River Kings

by Cat Jarman

  Beer was, in fact, the key to a successful feast and the feast was a pivotal social and religious event, which could help you to establish and to maintain power. If your crops failed, there could be a lot at stake. Take the story of Asbjørn, for example, who was the son of a chief in northern Norway. One year he had such bad crops of barley that he had to buy grain from friends in order to hold his annual pagan winter feast. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to brew enough beer, and a Viking feast with no beer was no party at all. But Asbjørn’s bad luck ran deep. The king intercepted his precious purchase and appropriated the barley. Seeing his predicament, a rival chieftain invited the beer-less Asbjørn to join his feast instead, but Asbjørn was forced to decline. If he accepted an invitation to another’s feast rather than arrange his own, he would be admitting that he didn’t have the resources to act as an independent leader.

  The crux here – and the moral of the story – is that in Viking Age Scandinavia, land-based resources were crucial to success, but they were also very limited. Take a look at a map of Scandinavia and you will quickly see why: with its mountainous interior and dramatically narrow fjords and valleys, Norway is not geographically suited to agriculture on a large scale and Denmark, while flat and suitable for farming, is minuscule in comparison. Those who were successful would have increasingly sought ways to demonstrate this to those around them, as can be seen at the wealthy chieftain’s farm at Borg in the Lofoten Islands, with its eighty-metre long hall – one of the largest-known buildings from Viking Age Scandinavia. The contrast between the resources available there and those somewhere like England would have been clear; when Ohthere described his wealth to Alfred, the latter was shocked at how little land Ohthere had and how few livestock he possessed (merely twenty cows, sheep and pigs, in addition to his strange collection of wild reindeer). At the same time Ohthere described himself as a wealthy and prosperous man. However, precisely because land-based resources were so limited, alternative sources of wealth included not just raids and trade but also taxation and control of exports, as well as the control of transport routes inland – especially along rivers.

  It is crucial to understand that increasing urbanism had its roots in trade – both to the west and to the east – and, importantly, in seaborne networks. Proto-urban trading sites known as emporia had developed in the period leading up to, and in the earliest phases of, the Viking Age, always near water, either a river or sea. There is a string of these around the Baltic Sea, especially on the northern coast of what is now Germany and Denmark, sites like Hedeby and Ribe, and along the coast of modern Poland. These were places where objects could be traded and where craft activities sprang up, not to support a population that was already there, but instead for one that had arrived precisely to take advantage of new opportunities.

  The emporia became part of a large network and were known stopping places in strategic locations: for example where a river met the sea or somewhere you would stop because of difficult travel conditions. Hedeby, near the border between Germany and Denmark, for instance, was located by an inlet leading to the Kattegat strait and the Baltic to the east, at the narrowest part of the landmass – a distance of eight kilometres overland would connect you to rivers taking you straight to the North Sea. In these places you could sell your goods or get hold of the provisions needed for the onward journey; stop to make repairs to your ship; or maybe even recruit new members for your crew. The Viking camps we see in England in the ninth century must surely have acted very much like this but on a smaller scale.

  Early emporia were not only found in Scandinavia but on the coasts of north-western Europe, including in northern France, the Netherlands, and in England at sites like London, Ipswich and York – locations where they originated as early as the seventh century. The sites also sprang up elsewhere around the Baltic Sea. It’s likely through these that exotic goods started to find their way into Scandinavia, and what they all had in common was their maritime links. Geography, after all, had a huge impact on this region because nature could be as much a barrier as a connector. Incidentally, it may have been through the emporia that knowledge of sites prime for raiding was obtained. Portland, the site of the first recorded Viking raid, is only a short sailing distance along the coast from the trading settlement at Hamwic – now Southampton. Perhaps this explains why the reeve Beaduheard wasn’t alarmed at the sight of Scandinavian ships and why Alcuin was tired of the negative influence of pagans on the Saxons.

  When trying to understand exotic objects and their appearance at sites like this, there is one place above all that is critical to understand. Not far from Helgö, where the Buddha was found, once lay the bustling trading town of Birka: one of the most significant towns in Viking Age Sweden. Located on a small island in Lake Mälaren – now a freshwater lake thirty kilometres west of Stockholm – Birka could be reached by boat from the Baltic Sea. The town emerged sometime in the eighth century, probably around 750 or just before, as an important site linking inland places like Uppsala with the vast trading networks that could be reached across the Baltic. It either developed from a smaller seasonal trading post or could have been founded by a king to try to control and to expand trade. Despite covering only an area of around five to six hectares, its townsite, the Black Earth, was surrounded by a complex defence system including a rampart, an underwater palisade and a hillfort, making it clear that this was somewhere worth defending. It is notable that from the very beginning Birka was fortified: clearly, a vital part of its existence. This was a town controlled by a political authority whose power was there to be seen, even more so in its later life.

  Over time Birka became quite heavily populated by Viking standards; its cemeteries are extensive and contain a staggering two thousand burial mounds along with a substantial number of unmarked graves – maybe as many as five thousand burials in total in the town’s two-hundred-year lifespan. Many of the graves were richly equipped with objects from far and wide, testament to a wealthy population. Some of them were elaborate chamber burials: subterranean rooms for the dead, in which their final resting place had been carefully and deliberately arranged with objects needed for the afterlife. Birka seems to have focused on trade and craft production in what has been described as a complex early urban society. Excavations in the settlement area yielded specialist craft workshops and evidence of household activities, while the town appears to have been supported by a considerable hinterland beyond the lake, with plenty of opportunities for agriculture, the collection of raw materials and the exploitation of wild game, especially animals from which furs could be produced and exported. Birka’s contacts with areas around the Baltic were extensive. In its earliest phases, in the late 700s, these seem to have been focused to the south-west, trading with Denmark and beyond to the Rhineland.

  Around the end of the 800s, something changed dramatically at Birka and contacts with the east were clearly established. Silks and silver appear, and it seems that Birka was one of the earliest places in which the eastern-based weighing standards were used. This happened in the 860s at the latest.[3] Just as in the study of the origins of silver in England, it has been possible to look at the isotopic variation in lead found at Birka as well. The results have been surprising: the majority of the metal in the Birka lead weights turned out to have come from England, and from Derbyshire to be precise.[4] In other words, it’s likely that they were made of metal mined somewhere near Repton. We can’t know, of course, whether the objects themselves were made in England or manufactured back in Scandinavia from recycled lead.

  It transpires that the weights weren’t the only objects made from Derbyshire lead that have been found in Scandinavia: the same was the case for a set of pewter mounts from a horse harness that was found in the Norwegian Gokstad ship burial, which dates to 895–903.[5] This is real evidence of the metal having been taken from the west back to Scandinavia and it’s very possible that the Great Army, and the conquest of Mercia and Repton, in particular, was instrumental in this trade.
It seems that the monastery at Repton was, if not in charge of, then at least influential over the lead mines at nearby Wirksworth and perhaps this was part of what the Great Army had been aiming for upon taking control of the monastery. Now that we have so much new information about the ways in which weights were used in the Vikings’ English camps, we should reconsider whether in fact they were manufactured in England rather than in Scandinavia.

  EASTERN CONNECTIONS

  There is a series of objects from Birka with undeniable links to the east, and one in particular is very compelling. In the nineteenth century, Swedish archaeologist Hjalmar Stolpe excavated a large number of the town’s richly furnished graves. Over the years many have tried to interpret whether the grave goods and types of burial in Birka could tell us whether they were those of locals or of immigrants, but this has proven a futile task.

  One of the graves is that of a woman in a rectangular wooden coffin. Based on the clothing and jewellery she was buried with, the grave could be dated to around 850. In addition to brooches, she had a row of beads including glass, crystal and carnelian, while her clothing remains showed that she was dressed in typical Scandinavian fashion. Remarkably, she also had a finger ring lying on her chest, made of a white metal and set with a violet-coloured stone: one of four similar rings found in Birka of a typical Arabic design. This one, though, left no doubt of its eastern connections as it had an inscription in Arabic that read ‘for Allah’. Rings like this, with Arabic writing, are rare in Europe and this is the only one found in Scandinavia. Was this, too, a traded object?

  That’s what has been assumed up to now, but recent scientific analysis of the metal has suggested a different story.[6] A 3D model made from photographs was combined with images from a scanning electron microscope – giving an extremely close-up view – and elemental analysis to detail precisely what materials it was made of: very high-quality silver, with, importantly, very little wear. The filing marks on the inside remained, traces of the original mould that had been used to cast the ring; the marks of the craftsman had not worn away through use. This was unusual: most objects found in graves, such as bronze jewellery, have evidence of wear. The inscription on the ring was in an angular, early Kufic style showing its clear association with the Islamic world. This new evidence suggested that the ring had passed from the silversmith, maybe somewhere in the caliphate, to the woman buried in the grave with very few steps in between. Could this mean that she, or one of her family members, had migrated and brought the ring with them?

  A twist in the tale is that others have argued that the inscription isn’t in an Arabic script at all.[7] This is because, it’s claimed, it doesn’t fully resemble Kufic script and even if it does, a proper interpretation of its message renders it meaningless. Instead, it’s possible that it’s something called ‘pseudo-Kufic’, a type of imitation of an Arabic inscription much like what Offa placed on his gold coin back in the eighth century. This would make it more likely that the object was made outside the Islamic world. But in many ways, the veracity of the inscription – whether it’s genuinely Kufic or not – doesn’t really matter. Objects like these carried very specific meanings in Viking society, but those meanings may not have had anything at all to do with their original purpose. The inscription could likely not be read by its wearer. Instead, the ring was important as a marker of the exotic, showing that you had links with those external worlds and an ability to travel, or to obtain imported goods. This, then, could be a way of securing your social position at home or even of elevating it. A similar example can be seen in the pseudo-Islamic designs on trading weights found at Heimdalsjordet that would have invoked not just the exotic but associations of eastern silver, which was of very high quality.

  We haven’t always understood the power of small objects like beads, rings and pendants to inform us of wider trends and cultural phenomena. For a long time beads were considered mainly as adornments; objects to be classified, described and catalogued in order to tell us about trade and the import of goods, maybe even to give us a hint at dating. Now, we understand better how well placed they are to tell us about cultural customs and connections, things like gift-giving, symbolism and social stratification. What did it mean to wear a faceted carnelian bead imported from a distant and exotic part of the world, as opposed to a cheap glass one that had been made locally?

  We don’t know at what point the exotic became quite so fashionable in Scandinavia. Was it a case of demand encouraging supply or was the demand caused directly by the sudden availability, something that changed during the Viking Age, of goods from the exotic east? The desirability may have lain purely with the objects themselves for their artistic value, or they may have symbolised something else, namely a link to the places abroad. When this happens, neither the coins’ original value nor their silver value matters. Many dirhams turn up as necklaces: pierced or with a loop attached, they adorned the necks of women in fledgling Scandinavian towns and even on rural farms. These objects were all luxuries; opulent and rare, and as one description has it, ‘simultaneously extravagant, inessential but highly desirable, and difficult to obtain’.[8] They signalled not just wealth but connections. Their value, whether financial or symbolic, was recognised by those who used them and by those who saw them, in the same way that today we might recognise luxury brands and status symbols.

  In the case of the dirhams that were transformed into necklaces, the original monetary value of the coins had been subsumed not once, but twice: first when they left their Islamic starting point, where they could be used for their face value, and second when the coins were transformed into a wearable object of art. Necklaces like this are found quite often in Scandinavia, usually in graves, but now a small number of them have even been discovered in England: here discoveries include a coin minted in modern-day Afghanistan in 905–6, later gilded on both sides and fitted with an extra pin to be used as a brooch after a previous existence as part of a necklace.[9] These dirhams-turned-jewellery are typically found in women’s graves.

  Prior to the Viking Age, exotic, imported objects were almost exclusively found in elite graves in high-status contexts. For instance, Swedish archaeologist John Ljungkvist studied amethyst beads in Sweden and observed that objects like these were clearly the trappings of higher social strata. While this is not surprising considering how expensive and difficult to obtain they must have been, the important point is that this changed during the Viking Age. Objects like exotic beads became much more commonplace. Clearly, these displays of wealth and luxury became irresistible for those with social ambitions. For many, later on in the period, they also became emblems of experience and new influences. Luxuries could have an even more overtly political role if they were used as part of armour, weaponry or horse gear; not only would these mark out the wearer’s political power but this very wealth would be used to intimidate rivals.

  It’s notable that aside from all the foreign coins, the most common category of luxury items seems to be that of beads and dress accessories. Silks, ornaments, and trimmings like ribbon and gold thread are all categories of things that were highly visible in daily life and for a broad range of people. This emphasises the interpretation of them as traded objects, symbolising elite status, but it has also been suggested that they mark out incoming people, largely traders, whose use of the objects expressed their own personal link to other customs and to distant lands. For it is certain that foreign traders were present in Scandinavia, possibly in large numbers. Those itinerant traders first seen in the early emporia would have had a natural home in towns like Birka as well.

  Take, for example, Gilli, the trader who sold Ho˛skuldr the Irish princess Melkorka in the Laxdæla saga. We know too that a Jewish-Arab merchant or traveller, a man named as Ibrahim ibn Ya’qub al-Tartushi, visited the town of Hedeby in 950. He described it (‘a large town at the very far end of the world ocean’), its inhabitants’ despicable customs (‘the people often throw a newborn child into the sea rather than maintain it�
��), their appearance (‘there is also an artificial make-up for the eyes: when they use it beauty never fades; on the contrary, it increases in men and women as well’), and, finally, their beliefs (‘its people worship Sirius except for a few who are Christians and have a church there’).

  Sites like the early emporia, towns and trading places were melting pots not just of people but also religions. Anyone resident somewhere like Birka may have come across eastern religions, including Islam, to some extent. In fact, some have gone as far as to suggest that Islam was not only known but also a religion that was actively followed, albeit on a very minor scale: twenty years ago, it was already being suggested that Muslims living and trading in Birka may have needed someone, ‘a Mullah, to lead the prayers and speak for them in front of the king’.[10] Could Muslim missionaries have reached Scandinavia too? Elsewhere in the world, Muslim traders and other officials served as important agents for spreading Islam to the ever-expanding borders of the caliphate. The dirhams with their religious inscriptions, reminding the reader of God’s greatness, can also be considered minor missionary objects, at least to those regions where their meanings could be read and understood. Still, it would be grossly incorrect to use this as proof that the Vikings in any way respected or even understood this on a large scale, though curiously a particular form of graffiti may suggest otherwise. Arabic coins found in northern Europe are sometimes inscribed with graffiti, ranging from simple non-decipherable signs to runic inscriptions, pictures of weapons and boats, and various magic symbols. A study of over fifteen thousand Arabic coins found in Sweden showed that a small number of them had been inscribed with Thor’s hammers and some even with what might be Christian crosses. Similar Thor’s hammer graffiti was found on a coin in Kaupang. There’s an intriguing chance that this might actually have been a statement aimed at neutralising the coins’ original religious messages. In any case, it’s quite clear that religion was a contentious issue during the Viking Age, not least because this was a time of transformation that would eventually lead to the adaptation of Christianity across Scandinavia. We need only to pick up one of the western written sources to confirm this: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes very clear just how much of a nuisance the invaders’ pagan beliefs were and, indeed, how much of a cause for concern the lack of adherence to Christianity was for the leaders in early medieval England.