Basically Europe of this period was similar to what we think of as the
Wild west. Charlemagne's Frankish Empire has essentially disintegrated
into a decentralized federation of feudal lords, meaning the Church had
lost much of its power in modern day Germany, France and the low
countries. Knights were nothing more than thuggish bands of soldiers
beating taxes out of the peasants, the Muslims controled the Iberian
peninsula (Spain) and were pushing on the Byzantine Empire in the east.
Norsemen had began their raids on europe in 793 at Lindisfarne,
beginning the Viking age. The eastern lands of Europe were essentially
frontier land of tribal barbarians. Europe in the 800s was plain and
simple chaos.
