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Who Were the Vikings? A look into the Society and Culture of the Viking Age

Week 3: May 8th, 2015

A Viking longhouse (c. 10th century) reconstructed at the Ribe Viking Centre in Ribe, Denmark

This Week •Catching up on written sources: Sagas •Material Culture and Technology 1: The Rural Context

•Sources: Material Culture and Archaeology •Burial Archaeology •Settlement Archaeology •Houses •Rural settlement types •What’s going on in the countryside?

Sagas

AM 556 A 4to, fol. 5r, c. 1475-1500. Grettis saga, Arnamagnæan institute, Reykjavík, Iceland

Sagas •What are they? •They’re STORIES. Narratives. •Many different genres: kings’ sagas (like Heimskringla), bishops’ sagas, saints’ lives, mythological/fantastical sagas (the Sci-Fi and Fantasy of the medieval Icelandic world!), knights’ sagas (translated European courtly narratives, including much Arthurian material), contemporary (medieval) sagas of Icelandic goings-on, and finally, the Sagas of the Icelanders (in the Viking Age).

Sagas •The Sagas of the Icelanders are what people usually think of when they think of “sagas”. •These are the sagas of great heroes, like Egill and Njáll, and outlaws like Grettir and Gísli, of great families, or regional tales. •These are the ones that are considered to be both historically true and genealogically correct by many Icelanders and Scandinavians, from the Middle Ages up until today.

Sagas •However, it’s not that simple! •The Sagas of the Icelanders depict events in the Viking Age in Iceland, from the late 9th to the 11th century. However, they were written down only starting in the 13th century. •Could they have existed before this as oral literature? Certainly. But they are unlikely to be a single, uncorrupted narrative… •There are conventional themes, literary tropes, archetypes, stereotypes, and outright invention…

Sagas •Sagas are most likely compilations of material that comes together at the time of writing in the medieval period, all more or less strongly related to a central theme. •Sometimes different versions of the same saga contain important discrepancies. •They appear to be a mix of history (mostly social history), mythology, and fiction…

Sagas •What we have is the view of 13th-century Icelanders on their own past, usually made to serve some purpose: laying claim to an illustrious genealogy, inherited power in the form of wealth or lands, claiming dominance over rival families, etc… •However, there are elements of saga literature that do seem to preserve a genuine memory of the Viking Age, in social institutions, for example, or even in material culture…

Sagas are FUN to read, if you read them for fun.

BUT

Sagas are HARD to read, if you

rely on them as history.

Change of topic

Archaeology & Material Culture!

The Importance of Material Culture

•He remains of what was left behind from the Viking world: one of our main sources of information about the Viking Age. •Archaeology is our best tool to access material culture, in the form of objects (artefacts), structures, and natural remains (ecofacts).

Burial Archaeology •The remains of the people themselves! •Advantages: age, sex (?), ailments, nutrition and fitness, environmental factors, cultural practices, even origin! (Isotopes) •Disadvantages: conservation, cultural bias (status etc.), demographic representation (context, sex?), children (?), etc.

Exceptional Graves

•Oseberg, Gokstad, Jelling… •Grave goods and burial mounds: high-status symbols. •Does this represent the average population?

Settlement Archaeology

Settlement Archaeology •Advantages: Structures, living conditions, remains of activities & occupations, traces of daily life: artefacts, coil compaction & chemistry, fauna & flora (ecofacts)...

•Disadvantages: Conservation and comprehensiveness, circumstances of deposition, location, status, representativeness…

Archaeobotany

The House Reconstruction of the Hedeby house at Moesgård museum, Denmark

Trelleborg (late 10th c.) (Trelleborg Viking Centre, Denmark)

Fyrkat (late 10th c.) (Fyrkat Viking Centre, Denmark)

Trelleborg, Denmark Ísleifsstaðir, Iceland Oma, Norway

Rural Settlements •The majority of settlements are isolated farmsteads:

•Not just a farmhouse, but a house with all the farm’s outbuildings. •Infields, outfields, boundaries

•However, in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, there are trade sites that become the first Scandinavian “towns” (not cities as we know them). •Also, in Denmark and Southern Sweden: nucleated villages, and fortresses. Norway may have had clustered settlements too. •“Central places”: areas of important settlement, but not towns. • Towns, nucleated villages, fortresses, central places… All of these are a minority.

Reconstruction of the Viking Age village at Vorbasse, Denmark

Tissø, Denmark

Trelleborg (late 10th c.) (Trelleborg Viking Centre, Denmark)

Fyrkat (late 10th c.) (Fyrkat Viking Centre, Denmark)

Trelleborg-type ring fortresses at: Aggersborg, Nonnebakken, Fyrkat, Trelleborg, Borrering (Denmark) Trelleborg, Borgeby (Skåne, Sweden), Rygge (Østfold, Norway) 6 of 8 fortresses dated to late 10th c. : courtesy of our old friend Harald Bluetooth! The fortresses are NOT a

typical settlement pattern.

Trelleborg

Fyrkat

Aggersborg

A new fortress! •“Borrering” fortress confirmed in 2014 in a field using geophysical research in Vallø parish, near Køge, Denmark (south of Copenhagen) •Matches the “Trelleborg” ring-fortress model from the late 10th c. (Harald Bluetooth’s reign)

•See http://cas.au.dk/en/currently/singlenews/artikel/-e5f0f3453f/, http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/science-viking-ring-fortress-denmark-02135.html

Trelleborg

Trelleborg, Denmark Ísleifsstaðir, Iceland

Vorbasse, Denmark

Vorbasse, Denmark Ribe Viking Centre, Denmark

Ribe Viking Centre, Denmark

Trelleborg, Denmark Ísleifsstaðir, Iceland Oma, Norway

Wattle and daub (Denmark)

Trelleborg Viking Centre, Denmark


Turf over wood frame (Iceland)

Herringbone pattern of turf blocks

Eiriksstaðir, Iceland

Driftwood beach at Strandssysslar, NW Iceland

The main room (Old Norse: skáli or stofa )

Platforms (Old Norse: set or bekkr)

Long open hearth (Old Norse: langeldr)


Moesgård museum, Denmark

Eiriksstaðir, Iceland

Oil lamps

National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík

Viking Ship Museum, Olso, Norway (from the Oseberg ship burial)

Hedeby Viking Museum, Haithabu, Germany (used to be Hedeby, Denmark in the Viking Age)

Bed parts (and reconstruction) from the high-status woman’s ship-burial at Oseberg, Norway

Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, Norway (from the Oseberg burial)

Farmsteads and Outbuildings

Sunken feature buildings (in situ and reconstruction).

Vatnsfjörður, Iceland


Cattle, sheep and Horses.

Heydalur, Iceland

Tønsberg, Norway

Ribe, Denmark

Lejre experimental centre, Denmark

Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo, Norway

Kulturhistorisk museum, Oslo, Norway

National Museum of Iceland , Reykjavík (Þjóðminjasafn Íslands)

Reykjavík 871 +/- 2, Iceland

Kulturhistorisk museum, Oslo, Norway

a look into the society and culture of the viking age · a look into the society and culture of the...

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