According to Viking mythology, when soldiers died in battle they would be swept up by warrior maidens called Valkyries (vahl-KEER-uhz) and taken to a kind of heaven. The latter was called Valhalla (vahl-HAHL-uh), and was essentially a more perfect version of the Vikings' own feasting halls, where they dined on legs of mutton and drank an intoxicating honey malt beverage called mead (MEED).
Norse mythology became the basis for a number of great medieval epics: the Icelandic Eddas (c. 900-1241) and Volsung Saga (1200s), as well as the German Niebelungenlied (nee-buh-LOONG-en-leed; 1200s). In the nineteenth century, German composer Richard Wagner (REE-kard VAHG-nur) wrote a majestic series of operas, The Ring, based on the Nordic myths.
One of the most memorable pieces from The Ring is called "Ride of the Valkyries."
Taking and wild orgies in the papal palace. Yet this period also saw the beginnings of church reform, led by the Benedictine monks at Cluny in France in 910. The Cluniac (KLOO-nee-ak) movement stood for a new type of monasticism: instead of withdrawing from the world, the Cluniacs sought to strengthen the central authority of the pope as a way of reinvigorating the church, and thus society as a whole.
The 900s also experienced the rise of Western Europe's first great leader since Charlemagne, Otto the
Great (912-973). In 955, he defeated the Magyars, who soon became Christianized and settled permanently in Hungary. He then marched into Italy, by then under threat from a variety of local kings. Otto defeated them, and in 962, the pope crowned him emperor, reviving the title held by Charlemagne. A year later, Otto had the crooked Pope John replaced, showing that though the bishop of Rome could crown him, he still held more power. The great struggle of kings and popes, a conflict that would dominate the eleventh century, had begun.
World History
