North Germanic peoples
Vikings were also active in Francia. Some of these Vikings would sail through the Strait of Gibraltar and pillage the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. In the early 10th century, a group of Vikings under the leadership of Rollo settled in Rouen, France, and established the Duchy of Normandy. The descendants of these Vikings, known as the "Normans", would in the 11th century conquer England, Southern Italy, and North Africa, and play a leading role in launching the Crusades. Sub-groups of the Normans include Anglo-Normans, Scoto-Normans, Cambro-Normans, Hiberno-Normans and Italo-Normans.
Vikings
Geographically, a Viking Age may be assigned to not only Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden), but also territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria, parts of Mercia, and East Anglia. Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland; and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000. The Greenland settlement was established around 980, during the Medieval Warm Period, and its demise by the mid-15th century may have been partly due to climate change. The Viking Rurik dynasty took control of territories in Slavic and Finno-Ugric-dominated areas of Eastern Europe; they annexed Kiev in 882 to serve as the capital of the Kievan Rus'.