Last episode, we talked about the Charles the Hammer and his son Charlemagne, and the Carolingian renaissance in France and western Europe. After Charley and Charley were gone, though, Europe settled back into a period of relative darkness, without much central control. There wasn’t really one dominant power in any part of Europe, and partly because of this, the Dark Ages was a time when a lot of different groups were moving to new places in Europe, conquering and being conquered. Some of these tribes, the sea-borne ones, were known as Vikings.