elite would know how to do that. A farmer wouldn’t really care about that. Wherein Thor is a more earthy god. You know, you want the waves to be less, you know, pray to Thor. I find Odin, I think, most disturbing. He’s the god of madness and the god of poetry, which, I guess those are related. But in battle, I mean, the Berserkers, probably the most famous type of Viking warriors, were considered to be Odin’s chosen warriors. They would show no pain, and they’d just run at the enemy and attack with their nails and their teeth.
Lars Brownworth (00:53:36) Even if they could have their arms hacked off, they would still keep going. Like they would just… And they would attack other Vikings. They were berserk. That’s where we get the word from.
Lex Fridman (00:53:45) What do we understand the mindset leads to that? I mean, it wasn’t religious in nature. There’s not this kinda ideology. It’s just the way of life and then the prized honor and intensity in battle.
Lars Brownworth (00:54:00) Yeah. I mean, one of Odin’s names is the raven feeder. I mean, you were, by creating corpses, which ravens feed on, you are, you’re doing the work of Odin. And, you know, the Viking view of the afterlife was unique. There weren’t really punishments, not really, for doing bad things. Unless you did something really bad. Then you ended up as basically an evil spirit haunting your grave. But if you were brave, then you got taken to the house of the dead, which is Valhalla to… And you were resurrected. Every day you would fight, and whatever wounds you got would be magically healed that night. And then the next morning you’d get up and do it again. So you’re essentially practicing for Ragnarok- … the final battle, which you would lose. So I’m not sure. It seems, it’s rather pessimistic.
Lex Fridman (00:54:57) The battle’s what… I mean, it sounds like losing is not a thing. The battle itself is what matters. So Valhalla… It’s a place where you fight a battle every day.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:07) Every day.
Lex Fridman (00:55:08) Unlimited food, there’s like a boar or whatever.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:11) Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.
Lex Fridman (00:55:11) There’s unlimited wine.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:13) Yep.
Lex Fridman (00:55:13) And you can die as much as you want-
Lars Brownworth (00:55:16) As much as you want, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:55:16) … and you’ll be born again.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:17) Just like video games.
Lex Fridman (00:55:17) And this is the idea of the highest… This, I guess, if there’s such a thing as heaven in this kind of construction of the universe, this is heaven.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:28) This is heaven, yeah.
Lex Fridman (00:55:28) This is the highest form. This is the highest place you can go to: is Valhalla. Is fight every day, eat as much as you want, drink as much as you want, die, and are reborn the next day. And this is forever, preparing yourself for the final battle of Ragnarok.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:47) Ragnarok.
Lex Fridman (00:55:48) So this is where… this is the end of the world, this is the cataclysm.
Lars Brownworth (00:55:52) Mm-hmm. That’s right. Odin’s gonna die, Thor will die. He’ll get killed by one of Loki’s children, the Midgard Serpent. Odin will be devoured by a wolf. The sun and moon, which are being chased by monsters, by giants, will be caught and swallowed by the giants, plunging the world into eternal darkness. Essentially all the gods will die and darkness and chaos will then ensue. And then at the very end the… This is mostly from a guy named Snorri Sturluson who was living right at the end of the Viking Age and writing this. And he was, I believe, a Christian. So there’s… I think we’re fusing things here. So then there would be a new Earth and a new heaven and a new god, who’s all powerful.
Lex Fridman (00:56:40) Yeah, if you think of religion as a kind of technology, a social technology that stabilizes or helps guide the evolution of a society, it’s interesting to see what the Vikings came up with. And do you ever think from a history, the grand view of history, how effective these different technologies of religion have been?
Lars Brownworth (00:57:04) Yeah, I mean, I think that’s certainly… I’m thinking of the Viking rituals. Hospitality is very important in a northern climate where, you know, food is scarce, winters are long and harsh. And if you don’t share your hearth with, you know, someone knocking on your door, then someone else might not share it with you and you could be facing death. So in this case hospitality becomes a core belief and- … you know, the idea was that Odin would travel incognito, knocking on people’s doors, and he would remember if you let him in or not. And if you were hospitable, he would bless you, and if you were inhospitable, he would murder you. And- … you know, I think these rituals are obviously intended for, “How do we survive this winter?”
Lex Fridman (00:57:52) Yeah, how do we effectively spread the message that hospitality is pretty? good thing, and it’s characteristic of religion. If you do a good thing, you’ll be rewarded. If you do a bad thing, you’ll be punished. And then different religions play the different ways of communicating that.
Lars Brownworth (00:58:11) Yeah. I mean, I think also religion gives you, it gives you a world view, right? It gives you a morality and these are core parts of society.
Lex Fridman (00:58:24) And the beautiful thing about religion is it interplays with human nature and it guides humans. But then of course, human nature and humans project themselves onto the religion, sometimes they use their religion. It’s to accomplish goals in a pragmatic sense, in a political sense, in a geopolitical sense, in a military sense, in a social sense. And so there’s that dance of how religion invigorates and guides the peoples, and then how the peoples use the religion to guide the direction of the world.
Lex Fridman (00:59:06) And that’s certainly the history of Christianity has a big role to play in the history of Europe, in the history of the Byzantine Empire and that part of the world. And it was an incredibly effective religion once Constantine converted. It spread extremely quickly, relatively speaking, across a couple of centuries. Just to linger on the Viking views of the world and the afterlife. So we mentioned Valhalla. There’s the Norns, which are the three spirits that represent the past, the present, and the necessity. They spin the fates of all men and gods at the Roots of Yggdrasil.
Lars Brownworth (00:59:44) Yggdrasil.
Lex Fridman (00:59:45) Yggdrasil. So there’s a notion of like determinism and fate to the Viking life. And there’s Valhalla, there’s Hel, Niflheim. This was the destination for the vast majority of people. So if you don’t make it to Valhalla, this is where you go.
Lars Brownworth (01:00:01) That’s where you go.
Lex Fridman (01:00:02) Unless you’re a real bad person, then there’s some punishment for the truly wicked.
Lars Brownworth (01:00:06) And we should point out that Hel, spelled with one L was a daughter of Loki- … And was not the same as the…
Lex Fridman (01:00:15) Hell with the two L’s.
Lars Brownworth (01:00:16) Hell with the two L’s. Very different.
Lex Fridman (01:00:18) It’s more like purgatory type of situation.
Lars Brownworth (01:00:20) Yeah, so it’s the house of the, it’s like the house of the dead, the house of the underworld.
Lex Fridman (01:00:24) A colorless twilight, not necessarily a place of punishment but simply the inevitable end for most, unless you end up in Valhalla, which means you’re a great warrior dying in battle.
Lars Brownworth (01:00:36) It reminds me of the Greek view of the afterlife, right? Where you essentially get amnesia and forget who you are unless someone makes a sacrifice and says your name, and only then you’ll remember it. So your- your destiny is ultimately to just become gray and fade away. So you might as well- you might as well be brave. You might as well run at that spear.
Lex Fridman (01:00:56) So that was the engine of their- the warrior culture that was core to their society.
Lars Brownworth (01:01:04) I think probably.

Viking explorers

Lex Fridman (01:01:06) I have to ask about Vikings as explorers. They were… truly one of the greatest explorers in history. What can you say to, what is it in their spirit that motivated them? I mean, they sailed, they reached North America 500 years before Columbus. They sailed obviously to England, Spain, Italy, Russia, North Africa, the Middle East, Paris, and I’m just showing here a map of the ocean routes and the river systems that they connected to and sailed. What do you think drove them to explore the unknown?
Lars Brownworth (01:01:42) This boggles my mind. This, like this map here, just… it messes with me because they didn’t have a compass. I mean, can you imagine shoving off from some fjord in Norway west? That’s your only—west. And there was a Viking named Naddodd. He’s actually the first Norseman to reach Iceland, though it was a total accident. But here’s the, here’s the mind-blowing part. He decides to land and explore, and he gets off and he sees two humans. They’re monks from Ireland. They got there in a canoe. You look at Ireland, look at Iceland, that’s even more impressive. They got in a canoe, a skin boat- … and they just went north because they were trying to get away from the world.
Lars Brownworth (01:02:26) They found Iceland, and in a very excellent move on their part, they ran away as soon as the Vikings arrived, which is, you know, pretty smart.
Lex Fridman (01:02:35) I don’t know if you know there’s this video of the deranged penguin with the Werner Herzog documentary, where Werner Herzog is like overdubbing, explaining the thinking of the penguin. But the penguin leaves the tribe and he just goes out into the mountains. I have to show you this video. This is my favorite video of all time. There’s this low-key documentary where they’re talking about penguins, and then there’s one penguin that leaves-
Lars Brownworth (01:03:08) I’m out.
Lex Fridman (01:03:09) … leaves the tribe and just goes towards the mountains, and as Werner Herzog says, “Towards certain death.” It always reminds me of this kind of Viking spirit or the- … or the monk spirit. There’s something—one human or a small group of humans just decide to go.
Lars Brownworth (01:03:28) Just go, yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:03:28) And not look back.
Lars Brownworth (01:03:30) Are there sea monsters out there? Maybe.
Lex Fridman (01:03:32) Maybe.
Lars Brownworth (01:03:32) Is there any land? Are we gonna fall off the edge of the earth? Maybe. I-
Lex Fridman (01:03:35) And just as Werner Herzog says, you know, “There’s certain death.” Now, he doesn’t romanticize it. He says the penguin is just deranged and crazy. But look, the penguin did look back briefly.
Lars Brownworth (01:03:48) Right.
Lex Fridman (01:03:48) He did think about this. So this- … there’s multiple ways, but you just highlighted two ways to explore. One is ’cause you’re this hardcore dude that just is looking to raid and just goes and goes and just you have the resilience and the will- … to keep going. And then there’s the monks that just want to leave.
Lars Brownworth (01:04:15) Escape, yeah. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:04:16) They just go toward the, they want to leave far away- … so they could be closer to God. They could be closer to themselves and to-
Lars Brownworth (01:04:23) And away from sin. Yeah. You know, there’s this poem by Tennyson, “Ulysses,” my favorite poem. I think it captures the Viking spirit. The last line of it is “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” I think that’s very much like the Viking, you know, “My purpose holds, to sail beyond the baths of all the western stars until I die.” You may die, but I’m gonna do this, and I’m not gonna yield.
Lex Fridman (01:04:46) That spirit is one of my favorite aspects of human beings.
Lars Brownworth (01:04:50) I think that’s why the Vikings remain so popular today, you know? We name our satellites, our football teams, you know, our cruise ships. There’s this like, there’s this romantic hook- … of a people who did not yield.
Lex Fridman (01:05:05) Yeah, they embodied the part, the flame that burns in all of us that we admire most about human beings. It’s that, like, unyielding focus on going out there, of taking a leap into the unknown, into the scary, and never stopping.
Lars Brownworth (01:05:27) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (01:05:28) That.
Lars Brownworth (01:05:28) It’s not too late to seek a newer world.
Lex Fridman (01:05:31) I have to ask you about, speaking of a newer world, America.
Lars Brownworth (01:05:34) Yes.
Lex Fridman (01:05:36) And Leif Ericson. But first, a quick bathroom break if it’s okay. Quick 30-second thank you to our sponsors. Check them out in the description. It really is the best way to support this podcast. Go to lexfridman.com/sponsors. We got Larridin for measuring AI adoption in your business, BetterHelp for mental health, LMNT for electrolytes, Fin for customer service AI agents, Shopify for selling stuff online, and Perplexity for curiosity-driven knowledge exploration. Choose wisely, my friends. And now, back to my conversation with Lars Brownworth. All right, we’re back.

Vikings in North America

Lex Fridman (01:06:15) Let’s talk about this incredible fact of the Vikings, that Leif Ericson, who was a Viking explorer, was the first European to reach North America around the year 1000, five centuries before Columbus reached North America. Tell the story of his journey. What do we know about him?
Lars Brownworth (01:06:35) So let’s begin with his dad. His dad’s name is Erik the Red, who was forced to flee Norway when he was probably 10 years old because his dad had killed some people. It’s kind of hilarious. In the saga it says, “For a few killings…” Okay, I guess that’s a thing. So he went to Iceland and he got a farm in Iceland which was already starting to become overpopulated. They had cut down all the trees. There were some climate problems of deforestation and farms just blowing away, so the population was essentially beginning to crash in Iceland. And he got into a fight with his neighbor and ended up killing his neighbor, and so he was exiled from Iceland. He was exiled from the place his father had been exiled from.
Lex Fridman (01:07:26) So it runs in the family, this whole outlaw thing.
Lars Brownworth (01:07:29) What also ran in the family apparently was this streak, this courageous streak. And he had heard that there had been people… So the Norwegian Vikings, they were aiming for England, and they hit the Hebrides, which are these kind of treeless islands above Scotland, and they found they were good for refueling ’cause they’d pick up water or whatever, and then on your way to Scotland to raid. And then a Viking had missed the Hebrides and discovered Iceland, and then another Viking had aimed for Iceland, missed, and hit Greenland. And a little fun fact about Greenland, it is both north, south, east, and west of Iceland. So it’s any direction, you’re gonna hit Greenland.
Lex Fridman (01:08:12) So Greenland is hard to miss.
Lars Brownworth (01:08:15) It’s hard to miss, which is not to take away anything from the extraordinary danger, the certain death of going further west. But there was this… By this time, there was this idea that, you know, enough people had become famous by sailing west into the unknown and discovering things, that I think there was a general idea of there’s more out there to the west. And so he had talked to someone who had seen Greenland and reported that there was this good land further west. And so he hired the ship’s crew of that Viking. So it’s kind of the deck was loaded, and he went to Greenland where he was able to settle two different colonies. One was called the Western Settlement in the west, and one was called the Eastern Settlement in essentially the extreme south.
Lars Brownworth (01:08:59) And that was essentially the edges of where Viking technology could be. A cool factoid is that the Vikings practiced husbandry, raised animals, and obviously this is not an option in Greenland, although they couldn’t have known it at the time. But they brought plants with them. So, and then they were able to trade with the native Inuit for walrus blubber and things like that, and they made a go of it. But what’s obvious, you know, anyone who’s seen Greenland, there are no trees. It’s almost impossible to survive by practicing husbandry. It is impossible to survive, as it turns out, just practicing husbandry. And by this point, I think this extraordinary Viking pragmatism is beginning to be played out.
Lars Brownworth (01:09:46) Because one of the reasons the Greenland experiment fails ultimately in 300 years is they fail to adapt. It’s clearly they should, they should focus more on fishing, on other sources than, than just raising pigs and cows. But-
Lex Fridman (01:10:07) Oh, so we hit the limit of the Viking adaptability which they have demonstrated throughout the world, I’d say. Interesting.
Lars Brownworth (01:10:15) So Erik the Red is this, he makes his name by exploring, and he does in fact, once he discovers Greenland, he calls it green. He says there’s so many salmon in the rivers of, in the fjords that you can just scoop them out with your hands. You don’t even have to fish.
Lex Fridman (01:10:32) Was this real?
Lars Brownworth (01:10:33) It’s a lie.
Lex Fridman (01:10:34) Okay.
Lars Brownworth (01:10:34) That’s not true at all.
Lex Fridman (01:10:35) So he’s doing propaganda.
Lars Brownworth (01:10:36) He’s doing propaganda.
Lex Fridman (01:10:37) So is that… Is this story true that he called it green just so he can attract-
Lars Brownworth (01:10:41) It is.
Lex Fridman (01:10:41) So-
Lars Brownworth (01:10:41) The greatest real estate scam in history. Yeah. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:10:46) Okay. Genius. I mean, just stuck to this day.
Lars Brownworth (01:10:50) Yeah. It’s the most misnamed place in the world. But in the Europe of the time, even in Iceland, the dream was to have land. I mean, land equaled wealth in Europe. And here he says there’s enough land for the taking, like anyone who wants it, which is true. It’s the largest island on earth. I mean, it’s unusable, but it should be called Iceland, Glacier Land or something. But it worked. He took 500 men with him from Iceland. It’s gotta be a significant chunk of the population, but there’s enough people, kind of land hungry, there’s no more room in Iceland. It’s too restrictive. We’re gonna go further west. So he takes 25 ships and then 14 make it, which is pretty good. And then those 14 ships with their 300 or so people start the western colony.
Lars Brownworth (01:11:46) And then word gets back to Norway, but Norway’s 2,000 miles away, 2,000-plus miles away. So it’s, you know, contact… They’re having to get resupplied. Obviously in the first winter, all their cattle die. That’s not a great, that’s not a great start for people who practice husbandry. So they’ve got to get resupplied from Norway, but, you know, the chances of making it to Norway and back are actually not that great if you’re sailing without a compass. You’re just kind of hoping. But they do it. They do it. And the colonies survive until the 1400s where they just go silent.
Lex Fridman (01:12:20) So let’s talk about Erik the Red’s son, Leif Ericson. How does the journey continue west?
Lars Brownworth (01:12:28) So Erik is getting a little older. The Greenland settlements are becoming filled up. Erik is happy where he is. He’s been kicked out of enough places. He’s made his home here, and this is where he wants to be. But his son… They’re running out of resources. There’s no wood. You know, there’s limited food, et cetera, et cetera. And so his son proposes going west because he’s heard stories that there are other lands. So another Viking had gotten lost, aimed for Greenland and missed, and had seen something. He said he saw clouds and mountains and there’s land there. And then he had turned around. And Leif again did the same thing, he hired the man’s crew.
Lars Brownworth (01:13:07) He asked his dad to come, his dad wouldn’t. He went with his half sister Freydis, who was a whole nother story by herself, and a bunch of other colonists, and they went, and they landed in a place. He called it Vinland because he found things that he could ferment. So, of course, the Vikings, they made wine, or a wine-like alcohol. So Leif Ericsson is, he’s landed. He doesn’t know this, but he’s landed on a new continent with essentially inexhaustible stores of food and timber and everything he needs. It’s the perfect place. Unfortunately for him, it’s also inhabited by some natives, probably the Algonquin tribe. He calls them the Skraelings, which is just Norse for screechers because he can’t understand their language.
Lars Brownworth (01:13:57) They just yell at them and attack immediately. They stay there for three years and then give up and go back home. So ultimately, it… and then really don’t tell anyone about it. They just keep it in their northern sagas.
Lex Fridman (01:14:11) Why do you think they left? Why do you think they didn’t stick around longer?
Lars Brownworth (01:14:15) I think there are a number of things working against them. Of course, I would like to believe there’s an alternate history where the Vikings successfully make it down, you know, maybe down to Maryland or something, and there’s an alternate history of the US and Canada here, but I think there’s a number of things working against them. The first is they stubbornly refused to give up husbandry, so they’re trying to make this work. L’Anse aux Meadows I think is where they were, in Newfoundland. It doesn’t work. The climate’s too cold. It’s not even—the grasses aren’t appropriate, you know, it’s just not gonna work and they do not adapt, number one.
Lars Brownworth (01:14:51) Number two, they’re 2,000-plus miles away from Norway and getting resupplied, and although they are extremely good sailors and explorers and traders, I think this is a little too far. And then thirdly is the native resistance. It’s just too incessant. They are, they are outnumbered, you know, millions to one. And the Algonquin do not want them there. It’s clear, and they’re not gonna stop attacking.
Lex Fridman (01:15:18) It’s so fascinating because they really didn’t understand the full scale of the land they’ve encountered, right?
Lars Brownworth (01:15:25) That’s right. That’s right. I mean, had they known, had he known- … what he had found-
Lex Fridman (01:15:30) That there’s more south. Maybe they, their intuition-
Lars Brownworth (01:15:33) That’s right
Lex Fridman (01:15:33) … was like there’s not… it’s just all northern land, it’s void of resources. We can’t do the whole husbandry thing. But you would think they could go down the coast.
Lars Brownworth (01:15:46) I mean, if they could have gotten enough people from Norway, you know, or Iceland or whatever, you know, a sizable enough colony, and build some kind of defenses to fight off the incessant attacks- … then I think that’s the difference there, ’cause there certainly the resources are all there.
Lex Fridman (01:16:02) Mm-hmm. Or just keep staying in the water, keep going down the coast- … not necessarily camp out until, until you get further south. It is fascinating to think about that alternate history where they would have discovered America and settled there. So this is 500 years before Columbus. There’s… first of all, they could have done a lot of the stuff we think about the European nations doing, including brutality towards the natives. But there could have been a coexistence also, and some of the diseases that come with them could have done the damage that they did 500 years later. But now, it would have stabilized the populations to where the Europeans, the French, the Spanish, and so on who come, the natives would be more ready. So they would…
Lex Fridman (01:16:55) Europe would then encounter a sizable population of the Viking descendants and the natives to where the, the two could hold onto the land and bring a different kind of civilization there. Because ultimately Europe, with the European ways, of the Western civilization, expanded out into North America, but there could be this whole Scandinavian vibe- … that would have taken over.
Lars Brownworth (01:17:22) Just a hair’s breadth. My favorite museum in New York is called The Cloisters. It’s part of the Met, and in the Cloisters, there’s an ivory cross. And the ivory cross has been richly carved with Christian scenes. It was carved in England, but it’s made of walrus ivory, and they got it from the New World. And the Viking, you know, Viking traders. It represents, you know, the great arc of the northern trade. So it’s walrus ivory from the New World via Norway to England to New York. It’s a great symbol of that trade.
Lex Fridman (01:18:04) This whole just period of thousands of years of exploration that we no longer can do, so it’s kind of geographic exploration of the world, is fascinating. It takes true courage. It takes true wonder. The kind of exploration we could do now is more in the scientific realm and the realm of ideas and then maybe in terms of geography out into space and exploring the universe.
Lars Brownworth (01:18:32) Yeah, I think the closest analog is probably Mars, right? I mean, what would it take for you to be like, “All right, I’m gonna leave and I’m gonna go to Mars”? You’re never coming back. There’s nothing there as far as you know. You know, all the accoutrements of civilization are not there. That’s the kind of courage you would have taken.
Lex Fridman (01:18:49) Yeah, but there’s, on top of that, with Greenland, with Iceland, with Finland, there’s just so much uncertainty, like literally what’s beyond this hill. So with Mars, everything is mapped. So it’s really you understand the full harshness of the situation.
Lars Brownworth (01:19:06) Of what you’re gonna face, yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:19:07) So it’s more, that’s more akin to like, all right, I’m running an ultra-marathon. I understand the challenge. I think more akin would be like traveling out into like the Oort cloud, beyond the solar system.
Lars Brownworth (01:19:22) What’s scarier, the known or the unknown?
Lex Fridman (01:19:26) I think that deeply, the human nature pulls us towards the unknown.
Lars Brownworth (01:19:30) No, it’s true. Yeah.

Vikings in the East

Lex Fridman (01:19:31) All right. Speaking of which, going to the East. So like we mentioned, the Vikings really went all over. And one of the directions they went that ended up touching the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople, is they went East. What can you say about the 8th century journey East in the river networks that the Vikings did, the Swedish Vikings, the Varangians, as they began to explore the river systems of Russia?
Lars Brownworth (01:20:02) So this was the most surprising part for me when I was first thinking about writing the book and, you know, discovering where the Vikings went. I never… In a million years, it would’ve never occurred to me that the Vikings went East. But a good way to think of this is the Vikings launched themselves in whatever direction their country is facing. So Sweden goes to the East, Denmark goes down toward Germany, and Norway goes England and the New World. So there’s a Viking named Rorik who goes East and manages to set up an encampment on this lake called Staraya Ladoga.
Lex Fridman (01:20:41) Which is a launchpad to both the Volga River and the Dnieper River.
Lars Brownworth (01:20:46) Yeah, and these are major river systems in the East that take you all the way down to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Because the Vikings, you know, such sea-born people, they can sail up rivers. This allows them access to the caliphates in the East and to the Byzantine Empire, where they, being Vikings, immediately decide to attack the city. The Byzantines essentially set the Sea of Marmara outside of Constantinople on fire- … and burn up all the Viking ships. So then the Vikings decide, “Okay, we can’t, we can’t take Constantinople, so we might as well join ’em if we can’t beat ’em.” And they end up as probably the most famous guard in Byzantine history, the Varangian Guard. Varangian means the men of the oath.
Lars Brownworth (01:21:35) Or the men who’ve sworn an oath. This is kind of an analog of the Praetorian Guard in Ancient Rome. They were famously loyal to the throne, but not necessarily to the person sitting on the throne. They’re major power players. The last of the great Byzantine emperors, Basil the Bulgar-Slayer forms them in the late 900s. And they’re there with the history all the way up until the end of it. In fact, many of our famous Vikings, Harald Hardrada, serve in the Varangian Guard. If you go to Constantinople today, inside the Church of the Hagia Sophia, on the second floor there’s a marble balcony, and on the railings, you can find Norse runes that are carved in by Varangian Guards who were bored during a particularly long sermon, in a language they didn’t understand, but they had to stand there.
Lex Fridman (01:22:29) So, that’s a fascinating thing, which is the Varangian Guard, guarding the emperor of the East Roman Empire, is made up initially, for quite a bit of time, of Vikings.
Lars Brownworth (01:22:42) Yeah. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:22:44) I mean, like speaking of pragmatic, they just integrate into everything. Now eventually, the Varangian Guard became less and less Viking over time.
Lex Fridman (01:22:56) But this whole… You fast-forwarded the story, we should mention that Staraya Ladoga in 753 AD is when it was established, opening the connection to the two rivers, and they began trading on the rivers and establishing more stable states along the rivers, including the Kievan Rus in 862, 882, where the Varangians, so it’s the Swedish Vikings, they took Novgorod, they took Kiev, and they established the Kievan Rus there. And that is what led to the connection to the Byzantine Empire, where they started to… Again, the Vikings went from being Vikings. They go through this process of trading and then establishing a state, now they’re doing treaties of different kinds, and they’re also waging or trying to wage war.
Lex Fridman (01:23:51) And going all the way to Constantinople, and having a deep admiration for Constantinople enough to then begin to dream of sacking Constantinople.
Lars Brownworth (01:24:03) Yeah. I mean, once they’re alerted to the wealth that’s there, you know, Vikings being Vikings, they show up.
Lex Fridman (01:24:10) Can you speak to the Greek Fire? So this was 941 and 944 when they tried, and then Greek Fire was this technology developed by the Romans.
Lars Brownworth (01:24:23) We don’t really know what it was, Greek Fire. It was a form of napalm, obviously. We have the ingredients what made it up, naphtha and oil and things like that. But it was this very flammable material that would ignite on contact. So the Byzantines would fill it into clay pots and then throw the clay pots. As soon as it’s exposed to oxygen, it would start burning. They also had siphons. They would carry, like, flamethrowers on their back and they would just spray it at enemies. And the- the real devious thing about it is that if you launch this clay pot at a ship and the material, you know, pooled across the wood and then dripped off into the water, being oil, it would float on top of the water and continue to burn.
Lars Brownworth (01:25:07) So that if you were a sailor and you jumped off the ship ’cause it’s on fire and jumped into this oil patch that’s on fire, you’d be coated with it and you’d burn underneath the water. It was a horrible way to go. So this was a state secret, closely guarded secret. So closely guarded—it remains a mystery to this day of what exactly it was.
Lex Fridman (01:25:29) Which is incredible, right?
Lars Brownworth (01:25:31) Yeah. But it, in the 944 attack on Constantinople, I mean the Vikings are coming on their ships. They brought these ships from Sweden. I mean that’s crazy. They’re in the Black Sea. They’ve sailed and they kind of swarm at the Byzantines. The Byzantines launch a bunch of decrepit old ships toward them that have Greek fire on them, and that turns the tide. But the Byzantine emperor so appreciates the strength of these horrifying Vikings that he forms a bodyguard of them.
Lex Fridman (01:26:03) And hence we get just a few years later, again, tried to sack Constantinople and then join them.
Lars Brownworth (01:26:09) Join ’em, yep.
Lex Fridman (01:26:10) The Varangian Guard in 988 with Basil II and Vladimir, they make the Varangian Guard into an institution, and then the word of mouth spreads that this is a real career path for the Viking, is to join the guard.
Lars Brownworth (01:26:25) Yeah, that’s right. ‘Cause not only do you get paid very, you’re compensated very well obviously for defending the emperor, particularly if you do a good job, but you also have opportunities ’cause the emperor sends you, “Let’s go attack, you know, this tribe,” and you get to keep whatever you take. So there’s tremendous amounts of war profiteering you can accomplish. And the other great river system, the Volga, that brings you to the great enemy of the Byzantines, the Abbasid Caliphate. And they had a lot of trading links with the north. So you get things like fur and amber, lots of slaves from the Islamic world going up. You even have in a Swedish coin hoard, there’s a Buddha that’s been found. I mean… it’s Sweden.
Lex Fridman (01:27:18) Yeah. So these networks of trade, just how incredible are they with geography, right? You can transform your understanding of land from the geography of the land to the geography of the river networks, because the way they raid and then invade and then conquer England is through the rivers. It’s an incredibly different way of seeing the world.
Lars Brownworth (01:27:42) Yeah. And if you look at the kingdoms the Vikings created, I’m thinking particularly of like Eric Blood-Axe in, you know, in York, he’s controlling parts of Ireland, parts of Scotland, Wales, England. Like there’s no… That doesn’t make sense unless you’re a Viking. You know, he’s… That also added tremendously to the terror that the Vikings brought, because I mean you should probably be a little careful with absolute statements here, but I can’t think of a major European city that’s not on a river. Which meant now with the Vikings, ’cause they could travel up, you know, rivers, the shallow rivers and then carry their boats whenever, everything was on the table now, even hundreds of miles inland is on the table.
Lex Fridman (01:28:33) And an incredible speed, much faster than the land armies. It’s terrifying.
Lars Brownworth (01:28:38) It’s terrifying.
Lex Fridman (01:28:38) So you’re living in a constant state of fear.
Lars Brownworth (01:28:39) Constant state of fear.
Lex Fridman (01:28:41) We’ve talked about this transition in several different contexts, but you’ve written about this. It’s really interesting. Is the Vikings, like Ragnar, going from this mode of sea kings with no territory to the mode of land kings? So you have like somebody like Harald Bluetooth, 10th century Viking king of Denmark, you go from being these grand explorers that are free to being state builders. Was this always inevitable for all of these Vikings? Could we speak to the different transitions, maybe in England?
Lars Brownworth (01:29:21) I think in one way, it’s inevitable. There’s so many examples of destroyers who just wreck civilizations. The builders are much more rare, you know? So I think it’s one of the reasons I think Augustus is a much more interesting person than Julius Caesar is. Augustus was a builder, and I like to see that. I like to see not just can you pull down, but can you build up? You know, just to take Ireland for example, Dublin, Limerick, almost every major city in Ireland was founded by the Vikings. So I don’t think it’s just a given that it would have happened. I think there’s something about the Vikings, and it’s probably tied to their pragmatism, their—like this pragmatic streak of, “We’re gonna use whatever. Oh, this system of king works.
Lars Brownworth (01:30:12) This taxation system’s pretty good, let’s keep it.” You know, “Oh, this doesn’t work. Let’s ditch it.”
Lex Fridman (01:30:18) Yeah, they went from destroyer to builder very naturally and very quickly.
Lars Brownworth (01:30:24) Yeah. There’s a natural process from conquering to building, but it does take talent and it does take a certain something.
Lex Fridman (01:30:34) Can we talk about, so, one of the great Vikings, Canute the Great?
Lars Brownworth (01:30:39) I love Canute. I love Canute. I think he never, he doesn’t get his due. He’s one of those unsung heroes, I think, of the Viking world. He had a reputation. He was called the Emperor of the North. He had this massive, you know, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark. I mean he’s just tying it all together. He was an extremely effective English king. I believe he introduced the penny, sadly discontinued, but I—
Lex Fridman (01:31:08) Oh wait, really? Discontinued?
Lars Brownworth (01:31:10) Discontinued. They’re no longer making…
Lex Fridman (01:31:11) The penny is discontinued.
Lars Brownworth (01:31:12) 2025’s the last, the last penny.
Lex Fridman (01:31:14) Oh, no.
Lars Brownworth (01:31:15) Everything’s gonna go up by five.
Lex Fridman (01:31:19) So going to Perplexity. Canute the Great was an early 11th century Danish ruler who became king of England, Denmark, and Norway… creating what historians call the North Sea Empire. He’s often regarded as one of the most effective kings in Anglo-Saxon English history for stabilizing the realm after decades of Viking warfare. Again, an example of a destroyer becoming a state builder.
Lars Brownworth (01:31:47) Yeah. He was extremely strong. He was effective. You know, England went from being the whipping boy of the Vikings to controlling the Vikings.
Lex Fridman (01:32:01) And ended up on a pilgrimage to Rome.
Lars Brownworth (01:32:04) Went to Rome. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:32:06) So he, although a Viking war leader, Canute ruled as a Christian king- … Patronizing churches and monasteries and going on pilgrimage to Rome in 1027 where he attended the Holy Roman Emperor’s coronation.
Lars Brownworth (01:32:21) Yes, he was recognized by his contemporaries as something special, right? You don’t get invited to those coronations if you’re a nobody. But the most famous story of Canute that I know, my favorite story, is, you know, being in positions of power, being famous, a lot of people sucking up to you, a lot of people telling you whatever they think you wanna hear. And so people are telling him all the time how wonderful he is, and he takes his whole court down to the seashore and orders his, his courtiers to carry him on his throne into the water, and then he commands the seas to stop, the waves to stop and to retreat.
Lars Brownworth (01:33:00) And they don’t, obviously, and everyone thinks he’s a little… But his point is that, “Y’all are saying how great I am. I have no control.” I mean, this is his active humility to kind of embarrass… “I have no control over anything. Stop telling me I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Lex Fridman (01:33:15) I like the leaders, and there’s a few of them in history that rise to the very top, and they’re still able to maintain humility. Marcus Aurelius in the Roman Empire is an example that, you know, reading Meditations is also just an insight into the mind of a man who’s to himself—’cause Meditations is not supposed to be work that’s published. It’s just a diary. To himself, he’s deeply humbled. And- … and one of the most powerful humans in history- … is still humble.
Lars Brownworth (01:33:49) The two most famous stoics, one was an emperor and one was a slave.
Lex Fridman (01:33:55) So in the other part of the world, you’ve written a book and you did an—a legendary podcast series on The Byzantine Empire, the East Roman Empire, AKA, The Roman Empire. Well, let me actually just as a tangent of a tangent ask you about the podcast. So you’re—you created what is widely considered to be the first history podcast. This is before Dan Carlin, before all the amazing podcasts we all know and love. So the podcast series of course is The Twelve Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire. What motivated you to explore this medium of podcasting? What… In—in the early, this must’ve been 2005, something like this.
Lars Brownworth (01:34:41) It was ’05, yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:34:42) And people should go listen to it because it, it’s still, I mean, it’s like we’re talking about like ancient times or something, ’cause it is now a long time ago, but it’s still an incredibly good podcast. It’s a great podcast series.
Lars Brownworth (01:34:54) Thank you. At the time, there’s a series that I would get at the library called The Great Courses. I don’t know if you’re familiar with-
Lex Fridman (01:35:02) Yes. Great Courses, yes.
Lars Brownworth (01:35:03) There was one particular professor. His name is Bob Brier, and he was—he’s an Egyptologist, lives on Long Island where I’m from, and he—I mean, it’s a massive thing. It’s like 24 hours- of lectures about the entire history of Egypt, and it was fascinating, ’cause he’s such a good storyteller. And I was reading… As a kid I could never figure out if I liked the medieval period better or the Roman period better. I was constantly going back and forth, and I stumbled across a book which referred to the medieval Roman Empire, and it was a bit like discovering your favorite TV show had 12 extra seasons you didn’t know about.
Lars Brownworth (01:35:47) And they were just as good. So I… It really was a labor of love. I would not shut up about The Byzantine Empire. So my older brother, we would go on walks together and I would be like, “And then Justinian, you know, da, da, da.” And he stopped me, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no idea, like, I need a framework. Give me a framework for this.” So I went home and I recorded myself giving a framework, which turned out to be episode one, but I think I did it in a British accent, a really bad British accent.
Lars Brownworth (01:36:21) I was just messing around. And I gave him the… Luckily, I did it in my regular voice as well as this goofy accent, and I gave it to him and then I forgot about it. And that summer I was on a dig in Petra excavating the Temple of the Winged Lions, which was like a dream come true for me. And I get this email from my brother and he said, “Oh, I just submitted it as a podcast.” So he had to tell me what that was. But I was going for, to the extent that I had put thought into it, I was going for kind of a longer form lecture Great Courses series on the Byzantines. And then a bunch of people started emailing me saying, “When’s episode two coming out?” Oh, okay. So I guess there has to be an episode two. And then the thing kinda snowballed from there. I had no idea what I was doing.
Lex Fridman (01:37:15) Your brother, by the way, is super tech savvy.
Lars Brownworth (01:37:18) He is. It wouldn’t have happened without Anders. So Anders, thank you.
Lex Fridman (01:37:22) But like looking back now, what do you think about that medium? Why do you think it connected so much to people? Because you’ve also written several amazing books. One of them is on The Byzantine Empire. Just looking back in a retrospective kind of way, because that from there blew up an entire industry of incredible other history podcasts and podcasts in general.
Lars Brownworth (01:37:49) Yeah, I’ve been… That’s a great question. I’ve been trying to think for the past 20 years, like why it’s such a niche field, right? Why would people be interested in it? I think number one, it’s a great story. And people are people, and we haven’t changed much, which is one of the reasons why it’s accessible, because it’s very… These are people you could meet today. But I think podcasting in general, because there’s such a low bar to get in, or there was at the time. I mean, there’s nobody else, so just by virtue of being first, you know, it attracted attention. Whatever its merits, being first was the strongest one.
Lex Fridman (01:38:38) Which is to say you also did another series on the Normans, who no longer had the benefit of being first and were still nevertheless very good, so…
Lars Brownworth (01:38:48) Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. It was… But I think podcasting in a way democratizes learning. You know, it unlocked the potential of all these armchair historians. I’m one of them who’s like, “Hey, this is really cool. I’m passionate about this.” You know, anything that allows you to tap into your passion, I think is gonna be great.

Byzantine Empire

Lex Fridman (01:39:14) And the Byzantine Empire’s an interesting one. I don’t understand maybe… And you articulated this well, but it doesn’t get like the love that it maybe deserves in history. I think the framing of the book you wrote on the topic is the reason we have Western civilization as we know, or European-based Western civilization. In a sense because you have… They… Let’s see, maybe you can articulate the different ways they connected the thread, but one of them is they preserved the knowledge when the West was—when Europe was going through a dark period; they protected Europe in all those ways.
Lars Brownworth (01:39:52) And then eventually they jumpstart the Renaissance, ’cause people are… Constantinople’s gonna fall. It’s inevitable. It’s surrounded by hostile powers, and so they start migrating to Italy. Just at the moment Italy is receptive to its Greco-Roman past. Greek had died out in the West actually as early as the time of Justinian in the 500s, 560s. They needed… If you wanted to travel between the eastern and western parts of the empire, you needed guidebooks with helpful Latin or Greek phrases. So Latin had died out in the East and Greek had died out in the West by the 14th century, so you needed Byzantine teachers to be able to read Plato and Aristotle.
Lex Fridman (01:40:41) The book also emphasizes as we’ve mentioned, a kind of great man view of history. So celebrating people like Constantine and Justinian. Or Justinian, who would be your number one top emperor in the history of the East Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire?
Lars Brownworth (01:40:58) Hmm, that’s a good question. I mean, romantically, it’s gotta be Justinian. He dreams big. He dreams big. He doesn’t always get there, but he dreams big.
Lex Fridman (01:41:07) He dreamed and tried to reconquer the Western Roman Empire. I mean, he was a lot of wars of conquest- … and built the…
Lars Brownworth (01:41:19) Built the Hagia Sophia. I mean, I think this is… You know, we’re interested in the Egyptians because they built the pyramids. We’re not interested in the pyramids because they were built by the Egyptians, right? It’s like what is the great thing that your society has created? I think the Hagia Sophia is that for the Byzantine Empire. I mean, to go in it today is still the closest you can come to the fifth century. You know, and it peeled back the imperial splendor of what it must’ve been like. You know, you can still see it. You can smell it. You can feel it. Like, it’s there.
Lex Fridman (01:41:52) There’s actually a really nice video on YouTube of you going from I think 50 to 60 years ago. I don’t know.
Lars Brownworth (01:42:00) Seems like that. It does seem like that, yeah. We actually were kicked out.
Lex Fridman (01:42:04) Oh, what’d you do?
Lars Brownworth (01:42:04) My brother and I went.
Lex Fridman (01:42:05) What would you do?
Lars Brownworth (01:42:06) Well, you know, they—as you know, they’re very strict as to guides. They want to promote the local economy, so you have to have a local guide. You can’t go in there and look like you’re being a tour guide without a license. You have 15 different organizations. So we went there early, the hour it opened, and we had the entire cathedral to ourselves. And so we went around and my brother’s holding this camera and I’m, you know, goofily pointing things out. And one of the guards noticed us, and, you know, we had to remove ourselves from the building.
Lex Fridman (01:42:41) And so one of the things, I mean Justinian was a critical person in this too. He overhauled the Roman law. The legal system, the law… First of all, the Roman Empire in general, the East Roman Empire propagated it. They believed in the law. They held onto the law. And that’s many of the legal ideas we take for granted is grounded in everything developed in the Roman Empire and stabilizing the Roman Empire, so they carried that flag forward.
Lars Brownworth (01:43:11) Yeah. I mean, outside of Great Britain, all European legal systems are based on, ultimately based on the Code of Justinian, and then weirdly, because of the French connections, the State of Louisiana. Actually, if you want to be a lawyer, you have to—you have to pass a different bar in Louisiana than in everywhere else in the US.
Lex Fridman (01:43:32) Why do you think the—the Western Roman Empire and then the Eastern Roman Empire collapsed? Just looking at the grand picture of the history of the Roman Empire, it’s 2,200 years starting from the kingdom to the republic… and to the imperial period, to the East Roman Empire period. Why do societies rise and fall?
Lars Brownworth (01:43:55) That’s a really interesting question, and there are probably as many answers as there are different kingdoms. But just the Roman Empire. My take on it is that the collapse really starts at the end of the reign of Basil II. So the year is 1025. Basil is the last monarch of the Macedonian dynasty, which had seen the empire become the most powerful state in the Mediterranean, much more powerful and advanced than its Muslim or Christian neighbors. He had expanded the empire essentially as large as it was going to be after Justinian. It was wealthy, it was glittering, it was educated. I mean, courtiers had to memorize the works of Plato by heart.
Lars Brownworth (01:44:44) The emperor, one of his favorite activities was to go, and he would begin a quote, and you would have to finish it, but you didn’t know where he would begin or what he was thinking that day. This is kind of what amused him, so they’re incredibly literate. I mean, inside Constantinople itself, the literacy rate was close to 100, which is…
Lars Brownworth (01:45:03) … crazy. But when he died, the court, which had been this magnificent court, this bureaucracy which had been running the empire, and which is vital to the workings of the empire, they convinced themselves that they could run the empire, they didn’t actually need the emperor. And so they specifically selected weak rulers, and then that led directly to the disastrous Battle of Manzikert in 1071, where the Turks enter the story and defeat, destroy the Roman army under Romanos Diogenes, who’s attempting to break free of the bureaucratic constraints. And then Anatolia gets flooded by these nomadic warriors, and the Byzantine gets pushed out on the…
Lars Brownworth (01:45:46) So once they’ve lost the heartland, they’ve lost their source of troops, they’ve lost their source of taxation, they’ve lost their source of food. At this point it’s impossible to recover, and the Crusades are an attempt, the First Crusade anyway is an attempt by the Eastern Emperor Alexius to recover Asia Minor, more than Jerusalem. He wants to recover Asia Minor, and obviously it doesn’t work out. So I think at that point, it’s on a trajectory that can only end in collapse. And I think that’s, you can see that same kind of thing in the Viking world that we talked about, this stultifying, bureaucratic, this inflexibility.
Lex Fridman (01:46:29) Combined with the growing threats from all directions.
Lars Brownworth (01:46:32) Growing threats in all directions. Maybe your own success is beginning to be a problem. And you can’t adapt as quickly, you’re not as lean and mean anymore. There’s too many traditions, too many, too much, the weight of history breaks you.
Lex Fridman (01:46:45) You sort of mentioned the Macedonian period, the dynasty where the East Roman Empire flourished once again, but like, they have gone through so many periods like that, and they lasted.
Lars Brownworth (01:46:56) That’s true. That is true.
Lex Fridman (01:46:57) I don’t know what the reason is, but you can really trace the Roman spirit, the Roman state, the core of whatever that is, through that 2,200-year period. There’s a real connection there, a thread that connects all of it, and so that, there’s lessons. That’s why we do need to study the Byzantium Empire for lessons of what makes societies last. Eventually everything collapses, but like that one lasted-
Lars Brownworth (01:47:28) That one lasted a long time.
Lex Fridman (01:47:29) … longer. It’s easier to last when you’re hidden away somewhere, but they were in the middle of everything. Everybody wanted what they had.
Lars Brownworth (01:47:35) Yeah, they were getting hit on all sides. There was, in their entire 2200-year history, there was not a single year they were at peace on all frontiers. Like, crazy.
Lex Fridman (01:47:45) And it wasn’t always because they were looking for trouble.
Lars Brownworth (01:47:47) No.
Lex Fridman (01:47:48) They’re, a lot of it is defensive.
Lars Brownworth (01:47:50) Yep, including with those pesky Normans.

History and human nature

Lex Fridman (01:47:55) Yeah, yeah. On the topic of great men in history, so where do you land on this great debate? How important are individual humans versus systems? So what do you think turns the tides of history? Can individual rulers or individual warriors or individual humans have the power to change the course of history?
Lars Brownworth (01:48:20) Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it? I… The short answer is I subscribe to the great man or great woman theory. I think there’s moments—I can’t imagine the Protestant Reformation. I don’t think you can just swap out Martin Luther and have a Protestant Reformation. I don’t think you can swap out Augustus and have the Roman Empire. I mean, there are… I don’t think you can swap out Genghis—and so on and so forth. I think ultimately these impersonal forces are insufficient for explaining, because we are people. We are humans. We are, you know, everything is kind of a relational thing. And but at the same time, you know, the moment needs the man, but the man also needs the moment, you know?
Lex Fridman (01:49:07) Some of it is timing, some of it is the environment- … the system around it. But yeah, I’ve just seen so many incredible humans that persevere through things that would break basically everybody. And they, the power of the belief they have. We were talking offline about Napoleon. Here’s a guy who was a student of all the great military generals of the past. Extremely competent in being able to micromanage every aspect of military affairs of a nation, but also extremely confident in his vision of the world and ability to conquer anyone. And you have the same thing with Genghis Khan. This boy that came from nothing. Everything was taken away. He united all of Mongolia, and then conquered most of the known world to them, including eventually China.
Lex Fridman (01:50:15) And it’s like, well, can you possibly have the great Mongol Empire without Genghis Khan?
Lars Brownworth (01:50:24) No.
Lex Fridman (01:50:26) And the same, and we as Americans ask ourselves that question about the founders. I mean, George Washington, not to romanticize it, but to give away power symbolically is a really powerful statement like we’ll mention with Augustus. There’s… When somebody’s given power, and in some sense absolute power, what they do with that power can reverberate through generations, and that’s in the hands of an individual.
Lars Brownworth (01:50:57) Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s well put. You know, Cincinnatus in Ancient Rome, same thing.
Lex Fridman (01:51:05) What lessons from… This is a big, ridiculous question, but-
Lars Brownworth (01:51:09) Go at it.
Lex Fridman (01:51:09) … what lessons from all the things we’ve talked about, the exploration of the Vikings? What lessons do you learn from Vikings?
Lars Brownworth (01:51:17) Lessons, lessons to learn from the Viking Age?
Lex Fridman (01:51:20) By the way, I should mention one thing. It’s a very practical lesson that we didn’t talk about that you taught me is the, the Vikings were, like, groomed themselves.
Lars Brownworth (01:51:34) Oh yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:51:34) They were like clean. This is so very surprising to me. That they like washed themselves and then both the men and the women- … really took care of themselves. You don’t often think about that.
Lars Brownworth (01:51:44) There was this whole… Like, the Vikings, everyone at this… Everyone has this very clear picture of what a Viking looked like- … and also has no idea what a Viking looked like somehow at the same time. Like, almost everything about them is wrong- … that we think of. You know, almost everything about them is wrong. They didn’t wear horned helmets. They, their hair probably was blonde disproportionately, but that was more because they used lye to dye it because it would kill the lice. And then they would take baths on a more regular basis than… I mean, this depended on where you were. So in England, for example, they were mocked as being soft, which always blows my mind. Like, really? You’re gonna mock the Vikings for being soft? Because they took too many baths.
Lars Brownworth (01:52:29) But then in the Muslim East, one Muslim traveler writes that they were God’s filthiest creatures because of their habits of kind of disgusting shared bathing.
Lex Fridman (01:52:42) Oh, that aspect of it.
Lars Brownworth (01:52:43) That, yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:52:44) Yeah. So, it’s not that they didn’t bathe, they bathed a little too much and together.
Lars Brownworth (01:52:48) They bathed, but they also like would brush their teeth- … using like recycled… Like, they would then spit into a cup and pass it to the next guy.
Lex Fridman (01:52:57) Got it.
Lars Brownworth (01:52:57) It was… It’s not awesome.
Lex Fridman (01:52:59) I read that… This is, this could be propaganda, but I read that in England there was worry that the Vikings were a bit too attractive to the women of England because of how much the Vikings took care of themselves in terms of grooming.
Lars Brownworth (01:53:17) Yeah. In the Danelaw, like you get invaded by these people- … they’re kicking your rear end militarily. Now they’re stealing your women just to insult you as well. You know?
Lex Fridman (01:53:28) Yeah. They’re… They wash themselves daily. They’ve got good teeth. What is this bullshit?
Lars Brownworth (01:53:34) Whether they need it or not, I know. It really is…
Lex Fridman (01:53:37) Why you guys can’t have everything? What are you doing? Anyway, so yeah, so one of the lessons I think we need to draw is shower daily.
Lars Brownworth (01:53:45) Shower daily.
Lex Fridman (01:53:46) Yeah, there you go.
Lars Brownworth (01:53:47) That’s right.
Lex Fridman (01:53:47) That’s the one thing I forgot.
Lars Brownworth (01:53:48) That’s the lesson, that’s the takeaway, that’s the big profound takeaway.
Lex Fridman (01:53:52) Is there something bigger about the exploration about the leaps into the unknown?
Lars Brownworth (01:53:57) Yeah, I think a couple of years ago, there were all these debates about statues. Make sure we pull these statues down. This person did a bad thing, let’s pull these statues. You know, and I always thought they were kind of silly, too. I mean, I understand the point, but… Like, we don’t… When you have a statue of Christopher Columbus, for example, you’re not glorifying every single thing the man ever did and all the bad stuff that comes from this or that. You’re honoring something about him, like the spirit it takes to cross an ocean not knowing what’s on the other side, and that’s that spirit of exploration. I think with the Vikings, it’s the same. There’s this way you approach the world, this fearless, pragmatic approach.
Lars Brownworth (01:54:40) I think as an American too, it’s the ultimate rags to riches. It’s the myth we tell ourself. You know, the man who starts with nothing and ends up as a sea king, well respected and sung about by poets. I mean, that’s it right there. You know, this is… And when you’re a society and you stop doing this, you run into trouble as well.
Lex Fridman (01:55:03) What about the, the Byzantine Empire? What lessons do you draw from them?
Lars Brownworth (01:55:08) This is a much… That’s a much bigger one.
Lex Fridman (01:55:10) 1000-year history.
Lars Brownworth (01:55:11) 1000-year history, and it’s also what I think is so cool about the Byzantines is that in the ways that they are like us and the way that they are unlike us. In some ways, they’re very analogous to the United States. The kind of the polyglot nature of their inhabitants, you know, the, their roots, the Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian roots. And yet it was a place of incredible alien things as well. Men sitting on top of pillars. You know, a king, an incredibly hierarchical system which abhorred democracy. So I think it’s a way, it’s a way we… It’s a route we could have taken…. And it’s the way they handled things. Immigration, inflation, war, peace, diplomacy. I think there are, there are lessons there for us.
Lex Fridman (01:56:09) Yeah. Yeah, I think from the Vikings, the lessons are a bit more poetic. The lessons from the Byzantine Empire is like quite literal, like how to run a government, how to run the law, how to-
Lars Brownworth (01:56:19) Yeah. How to build a stable society. And honestly, like you can count on the fingers of one hand, states that have lasted a thousand years, right? Byzantium and Venice, I think. And Venice was an offshoot of the Byzantines. Like that’s a gov— for a government to last a thousand years is a rare thing. Like, we should be taking a look at this. Like how? And how much of that is due to Augustus? Can we give him any credit for this? He built the system.
Lex Fridman (01:56:48) Yeah. But there was a lot, like you mentioned a lot of people along the way from Constantine to Justinian, the Basils. There’s so many emperors along the way that revolutionized and then restabilized the empire after it was almost falling apart.
Lars Brownworth (01:57:04) Oh, yeah. You know what else too though? Like what happens to a human when you give that human essentially absolute power? ‘Cause the Byzantine emperor stood halfway there. I mean, he was more autocratic than anything other than, I don’t know, the pope that we have in the modern world. What happens when you give someone that level of power? Like, I love Justinian, but I wouldn’t have liked to know him. You know, I wouldn’t like to be one of his subjects. I love Basil I, but the man was a bloodthirsty tyrant. Like, I think it shows you what happened. What is it? Lord Acton: “Absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Like that’s quite clear throughout Byzantine histories, and it’s a long, a long list.
Lex Fridman (01:57:52) And as technologies become more powerful, absolute power becomes potentially more destructive, so-
Lars Brownworth (01:58:03) Yeah, it’s more absolute.
Lex Fridman (01:58:04) It’s more absolute.
Lars Brownworth (01:58:05) You know?
Lex Fridman (01:58:05) And it’s— I mean, this is the project for the 21st century, the 20th and the 21st centuries post-Industrial Revolution, post the computer technological revolution, post nuclear weapons discovery. How do we construct societies that last like the Byzantine Empire did a thousand years? It’s just like a new challenge for us. There’s gonna be history books written about us ’cause like nuclear weapons, you know, 80 years ago, it’s like Greek fire that you can apply to the entirety of human civilization. And, and so- … that, there’s gonna be good history books, and I hope there’s gonna be these stories about the American empire, about the rest that sound similar to Byzantium Empire versus the Viking age. It only lasted-
Lars Brownworth (01:59:05) Yeah. Yeah.
Lex Fridman (01:59:06) … three centuries.
Lars Brownworth (01:59:07) I mean, I suppose the good news is it can be done, right? Or it has been done.
Lex Fridman (01:59:11) It has been done. What gives you hope about the future, having looked at the deep history of us? What gives you hope?
Lars Brownworth (01:59:21) During grad school, I was reading Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, and he said, “I could sit with Plato and Cicero, and they would not flinch.” You know, by which he meant that the great conversation was for everyone, no matter what your skin color, no matter what your level of income, and even no matter your intelligence, you know? And I think that’s actually what, that’s why history comes alive for me, is because these are not alien people. You, you had asked how similar are ancient people to us psychologically.
Lars Brownworth (01:59:57) You know, and what their goals were for li- And I think the short answer is they were identical to us, which is why we can understand them. It’s why you should read things. It’s why you should read the Meditations because this is not just some dry whatever talking to himself in a culture that you cannot understand and can never recreate. It’s a human talking about being human, you know? And I think human nature has not changed, and I don’t think human nature will change. So we are flawed and broken, and we’re… that’s, that’s the human condition. We’re gonna be flawed and broken. So I don’t think… I actually think that’s the great, that’s the great question of history. If you wanna understand history, you have to know about human nature. What is our human nature?
Lars Brownworth (02:00:48) If you think it’s a blank slate and we can kind of educate ourselves to a utopia or, you know, like the Marxists said, then okay. Hasn’t really worked out, but okay. If you believe we’re basically bad, there’s a whole set of things that come with that. If you believe we’re basically good, there’s a whole set of… right? So, you won’t learn the appropriate lesson if you misdiagnose human nature.
Lex Fridman (02:01:10) Yeah. I think the diagnosis that you’re kinda hinting at is, is seemingly the most accurate one, which is we’re flawed. A mix of good, a mix of evil, capacity for both.
Lars Brownworth (02:01:22) That’s right. That’s right. I mean, I have to teach my kids to be kind. I don’t have to teach my kids to be unkind. I mean, one of those is natural, and one is not. I think my kids can become kind, you know?
Lex Fridman (02:01:35) The capacity.
Lars Brownworth (02:01:36) The capacity.
Lex Fridman (02:01:37) Is there.
Lars Brownworth (02:01:37) Humans have the capacity for much greater things. But not perfection. It has to come outside of us.
Lex Fridman (02:01:46) Well, what is it? That line of, “All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars.” And so you gotta teach as many of us to look up at the stars and dream. Because once you allow yourself to dream of a better world, you try, you try. Like the Vikings did, go out there. Don’t… try to not to murder your neighbor, but if you do, all of us have, of course.
Lars Brownworth (02:02:16) If you do, there’s Greenland. There’s Greenland.
Lex Fridman (02:02:18) There’s Greenland. Thank you for everything you’ve done for the world. Thank you for the podcast you put out there. Thank you for your incredible books, and thank you for the conversation today.
Lars Brownworth (02:02:27) Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks a lot.
Lex Fridman (02:02:31) Thanks for listening to this conversation with Lars Brownworth. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback, and so on. And now, let me leave you with some words from the Volsunga Saga, a 13th century Icelandic prose epic that tells the story of the Volsunga clan, a legendary Norse dynasty of heroes and dragon slayers. “Fear not death, for the hour of your doom is set, and none may escape it.” And another powerful quote from this saga is, “Better to fight and fall than to live without hope.” Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.