How common were horsemen among the Norsemen of the Viking Era?

It is very difficult to say, but traces of heavy knights have been found in Mälardalen and in västra Götaland in Sweden in fairly large amounts, so they definitely had access to heavy knight- like cavalry. read more

Norsemen refers to the Germanic tribal people living in Scandinavia around the Viking age. Viking is not a people, but an occupation. Norsemen would “go viking”, meaning that they would go on raiding expeditions. The way they saw it, Viking was not something they were, but rather something they did. read more

In the early Medieval period, as today, Vikings was a common term for attacking Norsemen, especially in connection with raids and monastic plundering by Norsemen in the British Isles. The Norse were also known as Ascomanni, ashmen, by the Germans, Lochlanach (Norse) by the Gaels and Dene (Danes) by the Anglo-Saxons. read more

The Norsemen did not differ essentially from the other Vikings, who were known as Danes in England and as Varangians in Russia. See T. D. Kendrick, A History of the Vikings (1930, repr. 1968); E. C. Oxenstierna, The Norsemen (tr. 1965) and The World of the Norsemen (tr. 1968). read more