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In the ninth century, Latin authors in western Europe became more aware of Scandinavia and its peoples, due to viking raiding and Christian missionary activity. Frankish chroniclers refer to the Scandinavians broadly as Nordmanni, Nort(h)manni or Normanni ('Northmen'), who are divided further into Danes (Dani) and Swedes (Sueones). Einhard, in his Life of Charlemagne, describes them as living on the northern side of the Baltic, opposite the Slavs and Aisti:

The territorial extent of the Danish and Swedish kingdoms in this period are not precisely known. Frankish annals hint that powerful Danish kings such as Godofrid in the time of Charlemagne had dominion from the river Eider northwards to Vestfold west of Oslo in modern Norway (whose 'princes and people' are recorded as not wishing to submit to his sons in 813)...

....and eastwards to Skåne across Øresund, in modern Sweden (an Osfrid of Skåne is listed as a Danish signatory to a peace-treaty in 811).

Due to the political chaos in Denmark and the limited view provided by the sources, it is difficult to be certain that the power of many ninth-century Danish kings mentioned in our Frankish sources extended beyond southern Jutland (and probably Fyn, mentioned as an island off the coast in the Frankish Royal Annals to which the Danes retreated). The Danish Kings Horic I and Horic II granted the Christian missionary Ansgar permission to build churches in the ports of Hedeby/Schleswig and Ribe, confirming that their power encompassed at least southern Jutland.

The Swedes are also located on the Baltic littoral by Einhard, who makes no mention of the Götar (the Geats of Beowulf fame), who live to their south. Ansgar also visted the port of Birka in Sweden and had dealings with their kings. Again, we can not be certain how much these kings ruled besides Birka, although one passage refers to an assembly that was held in another part of the kingdom - often assumed, though there is no proof of this, to be Old Uppsala.

In the tenth century, we lose sight of Scandinavia further afield than Denmark: however, we seem to be able to see consolidation of the Danish kingdom following fragmentation and collapse at the end of the ninth century. In 931 or 934 King Henry I of the Eastern Franks is recorded to have defeated the Danish King Chnuba, who is known from a rune-stone to have held power in the south of Jutland, particularly in Hedeby/Schleswig and the surrounding area.

Chnuba was forcibly baptised, and Thietmar of Merseburg, writing in the 11th century, claims that Henry forced the cessation of the prolific blood-sacrifices held at the old centre of Lejre on Zealand (possibly the Heorot of Beowulf). Although this is dubious, if it were so it would indicate that Chnuba held power over a wider area of Denmark; but we can not be sure he ruled more than southern Jutland. The description of the sacrifices (similar to those which Adam of Bremen later describes at Old Uppsala in Sweden) shows the view of the north as a seat of barbarous, threatening paganism:

In England, the French author Abbo of Fleury also painted Scandinavia as a distant, cold seat of barbarism, whose harsh climate reared natural anti-Christians, who came to martyr Saint Edmund in 870. North functions more as a moral direction, associated with Satan and Evil, and his actual information concerning the Danes is that they live in the west of Scandinavia. This seems to correspond to the English usage, by which 'Dane' generally meant someone from Scandinavia or from a Scandinavian-settled or -influenced area:

In the mid-tenth century, a dynasty based at Jelling expanded its power: by 948 it seems to have ruled all Jutland, if we can equate the foundation of bishoprics in the Jutish towns of Hedeby, Ribe and Aarhus in this year to its political influence.

By 965, another charter includes a see of Odense as well, which would suggest power over Fyn. The network of distinctive circular fortifications (marked on the map along with his fortress-palace at Jelling) from the 970s suggests that the reigning Danish king, Harald Bluetooth, had expanded his power to Zealand and probably Skåne as well, laying the groundwork for later consolidation and expansion by his son Svend Forkbeard and grandson Cnut. The northernmost fortress, Aggersborg, looking northwards, looks towards Harald's power in Norway - south-western Norway was under his control, and the rest of the country was in the power of his subordinate, Jarl Håkon of Lade. Widukind records how Harald, in response to the missionary work of Poppo (probably identical with Folkmar, later Archbishop of Cologne) made Christianity the official and exclusive religion of Denmark, whereas Danes had previously worshipped Christ and pagan gods as well.

In the eleventh century and beyond we have several developments. In Denmark, boundaries became more established as those recognisable from the high middle ages, thanks to the efforts of kings like Svend Forkbeard and Cnut the Great.

Meanwhile, to the north, a conception of Norway and a Norwegian ethnic identity began to be articulated in the sources. Terms like 'Normannus', which was previously (and also contemporaneously) a generic term for Scandinavian or someone who seemed to the observer to have some Scandinavian-derived identity, came to be used specifically about Norway, whose separateness from Denmark had been established over the century by Kings like Olav Tryggvason, St Olav Haraldsson and his half-brother Harald Sigurdsson. 'Normanni' was also used of the Normans settled in France since 911. To distinguish from these other uses of the word 'Normanni', authors used new terms for Norwegians - such as Norwagenses, Norvei and Norici - the latter a re-use of a classical term for the people of the Roman province of Noricum (in modern-day Austria).

In the twelfth century, the dawn of Latin writing in Scandinavia itself brought a western European, Christian gaze to the peoples further afield from Denmark and Norway. Ailnoth, an Englishman from Canterbury writing in exile in Odense, saw the Danes as far from unproblematic, but still more faithful Christians than the Norwegians or Icelanders, the poverty of whose soil made them unable to observe proper strictures on feasting and fasting, whereas the Swedes and Götar persecuted Christian clergy in times of poor harvest or other crises. Ailnoth was very influenced by Abbo's portrayal of the north, and he himself also associated the direction with godlessness, barbarity, wildness and cruelty. The difference is, while for Abbo Scandinavia was only a vague concept, Ailnoth had lived there for 24 years when he wrote his text. Here we can see a breakdown of Ailnoth's northern world in geovisualisation and world-cloud:

This contrasted from the view of Adam of Bremen, who saw many of the peoples of the north as admirable in spite of their rudeness in the faith or even their paganism: in the case of the Icelanders, he saw their poverty as a positive, which made them, even before their conversion, live according to a sort of natural Christianity.

The pagan Prussians, meanwhile, he found admirable for their hospitality towards strangers and their scorn of the precious furs from their territory that were loved by vain, luxurious western Christians.

Adam used the north not merely as a source of fear and danger, but also a source of positive moral examples to educate and chastise the Christians further south. His perceptions of Iceland in particular were probably influenced by the reports of the Icelandic Bishop Ísleifr, and/or his entourage, who came to Bremen in 1056 to receive consecration (see Laura Gazzoli, forthcoming).

Ailnoth, meanwhile, also sought to chastise, educated and improve those Christians in his immediate surrounding: but they were Christians in Scandinavia itself, particularly in Denmark. His view of Scandinavia, influenced by Abbo, was that the people had a harsh nature which could only be corrected by a strong Christian king - such as St Knud, whose passion was the focus of his work, and to whose brother, Niels, it was addressed. In this, he could draw on the longer-established tradition from Abbo of the north as a source of moral (and often mortal) peril.