THE

VIKINGSRECREATED IN COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS

BRITTA NURMANN, CARL SCHULZE& TORSTEN VERHULSDONK

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THE CROWOOD PRESS

EUROPA MILITARIA

SPECIAL N°6

1997 Carle Schulze & Torsten Verhülsdonk CONTENTSThis ediition publishcd in1999 by The Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlbouroughWiltshire, SN8 2HR

Designed by Tony Stocks/TS Graphics

Printed by Graficas Reunidas SA, Madrid

All rights reserved. No part of thispublication may be reproduced or transmittedin any form or by any means electronic ormechanical, including photocopy, recording,or in any information storage and retrievalsystem, without the prior written permissionof the publishers.

A CIP catalogue record for this bookis available from the British Library

ISBN 1 86126 289 2

Authors' acknowledgementsWe would like to record our gratitude to all there-enactors and living history societies whosupported us, by word and deed, during thepreparation of this book, and all those whokindly stood still while we took our pictures.We cannot name these many individuals here,but they know who they are. Special thanks aredue to Frank Wiedemann, who provided uswith background material and answered manyquestions; to Miss Melanie Donus for supplyingadditional photographic material; and toSimone and Ivor Lawton of Dawn of TimeCrafts, 18 Anne Close, Brightlingsea,Essex L07 OLS, UK, makers of early medievalequipment for museums and re-enactment,who kindly let us reproduce some of theirarchive pictures.

Preface

Introduction

Chronology

The Common Warrior

Edged Weapons

The Viking Hersir

Armour & Helmets

The Varangian Guard

Bows & Bowmen

Rus: The Vikings in the East

Viking Battle Tactics

Viking Mercenaries

Ships & Seafaring

Clothing & Jewellery

The Viking Woman

Daily Life

Traders & Craftsmen

Runestones

The Normans

Norman Cavalry

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94

Preface

hat do we know actually know about the Vikings?Between the 8th and the 11th centuries they trav-elled throughout Europe, to parts of North

America and to the Middle East as traders, warriors andcolonists. They were feared as enemies by every peoplethey encountered. Yet we have much less reliable informa-tion about this group of Scandinavian peoples than we doabout more ancient cultures such as Imperial Rome.Everything known to modern man about the Vikings isbased on three types of sources: archaeological finds;written descriptions, which as a rule were not recorded bythe Vikings themselves; and the Nordic sagas - originallyoral traditions, usually written down for the first time in the12th or 13th centuries.

From such major excavations as Haithabu, Moosgard,Birka, Roskilde, Lindholm Hoeje, Gokstad, Skuldelev,Yorkand Gjermundbu we have abundant material remainswhich, when compared with the written evidence, cast lighton many aspects of Viking culture, but which equally posenew questions. Mistaken interpretations, and a glorifica-tion of some specific aspects of the Viking era, have plantedin the public mind an unbalanced picture of these peopleswhich fails to do them justice.

In this book we try to introduce readers to Viking cultureby means of photographs taken at re-enactment displaysmounted by Viking "living history" societies, to create amore intimate and human impression than they may gainfrom "dead" archaeological finds. We hope to correct, atleast to some extent, the most ingrained of the mistakenideas about these vigorous, creative peoples, and to givereaders some insight into the period of European historywhen the Scandinavian nations were dominant.

These re-enactors go to considerable pains to achieve highlevels of authenticity, taking into account all sources ofinformation. The hobby of "living history" does not simplymean the exact reconstruction of known archaelogicalfinds, but tries to bring a whole era back to life. Each re-enactor creates a character, taking into account all availableknowledge and relevant finds; he or she reconstructsclothing and equipment which may not have been found byarchaeologists in exactly that form, but which are typical forthe period. Old crafts have been revived (especially wheredecorative elements are concerned), and new pieces havebeen made in styles which have been dead for manycenturies.

This is a challenging task. For instance, the problemsbegin with the difficulty of obtaining the correct types offabric for making clothing; this must be authentically spuninto yarn, dyed, and woven into cloth. Re-enactors oftenseek to work as closely as possible with museums andarchaeologists, but this is not easy - living history enthusi-asts are rarely granted access to the finds which gather dustin the reserve collections of scholarly institutions.Although necessary for building interest and acceptance of

the hobby, the public shows at which re-enactors recreateauthentic life present their own problems. Whereas anearly perfect impression of, say, a craftsman might bepossible if enough trouble were taken, a convincing impres-sion of a Viking age skirmish will always fail because of the

(Above) From the 8th to the11th century all Europe trem-bled before the Scandinaviansea-rovers who first ravagedthe coasts and later invadedlarge areas in strength. Yetthe Vikings were not merelooters; these most skilledseafarers of their age werealso explorers, traders, andcolonists seeking new homes

at a time of explodingpopulation in their relativelyunproductive homelands.Today European re-enactorstry to bring the Viking agealive again at their publicperformances, not only recre-ating the Viking warrior butalso offering an insight intoeveryday life, crafts and trade.

necessary safety precautions. There are also few recon-structions of Viking age ships, for obvious reasons of costand logistics.

Despite these problems the Viking re-enactment move-ment puts on numerous events all over Northern Europeevery year, and succeeds in casting its spell over thousandsof spectators. These are not merely light-hearted costumedpageants; they play an important part in correctingmistaken historical impressions, particularly among theyoung; and sometimes it even happens that the recreationand practical use of pieces of period equipment can answerquestions for the historians.

The authors wish good luck to all the re-enactors whomwe met during the assembly of material for this book; wemade many friends among them. We also hope that thefuture may bring improved co-operation between livinghistory re-enactors and historians and archaeologists, whohave a great deal to offer one another in their mutual searchfor knowledge.

Introduction

In the old Norse tongue the word viking meant some-thing like raiding or piracy, and vikingr meant a raider.Though today this word is used as a general term for

the Nordic peoples of the 8th to 11th centuries, it was usedmore rarely in the early medieval period. Their fellowEuropeans used to speak rather of "Norsemen" - men fromthe north (a term which lives on in "Norman", sinceNormandy was founded by Scandinavian colonists). Thepeoples of eastern Europe and the Balkans used the terms"Rus" and "Varangians" for the Norse invaders, traders,colonists and mercenaries.

Why did these Scandinavian peoples leave their homesfrom the late 8th century onwards, to plunder the coastsand river estuaries of Europe, and eventually to settle faraway - as many did in England, Ireland, France andRussia? The main reason seems to have been overpopula-tion, leading to a severe shortage of land capable ofsustaining their farming communities. Even in the valleysof these often mountainous and forested regions the soilwas not particularly fertile. This period of hardship andwant coincided with a Scandinavian mastery of seaman-ship outclassing that of all other European nations; so itwas inevitable that many sought to improve their lot byraiding the richer Christian lands to the south.

At first these were summer raids, between seedtime andharvest, sporadic and limited in size. Later, spreadingword of their success increased their numbers andfrequency as raiders bore home silver, slaves, farm stock,and every other kind of booty. In order to dominate the

targeted areas more thoroughly they took to winteringthere in stockaded coastal camps. Later still, many wereattracted by the fertile and ill-guarded lands they raided;they began to fetch over their families and goods to settlepermanently. Norwegians and Danes sought new landsacross the North Sea and the North Atlantic; the Swedeswandered down the great rivers into the huge Slavicwilderness of today's Russia.

The British Isles were greatly influenced by the Vikings.Only 72 years passed between the first recorded raid, onLindisfarne by Norwegian Vikings in 793, and thefounding of the Danelaw - an area of permanent Vikingsettlement which included most of the northern andeastern third of England. Although the Anglo-Saxonsreconquered the Danelaw under King Edward the Elder inthe years up to 924, Viking settlers still came to England.For example, it took the Saxons another 30 years to takeback York, reconquered by King Eadred only in 954. InIreland, too, though the Vikings were defeated in 902,many of today's Irish cities are Viking foundations.

By the mid-10th century, both in England and Ireland,many of the long-settled Vikings had converted from theirpagan religion to Christianity; and as the centuries passedthey merged their blood, and remnants of their language,with the earlier inhabitants. In today's Russia, and in theCarolingian Empire which then embraced much ofFrance, the Low Countries and western Germany, theViking settlers also mixed with the original populations.

Vikings who had converted to Christianity in their newhomelands returned to Scandinavia with missionaries.These often began their efforts to convert the populationby concentrating on the local kings - and often theysucceeded. Some of these rulers had little difficulty in

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persuading their peoples to convert to the new faith intheir turn; others tried too abruptly and forcibly. (OlafTryggvasson's brutal missionary campaign in his kingdomof Norway cost him his life at the battle of Svoldr, wherehis fleet was defeated by an alliance of followers of the oldgods.)

Unlike Denmark and parts of today's southern Sweden,which formed a kingdom early in the 8th century, Norwaywas forcibly united by Harald Finehair and was called akingdom only from 900 onwards. Vikings who fledHarald's reign settled in Iceland, and formed a democracyunder the so-called allthing, a gathering of all free men.Cnut the Great ("Canute"), who followed his father SveinForkbeard on the throne of Norway in 1014, was king ofEngland, Norway and Denmark. Coin finds show that theSwedish people may also have regarded this mightiest ofthe Viking kings as leader; but his kingdom broke up soonafter his death in 1035.

Their swift, shallow-draught ships allowed the Vikings tocover long distances both on the high seas and up majorrivers. As the navigational skills of the Scandinavianseafarers were superior to those of their contemporaries,they often appeared without warning, mounting surpriseattacks straight from the edge of the water. Vikings sailedwhole fleets up all the major rivers of Europe; among thecities they plundered were Paris, Aachen, Mainz, Trier andCologne.

Thousands of miles to the south and east, fleets of Norsemarauders terrorised the coasts of the Mediterranean, theBlack Sea, even the Caspian. Viking traders reachedByzantium - the "Great City" on the coast of modernTurkey, which had inherited much of the power of ruinedRome - by way of the mighty rivers through Russia, often

(Far left) Apart from plun-dering the rest of Europe,Vikings regularly faced eachother as enemies, on everyscale from a raid on a neigh-bouring village to the severalinvasions of Norway by theDanes. Struggles for acrown, or attempts to imposeor resist the new Christianreligion, also led to fierceinternal battles.

(Left) At the Carolingianand Norman courts of theearly medieval periodfalconry was a commonpastime, and we can assumethat the Vikings knew it.Since most Scandinavianswere more usually engaged ina daily struggle to survive,however, this hobby wasprobably not widespreadbefore the more prosperousNorman settlements of the10th and 11th centuries.

(Above) Besides the longshipand the Danish axe, theround shield is the thirdwell-known symbol of theVikings - although it was usedby nearly every Europeanwarrior in the early MiddleAges. This Viking might beon sentry duty at one of thecountless camps that were setup by Scandinavian raidingparties during the years oftheir devastation of coastalEurope. In 860, for example,the Vikings coolly encampedon the island of Jeufosse closeto Paris, knowing that theFrankish troops on the banksof the Seine could not reachthem. Although on this occa-sion the Vikings did not carryon up river, they came backin 886 and besieged Paris.

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dragging their ships over portages between one river andanother. In time many Vikings enlisted to serve theByzantine emperors as mercenaries, and this VarangianGuard gained an elite reputation throughout Europe andthe Near East.

Viking settlement also resulted in the founding of theduchy of Normandy, when in 911 the West Frankish kinggave land to a Viking army led by Rolf "the Ganger". TheFranks later tried more than once to drive out theNorsemen, but they and their descendants quickly becametoo powerful to be brought to heel by the French throne.The Normans in their turn crossed the Channel to defeatthe Anglo-Saxons in 1066, and their Duke William theBastard won the title of King William I of England, "theConqueror". But even this grim soldier-monarch was notimmune to attack: in 1067 William, the descendant of aViking who had taken land instead of danegeld (protectionmoney), had to pay danegeld himself to King SveinEstridson of Denmark. This was, however, the lastsuccessful attempt to plunder England.

The Normans, one of the hardiest and most voraciouspeoples in European history, spread their baronies to manycorners of the continent. The conversion of Scandinavia toChristianity diminished the activities of the Viking pirates,slave traders and raiders. Europe now looked east, to theHoly Land; and the years 1096-99 saw the First Crusade,with soldiers from Denmark, Norway and Sweden fightingunder the banner of the Cross alongside those of otherEuropean nations.

(Left) Contrary to thepopular image, we knowtoday that only large warshipsdisplayed the legendarydragon-carved bow and sternposts. This smaller, plainertype of vessel, as recon-structed by the re-enactmentsociety Regia Anglorum,probably represents a moretypical appearance. TheBayeux Tapesty includesinteresting scenes of thebuilding of the ships forWilliam of Normandy'sinvasion fleet in 1066 whichparallel what archaeologistscan deduce from Vikingship finds.

(Above) The wolfish appear-ance of this re-enactorconvincingly suggests thefearsome reputation of the"Norsemen" throughoutEurope in the early MiddleAges. The Scandinavianpeoples referred to themselvessimply as Swedes, Danes,Norwegians, etc.; vikingdescribed an activity - that ofraiding abroad - rather than agroup.

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(Above) A common sight allover Europe during the earlyMiddle Ages: the ships of aScandinavian trading expedi-tion have arrived up-river,and the crews prepare toland their cargo. Viking

traders were no less enter-prising than raiders - indeed,plunderers often targetedsome new area on hearingtales of prosperity and weakdefences from returningtraders.

(Right) The Hollywoodimage (based on 19th centurymisinterpretations) of thewild Viking with his bearskincloak and horned helmetleaping from his dragon-shipis now known to be inaccu-rate. Some of these clicheshave slight roots in archaeo-logical evidence, but most are

completely false; the hornedhelmet, in particular, flies inthe face of all evidence. Thisman, like many, is too poor toown a helmet. He wears apadded gambeson over histunic, and is armed with aspear with crosspieces and afransisca throwing axe, both ofFrankish origin.

Chronology

789 First known Viking landing in England;official sent by Anglo-Saxon King Beorthric 855/856to question small landing party is killed.

792 Anglo-Saxon King Offa starts to organize the 857defence of Kent against Vikings. 858

793 Norwegian Vikings destroy island monastery 859-862of Lindisfarne off NE English coast in firstrecorded raid. 860

795 Vikings raid Rathlin island and Irish mainland c.860monasteries. 862

799 Viking raids at the mouth of the Loire, 863France. 865

(800-900 Viking raids throughout century lead todestructionof all Anglo-Saxon kingdomsexcept Wessex.)

(c.806-865 Swedish Vikings under Rurik settle around 866Lake Ladoga, N Russia, and take over 866/867Novgorod.)

808 King Gottrik of Denmark destroys Slavic c.870trading centre at Reric and moves traders tohis nearby new foundation, Haithabu.

810 Danish Vikings attack Carolingian province of 870-930Friesia. 871

c.830 Norwegian Vikings, by now established in theislands off N Scotland, raid deep into Ireland.

(830-850 Continuous Viking raids on coasts of southern c.872England and of France.)

834-837 Annual raids on Dorestad in Friesia.835 King Egbert of Wessex defeats Danish Vikings,

but other landings ravage Isle of Sheppey in 878Thames estuary.

840 Vikings spend winter in Ireland for first time. 881841 Viking fort established on banks of the Liffey

on site of modern Dublin; Vikings loot Rouen, 882France.

842-843 Vikings plunder Quentovic, France; sail up 884-885Loire, attack Nantes, and winter in France forfirst time.

844 Viking ships sail up the Garonne, France; andalso take Seville, Spain, but driven outimmediately by Moors. 886

845 120 Danish ships sail up Seine, attack Paris;Frankish King Charles the Bald buys their 887/888retreat for 7,000 pounds of silver - the firstdanegeld of 13 payments by 926. Hamburg, 891Germany, destroyed by Vikings.

850-851 Viking army winters in England for first time, 892-896at Thanet; defeated by King Ethelwulf ofWessex, which becomes heart of Anglo-Saxonresistance.

852 Swedish Vikings demand danegeld from c.900

citizens of Novgorod.Vikings winter on Isle of Sheppey, Thamesestuary.Danes loot Paris.Swedish Vikings found Kiev.Viking fleet loots cities on Mediterraneancoasts.Vikings attack Byzantium without success.Norwegian Vikings discover Iceland.Cologne, Germany, looted by Vikings.Viking raid on Xanten, Germany.Danish "Great Army" lands in England insearch of permanent conquest, and by 870 hasconquered large areas in north and east - "theDanelaw".Kent pays first danegeld.Salomon, Duke of Brittany, defeats Franks atBrissarthe with aid of Viking mercenaries.Harald Finehair unites Norway and becomessole king; King Edmund of East Angliadefeated and killed by Danes.Settlement of Iceland.Danish Vikings defeated by Anglo-Saxonsunder Ethelred I and Alfred of Wessex atAshdown.Sea battle of Hafrsfjord between HaraldFinehair and a union of north and westNorwegian leaders; Danes take Anglo-Saxonkingdom of Mercia.After early setbacks, Alfred of Wessex defeatsDanes under Guthrum at Edington.Viking raids on Aachen, Worms, Metz, Bonnand Cologne.Oleg the Wise unites Novgorod and Kiev.Viking raid on Trier.Danish attacks in Kent repulsed by Alfred,who retakes London; Danes forced to acceptPeace of Wedmore, fixing southern border ofthe Danelaw; Alfred the Great becomes kingof Saxon England.Paris besieged for 11 months by 40,000Vikings, 700 ships.Vikings paid to fight Burgundian rebels byFrankish King Charles the Fat.Viking army defeated by East Franks inBelgium.King Alfred defeats Danish "Great Army"from Europe and forces survivors to flee toDanelaw or France; Saxon successes againstViking ships in sea fights.Danes and Orkadian Norwegians under Rolf

the Ganger raid and later settle between theLoire and Seine, France.

902 Irish drive the Norwegians out of Dublin.907 Oleg leads fleet down Dniepr to Black Sea, 991

clashes with Byzantine forces.910-912 Vikings sail the Caspian Sea as pirates.911 Rolf the Ganger granted Normandy as fief of

Frankish King Charles the Simple. Treaty 995-1000between Byzantium and the Rus is the firstwritten reference to Viking mercenaries in theByzantine army - by 988 the number of these c.1000"Varangians" would increase to c.6,000.

912 Rolf of Normandy takes name Rollo onconversion to Christianity. 1013

917-919 Norwegians recapture Dublin; Vikings fromIreland capture Danish centre of York. 1014

924 Saxon King Edward the Elder reconquersmuch of the Danelaw after 20-yearcampaign.

934 German King Henry the Fowler defeatsDanish King Chnuba at Haithabu.

c.937 Battle of Brunanburh - Olaf Guthfrithssonleads Vikings from Ireland and Norwegian 1015/1016parts of the Danelaw to defeat in two days'fighting against Saxons and Viking 1028mercenaries under King Athelstan.

940-954 York remains temporarily an independent 1035-1043Viking kingdom.

c.950 King Haakon the Good tries to convertNorway to Christianity.

954 Eadred drives Eric Bloodaxe, last Vikingking, out of York; England once again underAnglo-Saxon rule. (1047-1066

958 Harald Bluetooth becomes king of Denmark.962-965 Harald Bluetooth re-establishes Danish 1047-1074

control over Norway; embraces Christianity, 1050and thereafter converts Denmark. 1066

974 German Emperor Otto II captures theDanewerk, a fortification on the Frankish-Danish border. Harald Bluetooth reconquersthese territories in 983.

(c.980-1014 Renewed Viking raids on England; KingEthelred II "the Ill-Advised" suffers repeateddefeats despite massive danegeld payments;991, he mounts atrocious massacre of 1067English-born Danes.)

980 Battle of Tara - Irish-based Norwegians 1079defeated by Irish, and thereafter have to paytribute.

c.982-985 Eric the Red explores Greenland; in c.985, 1085he leads colonising expedition of some

25 ships. Bjarni Herjolfsson fails to makelandfall in Greenland and reaches NorthAmerica instead.Battle of Maldon -Wessex troops underEaldorman Byhrtnoth defeated by Vikingarmy under Olaf Tryggvasson and Thorkellthe Great.Olaf Tryggvasson reigns as king of Norwayuntil defeated and killed in sea battle ofSvoldr by Danes and Swedes.Following Bjarni Herjolfsson's tales, LeifEricson and his brother Thorwals explore"Vinland" on NE American coast.Danish King Svein Forkbeard recognisedby the Danelaw.Irish under King Brian Boru defeatNorwegian Vikings at decisive battle ofClontarf. Cnut the Great, son of SveinForkbeard, defeats 'all the nobility ofEngland' at battle of Ashingdon; 1016,establishes short-lived Anglo-Nordickingdom.Olaf Haraldsson (St.Olaf) wins throne ofNorway.Olaf Haraldsson driven out of Norway, andkilled 1030 at battle of Stiklastad.After death of Cnut the Great, Hardacnut(1035-1042) becomes king of England &Denmark and Magnus the Good(1035-1047) king of Norway. 1042,Magnus reunites Denmark and Norway;1043, defeats Slavs at Haithabu.Harald Sigurdsson "Hardrada" reigns asking of Norway;Svein Estridson reigns as king of Denmark.)Harald Hardrada destroys Haithabu.Harald Hardrada invades N England;defeated and killed by Saxon King HaroldGodwinsson at Stamford Bridge,25 September. William of Normandy leadssimultaneous Norman invasion ofS England; Saxon army force-marchessouth, but King Harold is defeated andkilled at Hastings, 14 October.Svein Estridson raids England, William theConqueror pays danegeld.Icelander Godred Corvan raids Isle of Man,then subject to Dublin Vikings, andestablishes Norwegian rule.Final Viking raid on England by DanishKing Cnut fails.

The Common Warrior Only a minority of the Vikingwarriors who formed theearly raiding parties or the

later armies were wealthy enough tohave expensive weapons or armour.The bulk of these forces consistedof so-called karls, probably armedonly with a spear or axe and ashield. These were free men,perhaps owning a little farmingland, who had the right to carryweapons. These men would volun-teer to joining a plundering expedi-tion mounted by a wealthier localhersir or a noble jarl or, later, amajor undertaking led by a king;there were also karls who werebound by various kinds of alle-giance to a hersir. To these peas-ants, originally very poor, asuccessful raiding party could meanreal wealth; after deducting a majorshare for the shipowner andperhaps others for some privilegedmembers of the party, any loot wasdivided equally among the crew.The individual was responsible for

providing his own equipment, andthis would rarely have includedanything that was not available onhis own farm. Archaeologistsassume that every warrior going onan expedition carried his personalbelongings in a wooden chest,which served him as a rowing benchaboard ship. While he was away hiswife would run the farm in hisstead, with any dependent malerelatives and slaves to do the dailywork and defend the land andstock.

(Left) Most Vikings would only have beenarmed with weapons available in theirhouseholds, such as an axe or a sax (aheavy, single-edged knife). The surprise andferocity of their raids often made up for anyindividual lack of equipment, however. Toprotect himself this warrior carries a roundwooden shield, made of thin planks boundwith leather at the rim - metal binding andfittings have also been found. A central ironboss covers the hole which accomodates thefist where it holds the handgrip fixed acrossthe rear. Finds show that shields were oftenmade from limewood, and some are onlyabout 6mm (0.2in.) thick for lightness. Sizevaried between about 60cm and 100cm(24ins-40ins), but the shield would alwayscover the torso.

(Right) The sax is a weaponwhich seems to have beentypical for Vikings of theEnglish Danelaw and Ireland,who presumably adopted itfrom the Saxons; few saxeshave been found amongburial goods in Scandinaviaitself, where the axe was theeveryday weapon and tool.The hilt of the sax picturedhere is made of horn, andshows an unusual brass cross-guard - our common warriorhas probably looted it inEngland or Ireland.

(Left) An undyed tunic and trousers are the complete summerclothing for this Viking, though he will have owned a thick, warmwoollen tunic or a woollen cloak for the winter. His axe is deco-rated with carving. Around his neck he wears a comb and somegood luck charms on a leather thong; but he does not display anyjewellery, and the clasp with which he closes his tunic is ofsimple quality.

(Right) Normally a poorwarrior would not own shoes,but our subject wears a pairmade of goatskin in a formfollowing archaeological findsat Norwich, East Anglia - aso-called "turnshoe", closedat the outside with twoleather toggles. Knee-high legwrappings protect him fromcold, mud and thorns. 13

Edged Weapons

The devastating victories which the Vikingswon all over Europe seem out of proportionwith their rather simple arsenal - it is not to

any significant superiority in weapons that we shouldlook for the secrets of their success. The warrior'sequipment was virtually the same right acrossEurope in the 7th-11th centuries, and between anytwo regions weapons usually differed only in detailsof design and quality (though some areas seem toshow evidence of a traditional attachment to oneweapon or another). Viking weapons were fairlysimple, and except for the sword most could also beused in everyday life at home - an axe for cuttingwood, spears and bows for hunting, and a single-edged knife for a multitude of household tasks. Onlythe sword was developed solely as a lethal weapon.

SpearsThough historians and archaeologists still disputethe question of the predominant weapon of the earlyMiddle Ages, it is very likely to have been the spear.Spearheads needed only relatively little iron, werecheap and easy to forge, and could be supplied ingreat numbers; every owner could shaft his own.The finds of spearheads in nearly every warrior'sgrave indicate that they were common. They hadmany uses, and we should distinguish betweendifferent types.

Light spears or javelins were thrown. The warriorusually carried several of them as a distance weapon.The account of the battle of Maldon in 991 tells of aViking injured by an Anglo-Saxon javelin piercinghis ringmail shirt; this makes the point that theimpact of a spear thrown by a trained warrior couldforce open the rings of riveted mail.

The impact of thrusts delivered with hand-heldspears must have been even greater. Controlledsingle- or two-handed, they could not only be usedto thrust with the point but also to cut with the edgesof the spearhead, to deliver blows with the shaft, andto block enemy blows. The so-called "winged"spearheads, thought to have been a Carolingianinvention, feature two sideways projections from thesocket of the spearhead; these could be used to hookbehind shield rims and pull the shield away, but alsoto hook the body of the opponent. (The reason forthe original design was probably that the projectionsalso prevented the spearhead penetrating so deeplyinto the body of an animal or a foe that it was diffi-cult to pull out.)

Spear shafts varied in length between about 150cmand 300cm (5ft-10ft), with 20cm-60cm (8in-24in)heads. The shaft was usually made from ash and hada diameter of about 2.5cm (one inch). The socketedheads came in a wide variety of shapes: long andnarrow, short, leaf-bladed, flat, round, or with atriangular cross-section. Many recovered examplesare made from pattern-welded iron, often decoratedwith silver wire inlays; but as most finds are from rich

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(Right) This group ofwarriors carry not only spearsbut also a number of shorter,lightweight javelins. Earlymedieval paintings and tapes-tries show warriors carryingthree or four javelins; as soonas they were thrown thewarrior would continuefighting with his sword or axe,which he carried at his belt.Sometimes warriors aredepicted carrying the javelinsin the same hand as theshield. Although the basicspear was a relatively cheapweapon it was by no meanscarried only by poor men -the jarl or hersir was as likelyto carry a finely decoratedexample.

(Left) This battlefield picture,taken during a re-enactmentshow at Trelleborg, Sweden,shows the proportions of theweapons used: a high numberof axes and spears, but onlytwo of the expensive swords.The deformation of the shield(left) shows the momentum ofa spear thrust. Whether theywere used one- or two-handed, spears were capableof piercing both shields andmail. The front line of abattle array was composed ofwarriors with axe or swordand shield, and the spearmenwould thrust over their heads,trying to stay behind the"shield wall".

(Left) Numerous spearheads of different shapes andsizes have been found in graves and on battlefield orsettlement sites. Scandinavian spearheads are usuallylong and narrow, like the two right hand exampleshere - although the projecting "wings" are ofCarolingian origin. The spear second from left showsanother typical form, of Celtic origin but imported toScandinavia. The shapes of spearheads stayed nearlyunchanged throughout the whole Viking period.

warriors' graves, this does not necessarily mean thatspearheads were normally decorated. When heldsingle-handed the spear was most likely wieldedoverarm for a downwards thrust; this allowed stabsto the head and body, and from this position it couldalso be thrown without changing grip.

AxesAt the beginning of the Viking era both the normalwoodcutter's axe and the small "bearded" axe werecommonly used. Axes would be kept as tools inevery Nordic household, so they would be availableto even the poorest free-born warrior; but they soondeveloped into a symbol of the terror the Vikingsspread among their enemies. They had 60cm-90cm(2ft-3ft) hafts and cutting edges 7cm-15cm (3ins-6ins) long. The fransisca, a small throwing axe prob-ably developed by the Franks, was also used byAnglo-Saxons and Vikings alike.

The later years saw the invention of the notoriousso-called "Danish axe" - long or broad axe - specifi-cally a battle weapon, perhaps developed in responseto the more widespread use of ringmail armour. Ona 120cm-180cm (4ft-6ft) haft was mounted a large,heavy blade with a crescent-shaped edge about22cm-45cm (9ins-18ins) long. Swung by a strongman, it could easily bring down a rider or smash

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(Above left) The "Danishaxe" became closely assoc-iated with the Vikings all overEurope - even in far-offByzantium, where theVarangian Guard wasreferred to as the "guard ofaxe-bearers". This warrioradditionally carries a swordfrom a belt over his rightshoulder; his superior armourconsists of a spangenhelmhelmet and a mail shirt overhis woollen tunic.

(Left) Examples of axeheads,including the great "Danishaxe" (centre) - more properlycalled a breidox, broad axe.The symmetrically shapedaxes (centre & bottom right)show thicker, harder steeledges welded to blades madefrom milder steel. The otherfour are examples of "beardedaxe" - skeggox - with differenttypes of "beards". Noteprojections of the socket togive a better fit and preventbreaking of the haft. It wasthe Vikings who introducedthe axe to northern Europeas a popular weapon.

(Right) Surprised whilelooting a longhouse, Vikingsdefend themselves. Thewarrior wearing helmet andpadded gambeson tries wardoff his enemy's sword with hisaxe; in the background hiscomrade is getting intotrouble, as his opponent hasthrust his axe through theshield and will now try to pullit away. This picture remindsus that the axe was not onlygood for delivering blows butalso for hooking and pulling,and the tips of its blade forthrusting.

shields. It also allowed thrusts with the axehead and,like the winged spearhead, it could be hooked behinda shield and pulled to break an opposing "shieldwall".

SaxesThe sax was another item in everyday use which wasalso suitable as a weapon, and was probably carriedby warriors of all ranks. The Coppergate excavationsin York turned up 300 saxes; and though this was anAnglo-Saxon find, York was long a Viking centre. Asindicated by the name, the origin of the sax lies withthe Saxons, and the Vikings most probably adopted itfrom these peoples who were as often their neigh-bours as their enemies.

The sax is a single-edged knife of a length which canrange from about 7.5cm to 75cm (3-30 inches). Wecan distinguish between two groups: short ones witha length of 35cm (14ins) or less, and long ones ofbetween 50cm and 75cm (20-30 inches). Originallythe shorter knives were probably everyday domestictools, carried to war for camp use but also ready tohand if a fallen enemy had to be finished off. Thelong saxes were developed specifically as weapons,but they could equally be used for more peacefulchores, in the manner of a machete. Some long saxesfitted with sword-type handles were found in the IrishViking burials of Kilmainham-Islandbridge.

Sax blades were straight and single-edged, the backof the blade often broad and the blade thus quiteheavy; it was tapered to the tip, which was sharpenedto allow thrusting. The rare Scandinavian findsfeature a slightly downwards-turned edge. The sax

was carried in a scabbard of folded leather, whichmight be decorated with copper, bronze or silver ifthe wealth of the owner allowed. As with spearheads,axes and swords, some finds show silver inlayed deco-ration.

SwordsThe sword was the most expensive weapon a warriormight carry, and hilts and crossguards were oftenhighly decorated with patterned copper or silver andniello inlays to show off the rank and wealth of theowner. The sword was not merely a practical tool,but in this warrior culture was sometimes believed tohave mystic properties - individual swords werenamed, and skilled smiths were believed to haveaccess to magic powers. In the small part of the townof Haithabu which has been excavated to date theremains of 40 swords of all qualities have alreadybeen found.

The Viking sword had a double-edged blade about72cm-82cm (28ins-32ins) long and perhaps 5cm(2ins) wide. The hilt added another 7.5cm-10cm(3ins-4ins), giving an overall length of just under onemeter, which seems to have increased towards theend of the Viking era. A short crossguard protectedthe hand; and at the end of the hilt a heavy pommelacted as a balancing counterweight for the blade,without which the sword - weighing up to 2kg(4.51bs) - would have been difficult to control.

At the beginning of the Viking age pattern-weldedblades were thought to be the best: this was thecomplex technique of welding and forging togetherrods of pure iron and of carbonised iron, i.e. steel.

(Left) Reconstructions ofvarious saxes found inEngland, Ireland and (lowerthree) Scandinavia - the lattershowing the very slightlydown-curved blade shape.The example (second left)with a crossguard is not longenough to be called a sword-sax. Hilts were made fromwood, horn or bone, andalthough some of the saxespictured here have a two-pieceriveted grip other finds havethe tang running up into apierced single-piece hilt.

The result is a hard but nevertheless flexible bladewhich shows a beautiful surface pattern after it ispolished. Some blade finds have a pattern-weldedcore combined with harder steel edges. One 10thcentury English reference puts the cost of a sword ofsuperb quality at 15 male slaves or 120 oxen.

In the 9th century the European sword market wastaken over by Frankish smiths (although KingCharles the Bald tried to ban the export of these"strategic weapons" from his territories). The Frankshad discovered that they could achieve better resultsby using phosphorised steel; this did requirespecialist knowledge in forging, but was quicker thanpattern-welding. The Scandinavian smiths, who hadnot yet mastered this new technique, imported unfin-ished blades from the Franks and completed andhiked them to the Viking taste. Blades of Frankishorigin have been found in Denmark, Norway,Sweden, the Baltic states, England and Ireland.The scabbards were made from wood covered with

leather and were usually lined with oiled material toprotect the sword from rusting; they usually had ametal chape to protect the tip, and sometimes metalreinforcement at the mouth. They were initiallyslung from a belt which ran over the shoulder, held inplace by the waist belt; later in our period they wereoften hung directly from the waist belt.Vikings swords were used single-handed, combined

with a shield or sax in the other hand. When deliv-ering a blow care had to be taken not to strikedirectly onto the opponent's sword, as the steel - highquality by the standards of their age, but rather brittleby ours - would break easily.

(Above right) The long-hafted "Danish axe" with itscrescentic blade became wide-spread at the end of the 1 Othcentury. The cutting surface,which was between 9ins and12ins long (there is one refer-ence to an 18in example),often had a welded edge ofhigher quality steel. LikeViking swords, axes weresometimes named; femalenames were apparentlyfavoured, and King OlafHaraldsson had one namedHel after the Norse goddess ofdeath. In the hands of a tall,strong man the long axe was adevastating weapon, and thereare many tales of the dreadfuldamage it could do, toarmoured men and theirhorses alike.

(Right) This warrior is armedwith sword and shield but alsocarries an axe in his belt. TheArabian chronicler IbnMiskawayh describedScandinavian warriors raidinga trading post in 943; eachcarried a sword, but foughtwith shield and spear, andalso had an axe and/or knifein his belt. Note the shortringmail shirt of the earlyViking age, with its "dagged"lower edge, and the mailneckguard on the helmet.

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(Above) The warrior in frontof this line is equipped withhelmet, ringmail, sword andshield; his equipment issimilar to that found in a

Viking burial at Gjermundbu,Norway, presumably the graveof a wealthy 1 Oth centuryleader. The grave alsocontained a bridle.

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(Left) Details of two recon-structed sword hilts, showingthe complex decoration ofpommels and crossguards.The left hand example issimilar to a Jutland find; theoriginal was inlaid with silverand brass. The right handsword was copied from a findin southern Sweden, althoughthe original piece was made inEngland in around 1000 AD;the crossguard and pommelmounting were made fromsilver, gilded and decoratedwith niello (the pommel wasmissing from the original andwas speculatively recon-structed) . To the right thefittings of a scabbard can beseen, also richly decorated.

(Above) These three recon-structed sword hilts showsome of the many commonvariants. The two to the leftare silver plated like thesplendid Haithabu swordfind; note two-piece woodengrips. The right handexample features a five-lobed

pommel, with silver inlay andsilver wire. This shape of hiltis similar to one found in theship-burial at Haithabu anddated to the middle of the 9thcentury, though the original ismuch more highly decorated.(Left & right photos courtesyDawn of Time Crafts)

(Right) Although manyhighly decorated grave findsseem to tell a different story,the typical Viking sword isassumed to have been fairlyplain - few warriors couldafford craftsmanship inprecious metals, and theowner would judge the valueof a sword by the quality ofthe blade, not the amount ofdecoration. 21

(Left) The fact that he ownshelmet, sword and ringmailcorselet shows the consider-able wealth of this warrior -the latter, particularly, hasseldom been found inScandinavian burials. Hismail reaches the thigh andhas short sleeves, whichsuggests a relatively earlydate. It is fastened at theupper back by leather lacingsewn to the rings. Note alsothe detail of the mail'sconstruction: each ring islinked with four others. Intoday's reconstructed mail,for the sake of time andexpense, the rings are notriveted or forged closed butonly butted over; there arealso period examples of thismethod among the archaeo-logical record.

(Right) The "dagged" loweredge of the ringmail shirt; thiseffect did not serve any prac-tical purpose but was purelydecorative. (There is clearevidence for its use nearly athousand years before byRoman auxiliary troops.)Under his mail and over hiswoollen tunic our hersir wearsa quilted leather jerkin orgambeson stuffed with hair,wool or even hay.

(Left) Leather boots likethese were fastened withtoggles made from wood orhorn. Some additional stripsof leather are fitted to theleather sole to give a sort ofclearing for a better grip. Thebasic model for this boot is aleather "turnshoe", of whichexamples have been found atmany sites; a high leg couldbe added to give betterprotection in winter.

(Below) Our hersir carries athis belt a sax, and two pouchesfor small necessities. Hishelmet has a mail neckguard;and the sword hilt is a copy ofa find from Hedemarken(Peterson type S).

This warrior could be a hersir, a term identifying awealthy farmer owning his own land and havingthe status of a local leader or chief of a clan. At

the beginning of the Viking age the hersirs were theorganisers and leaders of raiding parties and settle-ments, but their influence decreased with the late 10thcentury, when effective national monarchies evolved inScandinavia. Thereafter the hersir became a local repre-sentative of royal power.

The beliefs of our hersir seem to be at the borderbetween paganism and Christianity; he wears acombined symbol of the cross and Thor's hammeraround his neck, decorated with a wolf's head - thisamulet originated in Iceland and is dated to the 10thcentury, when Iceland converted to Christianity. Thepainting on his shield pictures a scene described in theProse Edda by Snorri Sturlusson: two wolves chase thesun and moon across the skies, and thus cause alter-nating day and night. If the wolves should one day catchtheir quarry they will devour them, and Ragnarok willcome - the end of the world, according to the Nordicpagan religion. Then the fallen heroes will leave Valhallato ride to their last battle at the side of the gods ofAsgard, fighting against the giants; and the death of thegods will bring the world we know to an end.

Perhaps our hersir has even been baptised, though thisdid not necessarily mean much to a Viking. Sometimesthey would receive baptism to improve trade with theChristian peoples; sometimes they would accept it onlyfor the sake of the presents handed out to new believers;sometimes the new faith was embraced in prudentobedience to a king. Even if the convert attendedchurch while on dry land, he often continued to sacri-fice to his old gods when sailing the seas.

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Armour and Helmets

Those among the Vikings and their enemieswho could afford to do so wore severaldifferent types of armour. This was a highly

desirable possession, since the wounds of edgedweapons could quickly prove deadly in an unhygienicage ignorant of medicine. A cut just a centimetredeep could easily lead to tetanus or blood poisoning,and penetration wounds which carried dirty clothingor other debris into the body were lethally vulnerableto infection.

Some readers may assume that the ringmail shirt(brynja or hringserkr) was the typical Viking armour.As already stated, its cost in fact made it a rarity inthe 8th-10th centuries, but it was certainly used tosome extent. Contemporary depictions and the rarearchaeological finds confirm that at the beginning ofthe Viking age in the 8th century mail reached to thecrotch and had short sleeves - e.g. the Gjermundbufind from Norway, in which 85 fragments of a 9th-century corselet were discovered.

During the 11th century - when the equipment ofthe fighting men of most northern European peoplesbecame more similar - mail shirts grew longer. TheBayeux Tapestry shows Norman and Anglo-Saxonwarriors of 1066 with mostly a knee-length mail coator hauberk, divided at both front and back from thelower edge to the crotch to allow it to be worn onhorseback. In this final period of the Viking age addi-tional pieces were also added to the original, simpleT-shaped mail corselet: coifs or mail hoods coveredthe head, and ventails - rectangular flaps - werefastened across the face with laces or hooks toprotect the area not covered by a helmet.

Depending on the size of the rings - which wereprobably never the same from any two blacksmiths -and on the length of the corselet, a single mail shirtcould contain anything from 20,000 to 60,000 rings.The rings can be separated into two types: some werepunched like flat washers from a metal plate, andothers were made from drawn wire. The wire ringsalso appear in two varieties - closed and open.

To construct a mail shirt, four of the closed ringswere hooked into one open one, which was thenriveted. These groups of five rings could then bebrought together with another open ring, assemblycontinuing in all directions. The weight of an 11thcentury knee-length, long-sleeved ringmail hauberkwas approximately 18kg (401bs), and it could take awhole year to make. This explains why only wealthywarriors could afford to buy one - we may guess thatthe price might be comparable to that of a luxury cartoday.

It is difficult to say how rare they really were,however. Mail seems seldom to have been buried

(Above) This warrior's ring-mail shirt is of the 8thcentury T-shaped type; thelower edge reaches the thighand is dagged for decoration.Some kind of protectiveclothing like his paddedgambeson must normally

have been worn below themail to spread the impact ofblows. To make it easier forthe warrior to move his armsthis mail shirt has been leftopen at the armpits - a trade-off between flexibility andprotection.

with its owners; if properly protected from rust andskillfully repaired when necessary it would lastalmost indefinitely, and most likely these valuableitems were handed down over the generations. Theywere far too precious to be simply lost, or to be lefton the battlefield in an age when plundering the deadwas commonplace. In the later medieval period,when we know mail to have been common, battle-field grave finds are still most unusual, and moreformal Christian burials no longer included "gravegoods".

Below ringmail the warrior would wear agambeson, a tunic- like piece of clothing made fromtwo layers of wool, leather or linen stuffed with aninterlining of fleece, animal hair or some similarmaterial. The layers were then sewn together byquilting. Its purpose was to spread the impact ofblows, to prevent crush injuries and to stop brokenringmail from being forced into the flesh. If it wasmade from leather it was in itself a good protectionagainst cuts, and was often worn instead of mail.Another type of armour which should be mentioned

is lamellar, which was uncommon in westernEurope and had its roots in the Middle East. But asthe Vikings reached Byzantium on their raiding andtrading voyages, and are even thought to have visitedBaghdad, they are likely to have known this type ofarmour. Lamellar consists of small steel scales -lamellae - with holes punched through at the edges,allowing them to be overlapped and laced togetherinto corselets. Lamellae of different shapes and sizeshave been found at the site of Birka, a trading, city incentral Sweden. Although tests show that these weretrade goods and had not been made up into armours,what would be the sense in importing them over along distance if there were no use for them?

A final type of protection which may have been usedwere vambraces (arm pieces) and greaves made fromsteel splints, about 16mm (5/8in) wide and of varyinglength, mounted on leather strapping and worn onthe lower legs and/or arms. The ancestors of the

Vikings are also thought to have had a similar type ofbody armour, as suggested by interpretation of thec.6th-7th century Valsgarde find in Uppland,Sweden.

HelmetsThere is only one well-preserved find of a helmetthat is undoubtedly of Viking origin - that found atGjermundbu, dated to the late 9th century. Thehelmet consists of a brow band to which two curvedstrips are fixed to make a dome, one running fromthe front to the back and the other from ear to ear;at their junction is a small spike. The strips form aframe for four concave triangular plates which fill inthe skull of the helmet. The face is partially coveredby a "visor" shaped like the frame of spectacles orgoggles, decorated with inlaid eyebrows; and a mailneckguard was originally attached to the back and

(Right) Over his mail thiswarrior wears lamellar armourprotecting his upper body. Inthe eastern countries wherethis type of armour originatedlamellae have been foundvariously shaped at the loweredges, including shieldshapes. (The contemporarySlavs also had helmets oflaced lamellar construction).Our warrior's helmet isbeaten from a single piece ofsteel but has a riveted-onnasal bar not unlike theOlmütz helmet find. Beneathit a leather-lined mail coif isvisible; these becamecommon in the 11th century.Note the different mail ringsizes and wire thicknesses -there is plentiful archaeolog-ical evidence for this.

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(Left) Those who could notafford mail might wear apadded gambeson alone, inshapes similar to those ofmail corselets. Gambesonsdepicted on stones, tapestriesand wooden figurines showthe lines of stitched quiltingin both square-set and diag-onal patterns; this example ofthe former is reconstructedusing woollen fabric.

(Below) This gambeson isdiagonally quilted, and split atthe sides so that despite itsknee length it will not hampermovement when fighting. Ifthick enough, padded leathergambesons gave some protec-tion from cuts; there is anearly 11th century referenceto reindeer hide gambesonsfrom Lapland giving compa-rable protection to mail.

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sides. All parts of the helmet were riveted together.Although this is a unique survival, documented

finds of visor pieces at a number of otherScandinavian sites confirm its widespread use. Itappears to be a simplified development of a muchmore elaborate helmet construction of the Vendelage, 100-200 years previously. A number of theselavishly decorated pre-Viking age helmets werefound at Välsgarde, also showing both spectacle-shaped visors and attached ringmail; these weremade from many small decorated metal plates heldtogether by metal bands forming a hemisphere.

From about 900 use of another type of helmetbecame widespread throughout Europe: the spangen-helm, not unlike the Gjermundbu helmet but with amore pointed dome, a straight nasal bar in front toprotect the face, and in-fill plates of steel, hardenedleather, or even horn. Runestone carvings show thatthis type of helmet was worn by many Vikings.

Following not long after the spangenhelm came thedevelopment of a similar conical helmet beaten froma single piece of steel; good examples are the Olmützfind and the "Wenceslas" helmet now in Prague.Both have a nasal bar, although the Wenceslas helmethas its richly decorated, cross-shaped nasal riveted tothe skull rather than drawn down from it in onepiece. Apart from the helmet types described amultitude of varieties and combinations may beimagined. One find features only the four triangular

(Left) The making of ringmailwas very time-consuming, butrequired few tools, and couldbe undertaken in virtually anysmithy. The making of therings started with drawing thewire from hot or cold iron.The wire was then woundaround a rod former in a coil,and separated into single ringswith chisel cuts. A proportionof these rings were thenforced through a cone so thatthe ends of the wire met;heated glowing red in the fire,these could be forged closedwith a few hammer blows onthe anvil. Other rings had theends hammered flat and over-lapping, a hole being punchedthrough these so that theycould later be riveted.

plates, riveted directly together without any frame.The interior of the helmets cannot be reconstructed

exactly from archaeological evidence, but it is likelythat a leather band or lining piece was riveted to theinside to which a chin strap or thongs were attached.Many warriors would also have worn padded caps togive a comfortable fit and extra protection againstblows. Although a helmet was a lot cheaper than amail corselet it is likely that only the richer sortowned one during the earlier period. Others had toprotect their heads with caps of thick leather or fur,which are often pictured on runestones.

Pre-Viking age helmets had been richly decorated,but with the helmet becoming more common in 11thcentury Europe decoration appears less often; eventhose belonging to the wealthy usually had inciseddecoration only on the skull straps, brow bands,"eyebrows" or spectacles, and nasals. (There is refer-ence, however, to the painting of "war marks" -herkumbl - on helmets, presumably some form ofidentifying sign.)

Finally, but importantly, we should emphasise that- Hollywood notwithstanding - Vikings did not wearhorns on their helmets. This common error resultspartly from mistaken dating by early antiquaries offinds from other northern European cultures; andpartly from various crude depictions of warriorfigures who are dedicated to Odin. This is usuallymarked by a raven - Odin's bird - on the helmet, withthe wings forming a circle to the left and right sides;often decorated, these can easily be mistaken forhorns, especially as the raven's head often cannot bedistinguished in profile.

(Below) This re-enactorwears mail of the early T-shape with a straight loweredge, and is armed with a"sword-sax". Fragments of asimilar corselet were foundtogether with theGjermundbu helmet; ring

diameter was about .85cm,about four rings per squarecentimetre (c.24 per squareinch). Note that the armswere not made separately andfitted to the torso, but werefashioned as part of a singleassembly.

(Opposite) This re-enactorwears a mail coif under hisreconstruction of the "St.Wenceslas helmet" found inPrague. It was hammeredfrom a single piece, with across-shaped nasal riveted tothe front, and is dated to the10th century. The decorationon the nasal suggests that thehelmet originates in a Nordicculture.

(Above) This reconstruction shows the onlyrelatively well-preserved helmet of unquestion-ably Viking origin and date - that found atGjermundbu. It features a mail neckguard, a"spectacle- shaped" visor protecting eyes andnose, and a small spike at the junction of thetwo bands forming the skull frame. These, thebrow band and the in-filling plates are riveted.The helmet probably belonged to a Vikingleader who was buried in the 1 Oth centurytogether with his armour and sword. (Photocourtesy Dawn of Time Crafts)

(Right) The original of this "Vendel age"helmet was found at Välsgarde in Sweden. Itcannot be dated with confidence, but wasburied with its owner approximately 100-200years before the Viking age, i.e. c.6th-7thcenturies. Certain similarities to the 10thcentury Gjermundbu helmet are obvious -note the mail neckguard, and "spectacle"visor, here with bronze "eyebrows". Thispiece is richer in decoration and of morecomplex construction than the later type:embossed plates are fitted into edge pieceswhich are riveted to a frame. The plates showwarrior figures carrying shield and spear andwearing coats and tunics, and helmets with"horns" - but these latter are probably meantto depict the wings of Odin's ravens, Huginand Munin. The mail face- and neckguard ishooked onto a wire running through loops atthe edge of the helmet; the maker of theGjermundbu helmet punched holes into theedge for this purpose. (Photo courtesyDawn ofTime Crafts)28

(Below) This picture shows arange of helmet types worn inEurope throughout the Vikingage. (Left) is reconstructedafter the Wenceslas helmet,but is not as richly decoratedas the original. (Centre) is ofspangenhelm constructionwith "eyebrows" and mailneckguard, as probably wornby the Vikings. (Right) is areconstruction of theGjermundbu helmet. Leatheror fabric liners and chin lacesare believed to have been fixedinside virtually all ancient andmedieval helmets to enablethem to be fitted securely tothe head; some form ofpadding (e.g. sheepskin orquilted fabric?) would havebeen necessary for comfortand to protect against "blunttrauma".

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(Above left) The so-calledGiecz helmet is dated to the11th century, and features fourconcave triangular platesriveted directly to one another;they are held together at thetop by a plate with a plume-holder and at the bottom by abrow band. It is probably ofSlavic origin; and like so manyViking age helmets, it has a

(Above right) Many Vikingage warriors will have wornthis combination of gambesonand spangenhelm. Duringthe 11th century this type ofhelmet was the most commonin Europe. Runestones show

(Left) This reconstructedspangenhelm has "eyebrows"above the nasal, clearly indi-cating Scandinavian manufac-ture. Although no completehelmet of this kind has beenfound, "eyebrows" associatedwith other helmet fragmentshave been recovered frommany Viking burials,

mail neckguard fitted.Helmets of this constructionmay well have been worn byeastern Vikings such as theRus, and could have reachedScandinavia as trade goodsfrom these settlements - thusits use here in conjunctionwith an eastern lamellarcorselet. (Photo courtesyMelanie Donus)

warriors wearing conicalheadgear which could beeither spangenhelms, single-piece helmets similar to the"Wenceslas", or even simpleleather caps.

supporting this assumption.Note the leather edging towhich the helmet liner isfitted; it is sewn through holesin the brow band, whichcould also have held a mailneckguard. Note also thelong nasal, giving someprotection against cuts to theface from the mouth up.

(Above) The helmet typesreconstructed here are notoriginally Scandinavian, butsome could very well havebeen imported, given theVikings' wide-ranging opera-tions. (Upper left & right) areof Norman make, similar tothe Olmütz helmet exceptthat the point of the skull isinclined to the front; whilethe Olmiitz helmet is dated tothe 11th century this type wasfound in the 12th century.

(Above right) Apart fromthe typically Scandinaviandetails like "eyebrows" and"spectacles", this replica of apre-Viking age helmet hascheekguards to protect theface. These are a feature ofseveral Vendel age helmets,and also of English finds ofearly Anglo-Saxon helmets,e.g. the Sutton Hoo and York

(Right) This shows a span-genhelm with nasal to whichcheekguards and a mail neck-guard have been fitted; cheek-guards might be attachedeither by rings or hinges.

(Centre) is a front view of aSlavic helmet as perhaps wornby the Rus and Varangians; atthe apex is a tubular holderfor a horsehair plume. (Lowerleft & right) are two morereconstructions of theWenceslas helmet. (Lowercentre) is a spangenhelm,clearly showing the top platecovering the junction of theskull bands. (Photo courtesyDawn ofTime Crafts)

Coppergate examples. Wecan assume that they werestill to be seen in the 8th and9th centuries, as well as themetal strip neckguards alsoshown here; a combination ofcheekguards and mail neck-guard, as on the Coppergatehelmet, would also have beencurrent. (Photo courtesyDawn of Time Crafts)

Note also the large clasp withwhich our warrior fastens hiscloak, of a Viking patterndated to die 8th or 9thcentury.

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The Varangian Guard

The Vikings fought not only as freelance plun-derers and as the retainers of kings or localleaders, but also as paid mercenaries. A well-

known example of this was the famous VarangianGuard of Byzantium. Although Scandinavian merce-naries are recorded in Byzantium earlier, the Guarditself was raised in 988 by the Emperor Basil II, whoreceived 6,000 warriors from Vladimir of Kiev. Thequality of Scandinavian fighting men was already wellknown in southern Europe. Earlier sources tell of400 men taking part in a Byzantine expedition to

Italy in 935; of at least 600 fighting with Byzantinetroops on Crete in 949, and of others serving in 955against the Arabs in the battle of Hadath.

From 988 the Varangian Guard formed a hard coreunit of the Byzantine army, protecting the emperor,to whom they swore allegiance. This may be theorigin of the term Varangian, perhaps coming fromthe word var meaning a group of men who hadsworn allegiance. In Byzantium the Varangian Guardwere known as the "axe-bearing barbarians" or the"guard of axe-bearers". Even today the names of

(Left) In Byzantium themembers of the VarangianGuard were famous as menwith red hair and beards, "astall as date palms"; they werealso said to drink too much.But the main symbol of theVarangians was the long-hafted Danish axe with itscrescent-shaped edge. Thisguardsman wears ringmail, amail coif and splint limbarmour, and apart from hisaxe is armed with a swordand a knife.

(Right) In battle theVarangian protected his headwith a mail coif and helmet.This spangenhelm has a verylarge decorated nasal with"eyebrows" and is obviouslyof northern origin, but similarhelmets of Byzantine makewould also have been widelyworn. Pictorial sources alsoshow ringmail worn under asmaller corselet of scale orlamellar armour. Note thefixing of the swordbelt passingover the right shoulder, as theVarangians usually wore it.Apart from Scandinavianswords they also used single-edged weapons fromByzantine armouries. 33

many Scandinavians who served in the guard survive.In the 11th century Byzantine troops in Greece wereled by a guardsman named Ragnvald; and from 1035to 1044 Harald Hardrada, who later became king ofNorway, served in the guard and commanded 500men.

The guardsmen were extremely well paid, and theincome of Harald Hardrada is said to have given himthe greatest personal fortune ever owned by anorthern European at that date. On campaign theVarangian Guard also had the privilege of being thefirst to plunder a conquered city. It is also said thatthey were allowed to perform a ritual "raid" on theemperor's chambers at his accession (though thereare other references to drunken guardsmen makingserious attacks on Michael VII and on anotheremperor).

The clothing of the Varangians was of northern stylebut influenced by Slavic and Byzantine fashions.Contemporary sources often emphasise theVarangians' great two-handed axes, theirScandinavian drinking habits, their toughness andtheir height. They are said to have provided their ownswords, but the bulk of their equipment would havebeen issued from Byzantine armouries. Theguardsmen were usually heavily armoured, wearingboth ringmail and lamellar armours.

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(Above) Because of theweight, the mail corselets ofthe Byzantine army wereusually relatively short withelbow-length sleeves. Theywere therefore combined withsteel vambraces and greaves,by both Byzantine troops andthe Varangians. The greavesillustrated are made from steelstrips or "splints"; they arebent at the top and bottom toallow easier movement, andfor a better fit the maker hasused two different widths ofstrip.

(Left) The vambraces are ofthe same splint constructionas the greaves; note strips ofdifferent length, the longerones running up the outside.The sword belt supports theleather- covered woodenscabbard on the left hip, withthe waist belt passing over it tokeep it steady. The smallleather pouch to the right ofthe scabbard might typicallycontain a pair of scissors tocut the beard and hair; a knifealso hangs from the belt.

(Right) The rear view of ourVarangian shows the fasteningof the greaves, the leathermounting straps beingbuckled behind the calf.Under his ringmail he wears athick woollen tunic with trian-gular gussets for additionalwidth. To carry his personalbelongings he has a pouchfastened with a horn toggleslung from his belt; it mightcarry flint, steel and tinder aswell as a spoon and a cup.

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Bows and Bowmen

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(Left) Originally the bow wasa weapon for hunting, and itwas probably to be found inmost Viking households. Thebow pictured here is typicalfor the Viking period. Madefrom a single straight woodenstave (i.e. not glued togetherfrom several layers), it showsa D-shaped cross-section withthe flat side pointing to thefront, and is tapered at theends. The bowstring is madeof a strong twisted cord ofhemp or flax. Our bowmanwears a simple cap, woollentunic and trousers, leg wrap-pings and leather shoes, witha belt for his knife, pouch andquiver.

(Right) This reconstructionshows several differentmethods of stringing a bow.Like their modern counter-parts, bows of the Viking agewere delicate instrumentsneeding careful maintenanceand handling; exposure todamp or long periods ofstrong sunlight weakened thewood. This group of bowmenare preparing for battle, witharrows stuck in the groundfor immediate use. Note theirsimple clothing and sidearms.

Bowmen were the "artillery" of the earlyMiddle Ages, and could be used effectivelyout to a range of about 200 metres. Like most

cutting and stabbing weapons the bow had evolved,and remained in daily use, as a weapon for hunting,but it could equally be used in war. Bows were madeof yew, ash or elm and ranged from about 1.6 to 2m(5.2 to 6.5ft) in length. A good example of a Vikingbow was found during the excavations at Haithabu.It is of yew, 1.915m (6.2ft) long, and has a "drawweight" of 40.8kg (901bs); similar bows made of elmwere also found at Haithabu. Apparently some bowshad a reinforcing wrapping of linen, leather, or evenstrips of sinew.

The finds at Haithabu also included arrows. Theshafts were apparently 70cm-80cm (27.5ins-31.5ins)in length and 8mm-10mm (0.31in-0.39in) in diam-eter, and already carried the three-feather fletchingswhich stabilise an arrow's flight by spinning it. Apartfrom blunt wooden tips as used for practice and forhunting small game a wide variety of iron arrowheadshave been found all over Europe, as different inshape as their intended use requires. Among manyother shapes there are long, narrow heads whichcould pierce mail, and others with heads divided tocarry plugs of burning tow or other inflammablematerials.

Apart from his bow the Viking archer probablycarried only a knife or sax, and for sake of easy move-ment he was unarmoured. Although a bow was notthe cheapest of weapons, there is written evidencesuggesting that bowmen were usually too poor toafford sword, helmet and armour. But the sagas alsospeak of great heroes who preferred the bow to anyother weapon. The tale of the battle of Svöldrmentions one Einar Tambarskelve, who stood besideKing Olaf Tryggvasson. After he had narrowlymissed Eric Haakonsson, a leader of the enemy, hisbow was broken by an arrow hit. Olaf asked himwhat had burst with such a noise: he replied, "It wasNorway, Sire, that sprang from your hands."

The archers' place in northern European battles ofthe early Middle Ages seems usually to have beendirectly behind the ranks of swordsmen and axemen,and they seem to have shot at the enemy "indirectly",i.e. at a high angle to fall into the enemy mass. Thebattle of Hastings is a good example of their impor-tance: here the Norman bowmen finally broke up theSaxon defensive formation, which had defied cavalryattacks, by dropping arrows into it from above. (Itmay be significant that of the arrow strikes depictedin the Bayeux Tapestry about one in four are headwounds.) We also know from other references thatbefore close combat began the bowmen of both

(OVERLEAF) The value ofarchery in any battle largerthan a skirmish betweenhandfuls of men depends onthe co-ordinated impact of anumber of bowmen shootingtogether. Before closing inhand-to-hand combat armiesof the Viking age usuallydeployed bowmen and threwlight axes and javelins.Norwegian and Swedish lawsof the period specify thatevery levied warrior of theleding was supposed to bringhis own bow and arrowswhen taking the field.

37

attackers and defenders often shot at the enemy tothin them out or goad them into unwisely breakingformation.

Archers carried their arrows in quivers which (incontradiction of so many "Robin Hood" fantasies)were slung at the waist and not across the back - thisallows much quicker reloading. It was notuncommon to thrust the arrows under the beltwithout a quiver, or even to stick them into theground ready to hand. Arrows were often picked upand shot back during a battle.

Just as, say, reading and writing are today automat-ically mastered by virtually everybody, we can assumethat during the early Middle Ages most people werefamiliar with the use of bow and arrow and practisedit from an early age by hunting.

(Left) Archaeologicalevidence suggests that theforce needed to draw a Vikingbow was around 40kg (901bs)- a "draw weight" comparableto that of later medieval long-bows, and one whichimparted to the arrow a shortrange penetrating power suffi-

cient to penetrate ringmail andthin wooden shields. Afterfitting the arrow to the stringthe archer draws the bowwhile lifting it, until thedrawing hand reaches hischeek; he then looses quickly -holding a drawn bow tires thearcher and impairs his aim.

(Below) These three arrow-heads have socket fittings totake the shaft. The upper twoare barbed - one of themmassively - to make themdifficult to pull out of thewound without doing further

damage. The lower one is thehead of a fire arrow with, inthis case, a wickerwork holderfor oiled tow which would beset alight immediately beforeshooting.

(Below) An alternative to thesocketed head was the tangedhead, forged in one piece witha spike which was driven intothe end of the shaft. Both theheads and the fletchings ofarrows were doubly secured,by glues such as birch-pitchand by strong thread whip-

ping. Although the fashioningof arrows was thought to be apastime fit for a warrior, infact it seems often to havebeen done by the women ofthe household. This arrow-head shows a cruciformsection.

40

(Left) This bowman carrieshis quiver at his belt - thenormal position throughoutEurope over several centuries;a quiver could carry up to 40arrows, and when these hadbeen shot off it was commonto pick up enemy arrows andshoot them back. Ourbowman wears a gambeson,and is thus rather moreheavily equipped than thenorm. On the Bayeux

(Below) There is no evidenceallowing the exact reconstruc-tion of a Viking "shooting tab"to protect the bowman'sdrawing fingers from thecutting of the bowstring, but

Tapestry only one of manydepicted bowmen wears mail,all the others having only atunic. Although inferior toarmoured warriors in hand-to-hand combat, each archercould theoretically controlseveral enemies at a distance,since his arrows could piercetheir armour and shields andhe could shoot a shaft everyfew seconds.

we may assume its use;without such protection therepeated drawing of a 40kgbow would become a torture,even to long-practised menwith calloused hands.

(Left) Details of severalarrowheads and two nocks,typical of examples found allover northern Europe. (Leftto right) The cruciform headillustrated opposite, its twoblades set at right angles; twobroad, flat heads, one chisel-shaped and one conventional- these make long, deepwounds which cut muscleand cause great loss of blood;and two sharply pointedpyramid section heads - theirimpact concentrated into atiny area, they can burst openthe rings of mail. Forhunting birds and small gamethere were also arrows withball-shaped wooden tips,which brought down thequarry by impact withouttearing up the flesh. 41

42

Rus -The Vikings in the East

Viking traders, mainly from Sweden, reachedByzantium via the Baltic Sea, the Neva, LakeLadoga, the Volkov, and Lake Ilmen; from

there the ships had to be dragged or rolled on logsover a portage to be launched again on the Lovat,sailing on down the Dniepr and finally into the BlackSea. The Vikings even reached the Caspian Sea andBaghdad by travelling via Stavaja Ladoga andNovgorod to reach the Volga.

The eastwards-questing Vikings started to settlealong these trading routes, and quickly conqueredthe local populations. Kiev, for example, originally aSlavic foundation, was ruled by Vikings from 858,and every year traders assembled there beforemaking the journey to Byzantium together.

(Left) The Viking routes tothe east were long andarduous, and crossed areaspopulated by nomadicwarriors; the warrior- tradershad to be capable ofdefending themselves. OurRus is one of the richertraders. He wears two tunicsover his "Turkish" trousers, anundertunic of linen and anupper tunic made from

Friesian wool cloth; both arefinely woven and dyed. Hisleather cap and his coat aretrimmed with fur, and hewears high leather boots. Hecarries a brass-decorated axe -used both as a tool and aweapon in the wild Russianinterior - and a decoratedhorn and pouches completehis belongings.

(Above) These high bootsfastened with leather togglesare reconstructed from origi-nals found at Ladoga and

Haithabu. His legs arecovered with cloth wrappingsup to the knee.

(Left) Bracelets like the oneillustrated here were worn byboth men and women; theyserved not only as jewellerybut also as currency. For thispurpose they could even behacked to pieces if smallamounts of silver were

needed. Often the twistedsilver wires were decoratedwith animal head motifs;some finds are also madefrom different preciousmetals, e.g. combinations ofsilver with bronze or gold.

The Rus - as the Slavs called the Vikings - under-took these long, arduous river voyages not only fortrading reasons: fleets of warships also carried themsouth and east on raiding expeditions. The Vikingsand their ancestors had been exploring these riverssince the 7th century, but their first major attackswere recorded in 852, when a Swedish armydemanded high danegeld from the inhabitants ofNovgorod. Two failed raids on Miklagard, as theVikings called Byzantium, also started out from Kievin about 900, and more followed in 907, 941 and944.

By this period the Vikings were already mixing withthe local Slav population and assimilating to their 43

culture. The name Rus lived on, as it does today in"Russia"; it may be derived from the Swedish nameRoslagen, an area near Stockholm, or equally fromthe Scandinavian word for "rowing" - often necessaryon the eastern rivers. As they did in other areas ofsettlement, the eastern Vikings often copied localways and fashions in dress. It is probable that thewide "Turkish" trousers which slowly becamecommon in Scandinavia have their origin in theeastern settlements. But the Vikings also left theirmarks in Russia; archaeologists have found Vikingcemeteries near Smolensk, Kiev, Grezdowa andNovgorod.

The Vikings who travelled east - so-called "traderswith the sword" - often collected their trade goodsalong the way by looting and taking Slavs as pris-oners, to exchange for silver, spices and salt. Apartfrom slaves they offered honey, wax, weapons andfurs. An intense trade is also proved by the manyitems of obviously eastern origin that have beenfound in Scandinavia - among them a small Buddha

44 statue, and a mosque-shaped basin.

(Left) Although many depic-tions show Vikings withsimple leather caps we canassume that fur trimming wascommon. At Birka, a centrefor Swedish trade with theeast, fragments of fur andleather were found which mayhave come from a leather cap

like this. Coats can be recon-structed from textile finds atHaithabu and from frequentdepictions, e.g. on the platesof the helmets found atVälsgarde. Worn by thewealthier sort, they did nothave fastenings and wereclosed with the waist belt.

(Below) The original patternfor these trousers most likelycame from the east, but thefashion quickly conqueredScandinavia. Arabian tradersnicknamed the Vikings "thepeople with the trousers madefrom 100 spans of cloth",

suggesting that they were wellknown for needing largeamounts of fabric to makesuch garments. The legs weregathered into a band slightlybelow the knee. Note theleather boots, this pairfastened with horn toggles.

(Left) This pouch is closedwith a leather toggle and fixedto the belt with two straps. Itwould carry the trader's itemsof daily use such as a purseand small scales. The richdecoration shows a beastfighting with a snake whichhas wound around its headand body; head and tail runinto leaved branches, a featurecommon to motifs of theMammen style. The originalpattern was found on amemorial stone set up byKing Harald for his parents atJellinge.

(Below) This pouch is deco-rated in the manner of Jellinge,another of the many identifiedViking decorative styles; it ischaracterised by headspictured in profile, spiralshapes, S- shaped bodies withdecorating ribbons andbranch-like protrusions.Purses like this, both deco-rated and undecorated and inmany sizes, have been found inall areas of Viking settlement.

(Right) This Rus, obviouslyless wealthy, wears the widetrousers in coarser materialand less bright colouring.His cap is made from feltwith fur trim. Instead of acoat he wears a caped hoodagainst the cold.

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Viking Battle Tactics

The Vikings initially gained the decisive advan-tage over their opponents by surprise attacks.Their raiding parties usually landed over sea

beaches or after slipping up river estuaries undercover of darkness or bad weather. The old Romanconcept of the "standing army" had quite disap-peared from northern Europe since the 5th century;in the face of these hit-and-run raids the localFriesians, Anglo-Saxons or Franks had no time toidentify the threat and assemble large defensiveforces. The targets of these attacks were also pickedto guarantee success, especially the monasteries -although often used as depositories of treasure, thesewere badly guarded.

At first these local plundering raids were mountedby only a few score men in a handful of ships.However, with the spreading reports of their success,and with the simultaneous appearance of morepowerful and unified kingdoms in Norway andDenmark, larger and larger Viking armies landed andstayed ashore longer, eventually over-wintering andlater settling for good in their captured territory.Often they caught horses locally to give themselvesgreater mobility and range. This was the method bywhich Vikings from the occupied Anglo-Saxonprovince of East Anglia attacked York in 866.

From 850 Danish Vikings began to stay in Englandduring the winter, taking danegeld in return forpromises to keep the peace. Kent paid a large sumin 865, but was nevertheless the victim of a great raidsoon afterwards. After 870 the Vikings ruled a greatswathe of middle England from coast to coast; for

generations various Anglo-Saxon leaders tried torecapture this so-called Danelaw, with varyingfortunes. These attempts often led to open fieldbattles, like Brunanburh in 937 and Maldon in 991,where the Vikings proved that they were equal topitched battles on dry land. Brunanburh is of specialinterest because it saw Vikings fight on both sides: anAnglo-Saxon army with support from Danish merce-naries met Norwegian rebel lords from Ireland andthe eastern Danelaw.

Field battles in northern and western Europe weremainly fought on foot in the early Middle Ages; thebattlefield use of mounted troops was rare before the11th century, although the Franks did have somegood quality cavalry. (Such troops were an importantelement of Byzantine armies in southern and easternEurope throughout our period.) The Vikings them-selves saw the horse as a means of transport andcommunication. They were defeated by, e.g., theFranks at Saucourt in 881, and the Byzantines atSlistria in 972 because of the superiority of theopposing cavalry. There is no rule without its excep-tions, however: in 888 the Vikings themselvesdeployed horsemen at Monfaucon in France, and in968 at the battle of Solcoit in Ireland there is writtenevidence of Viking cavalry.

Sometimes the time and place of a battle were actu-ally settled beforehand, and the limits of the agreedbattlefield marked by hazel branch fencing. To leavethis field or to break the arrangement was thoughtdishonourable, as was the pillaging of the enemy'slands once the challenge had been accepted but

46

(Left) The shield wall wasthe basic formation in Vikingage battles; spear thrusts andblows with sword and axewere delivered over the over-lapping shields. The forma-tion illustrated here isadvancing, and the warriorshit the rims of their shieldswith their weapons to demor-alise the enemy - a commonpractice of the time, whichmakes a deafening noise.Viking shields are thought tohave been painted in varioussolid colours or simplegeometrical patterns, redbeing the most oftenmentioned, followed byyellow, black, white, greenand blue.

(Right) Warriors stoodshoulder to shoulder as theycame together, and as soon asthe two shield walls clashedeach side tried to breakthrough. The pressure on thefront ranks was sometimesso great that dead men couldnot fall, but were swept alongheld upright in the crush. Ifone side broke through theytried to widen the gap; at thispoint formations broke up,with small groups and indi-viduals fighting one anotheras defeat turned into rout.

before battle was joined; the Anglo-Saxons some-times made use of this custom to win time toassemble their forces, as at Brunanburh.

The shield wallThe main battle formation was the "shield wall" orskjaldborg. The warriors stood side by side and heldtheir shields rim to rim, or even overlapping; butoverlapping the shields does not allow for wideswings with sword or axe, so the front rank wereperhaps limited to thrusting or parrying the oppo-nents' spears. Behind the shield-bearers stoodspearmen and warriors with long axes, to strike andthrust over the shoulders of their front rank; theterrain could be decisive, the side holding the higherground having an advantage. Depending on the sizeof the army there might be several shield walls onebehind the other.

There is evidence to suggest that javelin-throwersand bowmen were deployed both before and afterthe armies made contact, to create weak spots in theopposing shield wall. Then the front ranks wouldclash together, the warriors thrusting and hacking ateach other until one side managed to break through.In the course of this melee it seems probable that thegaps between the shields opened up somewhat asindividuals traded axe and sword blows. Weak spotsmight be attacked with a special wedge-shapedformation known as svynfylking, in which twowarriors formed the point, three the second row, fivea third row, and so on; the warriors at the outsidecarried overlapping shields and the spearmen inside

thrust over them as they forced their way forward.If the integrity of a shield wall was decisively broken

it was not unusual for the losing force to dissolve intochaos. Now was the moment when the leader had toshow his ability and force of character by rallying andregrouping his warriors, or by bringing in reinforce-ments which he had withheld up to then. The earlymedieval Viking army included three types of fightingmen: the individual freeborn man who was obliged todo service when summoned; the wealthier hersir whoowed allegiance to a jarl (or later to a king), and whobrought with him other armed men from his lands;and the leader's sworn bodyguard of retainers, whomhe maintained permanently at his own expense. Themain target in battle was the leader of the opposingarmy; if he was killed the common warrior wasconsidered free of his duty, and normally these men -who were hardly trained - were quickly cut down ifthey did not flee the field. However, honourdemanded that the leader's sworn liegemen fight onaround him until they too fell.

Sea fightsThe sea battles of the Vikings were fought accordingto the same principles as battles on land. Each sideroped most of their ships together side by side tomake a platform on which to form a shield wall. Theattackers tried to storm this platform, as e.g. in thebattles of Hafrsfjord in 872, Svöldr in 1000 and Nissain 1062. Ship after ship was taken and then detachedfrom the formation to drift away. Both fleets used tokeep some ships outside the formation to manoeuver; 47

these were used to attack the enemy by going along-side and boarding, in a hailstorm of arrows, stonesand spears from both sides. If the defenderssucceeded in killing the attacking rowers, or if theoars of the attacking ship were broken, the attackoften failed through inability to manoeuver.However, the elements of a real naval battle of theClassical age - outmanoeuvering, ramming, forcingthe opponent to sail against the wind, or the use ofcatapults - were unknown among the Vikings. Mostsea battles took place in quiet coastal waters or rivermouths, where there was no space for such tactics.

Viking armiesThe size of Viking armies varied enormously,growing steadily between the late 8th and 11thcenturies. An Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the pre-Viking age calls a group of 35 or more warriors an"army", and we can assume that the first Viking raidswere performed by such small bands. Even laterbattle descriptions rarely mention the number ofmen; the size of a Viking force was usually given inships, and the number of crew members on a shipcould vary according to the number of oars. Thequoted strengths for the siege of Paris in 886 -40,000 men and 700 ships - give an average of justunder 60 oars per ship; but crew sizes must havevaried (and anyway, all figures from early sourcesshould be treated as "impressionist" rather thanmathematically exact).

The early raids were usually led by a local leader,with the aim of capturing land at home or valuablebooty and slaves abroad. His crews were recruitedfrom men of the same family or clan and perhapssome neighbours, all of them bringing their ownequipment, and hoping for eventual reward in theform of shared plunder. Often they were bothwarriors and traders, selling at one place what theyhad looted from another. They usually had an agreedleader, but important decisions were often discussed

(Above) The Vikings seemseldom to have attempted totake fortified positions; butan attack with scalingladders, as reconstructedhere, is not unlikely. Weknow that Viking armies tookcities like York, Paris and

Bremen, although it is ques-tionable whether these fell totrue assaults or surrenderedafter sieges. The commonfortifications of the Viking agewere walls and enclosedencampments protected bywooden palisades.

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(Left) At the beginning of the9th century a small group ofraiders like this, making asurprise attack on a poorlydefended village ormonastery, was already beingtermed an "army" -remember that few of theirvictims had ever before seenany large armed force.However, numbers increased,and Hardrada led at least10,000 to England in 1066.The high proportion ofspearmen is quite authentic; aspear was much cheaper thana sword, and more generallyuseful. The two bare-chestedmen at the front may beberserkers.

among the whole group. Some might be as young as15 or even 12 years when they first went a-viking;every boy learned strength, dexterity and swiftnessfrom an early age by hunting, and the fighting skillstaught by his father were practised with his friends.

(Below) This free peasant,fulfilling his duty to the ledingor levy, would probably preferto be at home tending hisfarm. His clothing andequipment are typical for thepoor warriors who formed themain body of the Vikingarmies; he has no protectionexcept for his shield, which hehas strapped to his back, and

his weapons are a spear andsome javelins. He looks as ifhe is contemplating one of thestanzas from the Havamal, acollection of Viking proverbs,which reads: "Better livingthan not living./ I Only the livinghold wealth./ I saw a fire blazeup in a rich man's home,/ Butdeath stood outside the door."

(Above) The dead andwounded were routinely plun-dered after battle, and some-times even while the fightingwas still going on. Moneyand jewellery would havebeen much less common loot

than armour and weapons;the Bayeux Tapestry showscorpses stripped to the skin.This humble warrior seemslikely to fulfill at least themodest ambition of goinghome wearing a pair of shoes.

The uniting of Norwegian and Danish territoriesinto kingdoms changed the structure of armies. Fornational defence the Scandinavian kingdomsadopted the so-called leding or levy: a conscriptionsystem whereby every free man owning land had toprovide men, equipment, ships and weapons, thenumbers depending on the size of his holding. Laterthe leding was replaced by a tax from which profes-sional soldiers were paid. The king led his forces andwas guarded by the hird, his personal bodyguard,every man of which had sworn allegiance to him.

Even given a necessary scepticism over quotedfigures, genuinely large armies were not uncommonin the later Viking age. The Norsemen are supposedto have lost at least 8,000 men at Saucourt in 881.The army led by King Harald Hadrada to defeat atStamford Bridge in 1066 had allegedly crossed inbetween 240 and 300 ships. OlafTryggvasson raidedMaldon in 991 with a fleet of 93 ships, to makemoney to finance his attempt on the Norwegian 49

(Left) Before engaging inhand-to-hand combat bothsides tried to weaken theenemy ranks with arrows andjavelins. Depictions onjewellery and stones showwarriors with shield and spearcarrying additional shortjavelins in their shield hand.

throne. Here the army was made up from groups ofhersir owing allegiance to a jarl who, in his turn,owed allegiance to the king.

On occasion some kings - e.g. Harald Bluetooth -would provide a proportion of their troops withweapons and even armour. The raising of mercenarytroops was another factor; a good example is thearmy of Thorkel the Great, serving only themselvesand the man who paid best.

FortificationsThere are some known Viking age fortifications, likethe "wall castles" (defensive enclosures) at Fyrkat,Aggersborg, Trelleborg and Nonnebakken, and ofcourse the Danewerk. This great earthwork insouthern Jutland - 2m high by 12m wide (6.5ft by39ft), and revetted with timber - connected naturalobstacles with each other to provide protectionagainst the Slavs and German raiders. The first partsof this system had been built by 737, and the lastwork is dated to 968. In the overall length of 30km(18.6 miles) there was only one gate, through whichran the road to Viborg. Haithabu, one of the mostimportant trading cities of the age, was in the vicinityof the Danewerk. But even the Danewerk could notprevent the Germans under Emperor Otto II fromconquering the greater part of southern Denmark in974 (they were driven out again in 983).

The four Viking fortresses named above were allbuilt in the second half of the 1 Oth century and areall similar in construction, only the size varying.Each features a circular wall and ditch, and two mainroads cutting the interior into quarters. AtTrelleborg, Fyrkat and Nonnebakken there were 16

50

(Right) "Deliver us, O Lord,from the fury of theNorsemen. . ." This Viking'sshield already shows themarks of battle; shields weremade thin for lightness, and

presumably did not lastlonger than one or twobattles. The metal boss couldbe reused, and wood andrawhide would have beencheap and plentiful.

large longhouses in four symmetrical groups;Aggersborg has twice the diameter of the others andthree times as many buildings. Outside the mainwalls there were additional enclosures and buildings,the arrangement varying from site to site. Althougha military use cannot be ignored, the main purposeof these fortified sites seems to have been the protec-tion of the local population, and equally to providesuitable accomodation for the Danish king's repre-sentatives. They might also have been used to housegroups of warriors assembled for training or for acampaign, however.

(Left above) If they wereattacked with arrows or lightspears the Vikings could takecover behind their shields,arranging them as shownhere; there are clear referencesto such tactics in both landand sea battles. With enoughmen gathered, some couldeven hold their shields overthe heads of the group -rowers were protected in thisway when closing to board atsea. The photos in thischapter show the broadvariety of shield designs.

(Above) The two battle lines meeting here bothshow a high proportion of spears. During this earlystage of a battle warriors armed with sword or axecould do little more than try to parry enemy spearthrusts from behind the shield wall, while their ownspearmen tried to create gaps in the enemy's shieldwall for exploitation by swordsmen and axemen.

(Right) The first and third shields in this wall showclearly their construction from individual planks.The fourth shows the leather rim binding sewn on,and on the third the rawhide is nailed - though inthose days of individual hand forging nails wouldhave been relatively expensive.Simple colour washes were presumably morecommon than complex motifs, but the latter arefound in some sources. The shields from the Gokstadship find were painted plain black or yellow; theOseberg Tapestry shows one with a cross design;those of St.Olaf's men supposedly bore crosses in redand blue on white; and Gotland picture stones showmany with radial wavy lines or divisions.

(Above) The pommel andguard of this sword show richsilver and bronze inlays, andthe scabbard has decoratedfittings. The sagas oftenmention individual weaponsbeing named, sometimes in

reference to special details ofthe weapon but usually toinvoke success in battle: someexamples are Shield-Notcher,Foot-Biter, Head-Reddener,Redbeak and Bluetongue.

(Left & below) A spangen-helm with a long nasal and amail neckguard, and a leathergambeson, make up thearmour of this warrior takinga refreshment break. There isno archaeological evidencefor the leather lining to theneckguard, but some figuresin the Bayeux Tapestry showlines which might suggest it.He is armed with a sword anda sax and his shield is slung

on his back. Note that thisgambeson only covers thetorso and offers insufficientprotection in battle. Thedescription of the battle ofStamford Bridge tells us thatVikings would sometimesleave their heavy mail onboard ship if they needed tomove fast across country, ormight even take it off inbattle if frustrated by itsweight.

Viking Mercenaries

In 9th and 10th century Scandinavia there aredescriptions of brotherhoods of mercenaries -Vikinge-lag - who lived together under special

codes of conduct. These experienced fighters did notseek to take land on their own account, but hiredthemselves out for paid military service. One of themost famous of these brotherhoods were theJomsvikinge-lag or Jomsvikings, who were probablyestablished in the fortified camp and harbour ofJomsburg - today's Wollind, at the mouth of the Oderin Wendland - in the 980s by the exiled HaraldBluetooth of Denmark. Led by one Jarl Sigvald, aScanian noble, they quickly inspired the admirationof minstrels, and they are mentioned in accounts ofViking battles.

According to later sagas, a Jomsviking had to bebetween 18 and 50 years of age and stronger than theaverage warrior. When living at Jomsburg themembers of the brotherhood were expected to keepthe peace among themselves, submitting any seriousdispute for judgement by the commander. They werenot to leave for more than three days without permis-sion; women were not allowed inside Jomsburg, andno Jomsviking was allowed to take a woman or childprisoner. All loot was divided equally between thebrotherhood; and members were expected to avengeeach other's deaths. They were not to show any signsof fear in battle, and were only permitted to retreat ifobviously outnumbered (Sigvald is described as a"prudent" man). Violation of these laws meantimmediate expulsion.The Jomsvikings were the subject of their own saga,

which was written down in Iceland in about 1200.They are also mentioned in other sagas: that of KingOlaf Tryggvasson states that hiring them was a ques-tion of prestige (although they seem to have been onthe losing side in a number of important battles).The brotherhood was fading away by about 1010,and the remnant was destroyed by King Magnus ofNorway in 1043.

54

Ships and Seafaring

The Vikings were outstanding shipbuilders,navigators and sailors. In other Europeancountries seafaring generally meant skirting

along the coasts; but the Vikings made direct cross-ings of the North Sea and Baltic, and ventured farout across the North Atlantic. Today any sailor cancheck his position to within a few metres thanks toGPS; our 19th century great-grandfathers could conthemselves around the globe with sextant andchronometer; but it seems miraculous to us that aViking captain, braving some of the world's roughestseas without instruments or charts, ever reached hisdestination. Yet Viking navigation was reliableenough for regular crossings to Iceland andGreenland, providing the new colonies with all thesupplies upon which they depended for survival.

Sometimes, inevitably, a captain would miss hislandfall - like Bjarni Herjolfsson, whose supplyvoyage to Greenland in about 985 went astray,carrying him on to North America. He probablysighted the coast of Newfoundland; he did not land,but made his way back to Greenland. Some yearslater Leif Ericsson, inspired by Bjarni's story, led an

expedition to try to settle this promising new countryof "Vinland".Frustratingly, we do not know how the Vikings navi-

gated the high seas, but the most likely guess is thatthey sailed on a fixed latitude until they reached acoast and then turned north or south. In the areaswhere the Vikings sailed the North Star can always beseen, and to keep the latitude they only had to makesure that it stayed at the same height above thehorizon. The distance covered could be roughlycalculated from elapsed time and estimated speed.These assumptions are based on the fact that in thesagas ships usually lose their way in bad weather, i.e.when the North Star was hidden for long periods, thedirection of the wind changed quickly, or strongwinds carried the ship along faster than estimated.

Viking ship findsEven today Viking ships fascinate us by their elegantlines as much as by their epic voyages. Hardly anybook on the subject appears without a frontal view ofthe vessel found at Gokstad in 1880 (this was neither

(Left) A sight which struckterror throughout Europe inthe 9th and 10th centuries: aViking ship approaching thebeach. Although the recon-structions illustrated here arenecessarily of small vessels,this angle shows to advantagethe high prow and low

(Right) The side-mountedrudder was fixed to the upper-most plank at the right rear;the horizontal tiller bar couldbe controlled by a singlehelmsman. The rudder wasdeeper than the keel, and onapproaching the beach it wassimply taken aboard - our

gunwale characteristic of allsizes. With a top speed ofabout 11 knots (12.6mph,20kmh) a ship like this couldmake nearly 500km (310miles) in a single day on theopen sea, where sailingcontinued day and night.

picture shows this procedure.It was held in position by aleather strap running throughslits in the hull. Note also theclinker construction of thehull, with each row of planksnailed to overlap the onebelow.

(Left) The reconstructedrigging; note also the charac-teristic hanging of the crew'sshields along the gunwales,confirmed by many depictionsand by archaeology. The frontand rear stays run to the prowand stern, the shrouds to theside planks. From the lowercorners of the sail ropes run tothe deck allowing it to betightened, and from the tips ofthe yard two more control theangle of the yard. Vikingships were rigged to sailmainly before the wind or withthe wind abeam, but alsohandled surprisingly well closeto the wind.

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a trader nor a warship, but probably a kind of yachtor leader's barge). The Gokstad ship, studied incomparison with the Oseberg ship (which was usedin a 9th century burial), and the finds in theRoskildefjord at Skuldelev (where several 11thcentury vessels were scuttled as block-ships), enablesus to trace the development of Viking shipbuilding.The general characteristics had already evolved inpre-Viking times, as the Anglo-Saxon ship burials atSutton Hoo prove; but the Vikings perfected thedesign.

The sagas mention a variety of names for differenttypes of ships; it is difficult to match names to cate-gories, but the main division was between cargovessels and warships. The building method was iden-tical for both classes, but the dimensions show thatthey were meant for different functions.A warship was built to be swift and manoeuverable,

to carry many men, and to move quickly evenwithout sails. It did not have to be completely ocean-worthy; raids were made in summer, and there wastime to wait for good weather if open sea had to becrossed. The speed was achieved by a 7:1 ratio oflength to width, manoeuverability by a curved keelwhich allowed it to turn around its central axis. Toguarantee a high speed without sails there was roomfor many rowers on a straight deck running along thefull length. There were probably so many crewmenthat the oars could be manned day and night.Trading ships were built to give plenty of room for

cargo, to be manoeuvered by a small crew, and tocope with bad weather. They were more beamy, with

a length-to-width ratio of only 4:1, higher sides, andan open hold in the middle with deck planking andoars at bow and stern only. They were meant to bedriven mainly by sails; it must have been tedious torow them with such a small crew. The 16.3m long(53.5ft) Skuldelev 1 - a completely seaworthy tradingship - was manned by about a dozen sailors, whereasthe 18m (59ft) warship Skuldelev 2 had a crew ofabout thirty.

ConstructionNo matter what the ship's function, the constructiontechniques were the same; and the most strikingfeature is that the planking was built directly onto thekeel, stem and stern posts with the inner ribs addedonly later.

The process began with stem and stern posts cutfrom one treetrunk and a keel cut from a second -always of oak, even when suitable oak trees becamescarce and other parts of the ship were built frompine, ash, birch, alder or willow. The planks werethen fitted along the keel row after row, each over-lapping the one below (i.e. clinker-building). Iron

(Right) During their greatraiding voyages throughEurope the Vikings often pene-trated far up the great rivers;they rowed up the Volga, theRhine, the Seine, the Loire,

the Thames, the Liffey, andmany others to plunder inlandcities. Most of the time theyhad to row against the currentfor days, camping on thebanks at night.

(Above & right) This pictureshows how the keel of a shipwas cut from a single trunk;the shipwright uses an adze.Axes, adzes and wedges werethe main tools used in ship-building; others were gougesto cut caulking grooves intothe planks, knives and shaves

to fashion the smaller pieces,pliers, and nails (if the plankswere nailed together) oraugers to drill holes forwooden pegs. Prow and sternposts, and sometimes theupper run of planks, wereoften decorated with carving.

nails were used in Scandinavia; in the eastern settle-ments shipbuilders used wooden pegs into which awedge was hammered. Each row of planks wascaulked, in Scandinavia with tarred tow or rope, inRussia with moss and tar. The planks were relativelythin; on the bigger ships they measured about 25mm

(1in) below and 43mm (1.7ins) at the waterline, andsmall skiffs found with the Gokstad ship have 15mm(0.6in) planks. Viking ships were nevertheless strongenough to transport horses.

When the hull was finished the inner constructionwas added. First ribs were fitted crosswise to the

keel, but connected onlyto the hull; this gave thestructure great flexibilityto "work" with thewaves, but at a price - aViking ship was neverreally watertight, andthe crew were alwayshaving to bale her out.During the early periodthe ribs were tied to theplanks (through exten-sions left on the plankswhen they were cut)using spruce roots; laterthe ribs were nailed tothe planks.

Above the ribs hori-zontal crosstimbers werefitted, connected verti-cally and horizontally tothe hull with L-shaped 57

(Above) Today we can hardlyimagine how the Vikingscrossed the Atlantic in openboats like this. Freight shipshad at least partial decking atprow and stern but an opencentral hold; warships had alow deck running along thewhole length and gave noshelter at all against the

weather. As the crew of awarship probably numberedmore than twice the numberof oars, and each warrior tookalong his whole equipment,space must have been verytight. Cargo ships had asmaller number of sailors, butmore than half of the ship wasfilled with trade goods.

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pieces of wood tied or, later, nailed in place. Asecond, and on the largest ships a third layer of hori-zontal timbers could be attached. To these the deckplanking was fitted; the deck had no direct connec-tion to the hull, again for flexibility.The mast was fixed to the keel by means of the "keel

pig", a big L-shaped oak block whose vertical piecesupported the base of the mast at the front; and astrong horizontal strut, the "mast fish". Comparisonof archaeological finds shows steady development;e.g. the keel pig of the Oseberg ship was too smalland showed signs of repair, while later ships havebigger keel pigs and even dispense with the mast fish.

Treetrunks were split and wedged apart radially tomake planks. Where possible curved and angledparts were cut from naturally shaped timber, alongthe grain; the keel pig and other L-shaped piecescould be cut from a section of trunk at the junctionof a large branch. The most important tools were theaxe and adze, and it is fascinating to see how themost exact work was carried out with these simpleblades - there is no evidence of sawn timbers.

SailingIt is difficult to reconstruct the rigging ofViking shipsbecause we only have finds of hulls. Today's recon-structions are based on contemporary depictionssuch as coins and the Bayeux Tapestry. The mast wasprobably no longer than could easily be stowed insidethe ship. Taking down the mast was quite common,and the construction of the keel pig allowed it to belaid backwards, thus limiting the length of the mastto about half the length of the ship.

Some surviving pictures show shrouds and stays -ropes which support the mast to the sides, front andrear - but the fixings of these ropes cannot be recon-structed. The rectangular sail was fixed at the top toa horizontal spar or yard, the lower edge sometimesbeing manipulated with another pole called thebeitiass when sailing close to the wind; it was

(Left) The shallow draughtallowed Viking ships to sailclose inshore, and raiders tookadvantage of this to appearsuddenly and disappear withequal speed before a defencecould be organised. Even theless manoeuverable anddeeper-draught trading shipswere often beached if the lie

of the coast allowed it, asconfirmed by the scratches onthe keel and planks of theSkuldelev 3 ship find. Tobeach a ship with such a thinhull - with any hope of itsswimming again afterwards -must have taken impressiveskill and experience.

(Left) The Gokstad ship hadT-shaped poles forward andaft of the mast on which theyard could be laid when thesail was taken down; here thesail is reefed to the yard forstowage. If the oars had to beused the sail was most prob-ably always taken down - atsuch times it was not onlyuseless but actually workedagainst the rowers.

controlled with ropes running from the tips of theyardarms. Despite the simple rigging sailing againstthe wind was apparently possible, though if timeallowed the captain usually waited for a morefavourable wind.

In 1893 a Norwegian captain crossed the Atlanticfrom Bergen to Newfoundland in a reconstruction ofthe Gokstad ship, proving that Viking ships reallywere seaworthy. His reports of the crossing show hisastonishment at the sailing qualities of the ship, andrecord top speeds of 11 knots, i.e. about 20km/h. Healso praised the steering. Viking ships had a rudderfitted to the right side of the stern; this makes theship tend to the left, but the Viking shipwrights gavethe rudder a profile similar to an aircraft wing, thusboth correcting this bias and also preventing pressurebuilding up on the rudder - even in heavy seas itcould be manned by only one helmsman.

These beautiful Viking ships were the result ofcenturies of experience in shipbuilding and seaman-ship, and were clearly superior in most respects to thewallowing, barrel-hulled "cogs" that succeededthem. It was their small cargo capacity which led totheir replacement during the later Middle Ages bylarger but infinitely less graceful vessels.

(Right) Small dinghies orskiffs were built following thesame principles as ocean-going ships. One obviousdifference is the fact that eachrower has a pair of oarsinstead of one. The numberof oars gave the type of boatillustrated its name: faering or"four-oared". The numberof oars was the common wayof describing the size of aship.

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Clothing and Jewellery

Materials and methods

The basic material of Viking clothing was wool.Rich or poor, everyone wore woollen cloth -but the quality varied between different

groups in society. Imported cloth was worn todisplay wealth; Friesian and Anglo-Saxon weaveswere particularly desirable. Bright colours might alsosuggest wealth, as some were usually achieved bydifficult dying techniques using expensive, importedraw materials - e.g. indigo and purple. The mass ofpoorer folk had to be content with cloth which couldbe woven at home and coloured with the extracts oflocal plants (though these were varied and versatile -see below).

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(Above) The women at leftand right wear the hangerockor "apron-skirt" over one ormore tunics; at centre is athick winter tunic and a sepa-rate caped hood. The basicmaterial throughout was woolof different weights and quali-ties, though richer womenoften wore linen undertunicsin summer. Woven patterns,such as these stripes (right),

were popular. Note the pairedbrooches fastening the frontand back panels of the apron-skirt in front of the shoulders,and braid strips trimming thelower edges of the tunic (right).The lantern - reconstructedfrom an 11th century originalfound in Gotland - is madefrom a wooden frame coveredwith a pig's bladder, enclosingtallow candles.

Some of the sheep kept in Viking times did not haveto be sheared, as they lost their wool through naturalmoulting; but whether it had to be sheared or onlypicked up, all the wool had to be cleaned first of all.This was done carefully so that the natural oil wasnot removed - wool retaining its natural lanoline iseasier to comb and spin and is more weatherproof.After cleaning the wool was combed to align thefibres and prepare it for spinning. If a fine yarn wasneeded to make a tightly woven cloth the short fibreswere removed by combing, leaving only the stifferupper hairs; for a thick felted cloth the shorter fibreswould also be spun into the yarn.The process of spinning twists the fibres to make an

endless yarn. From the invention of spinning -perhaps 12,000 years ago - until the invention of thespinning wheel in the 13th century, there was onlyone tool for this: the hand spindle. The simplest typeconsisted of a stick; by the Viking age the spindle hadacquired a weight fitted to one end to make it twistmore evenly.To spin yarn, some fibres are pulled from a mass of

fleece, twisted together to form a starting thread andfixed to the end of the spindle. The spindle islowered towards the ground, rotating on the end ofthe lengthening yarn which is created by its twistingmotion as more wool is fed on to it through thehands. When the spindle reaches the ground thespinner pauses, winds the new yarn onto it in a spool,fixes the last of this to the top of the spindle again,and repeats the process. The lighter the spindle, thethinner the yarn; but the spindle will not run as longas a heavy one and has to be restarted more often. Aheavier spindle runs longer, but the weight makes itmore likely that the yarn will break. If the fibres arevery short the technique described cannot be used;the spindle has to be rested in a bowl, or simplyturned by rolling it over the thigh.

When the yarn had been spun - a tedious andunpopular job - it had to be woven into cloth. MostViking cloth was woven on vertical weighted looms:simple frames that lean against a wall. Some of thewarp or vertical threads are tied to the top of theframe and tightened with weights; others are fixed toa horizontal bar by which they can be pulled to thefront. Through the resulting gaps between the twogroups of warp threads, the weft or crosswise yarn isthreaded, crossing over and under differing numbersof warp threads, and then pushed tight against theedge of the already woven section.

(Left) Poor women like farm workers or theeven lower-ranking slaves would probably wearonly one simple tunic, and often did not evenown a pair of shoes. In summer they would gobarefoot, in winter they wrapped leather, fur orpieces of cloth around their feet. Owning abelt buckle and a knife is already the begin-nings of relative wealth; the knife also indicatesthat she is not a slave.

(Right) In contrast, this woman wears richlydecorated clothes and jewellery; the style isthat of Finland. Over the white tunic shewears a blue apron-skirt of a completelydifferent type from other Scandinavian regions,cut like a Greek peplos; also unique to Finlandwas the true apron worn over it. She has threefine "tortoise" brooches with metal chains andpendants in Finnish style - local finds showbrass spiral motifs. Note that her knife, scissorsand keys are suspended from the brooches; thepouch seems to hang from a belt, but this isactually the apron string.

The appearance and durability of the cloth dependon how many warp threads the weft crosses before itpasses under a warp thread. Viking cloth was mainlywoven to give a compromise between durability andsoftness, not unlike modern denim; this allows abroad variety of weaving patterns, e.g. rhomboids or"herringbone" patterns - the latter a Viking favourite.The warp was usually woven tighter than the weft.

The invention of the so-called horizontal loom,which allowed the groups of warp threads to bemoved by a pedal action, brought a four-fold increasein productivity; and the discovery at the Haithabusite of a shaft roll, a part of this type of loom, provesthat this invention took place during the Viking age.However, it is questionable whether this new devicereached the remoter areas of Viking settlement; evenat Haithabu - a relatively cosmopolitan centre ofinternational trade - a single shaft roll find is accom-panied by large numbers of weights from the oldpattern loom.

After weaving the cloth was often "fulled"; theVikings favoured a finish similar to modern loden.This procedure lifts the nap to make the cloth"hairy" and gives better protection against rain, andsome finds at Haithabu show cloth fulled to such adegree that it almost looks like fur. The Vikings alsomade woven "fake fur" - roggvarfeldr, a shaggy weaveincorporating tufts of unspun wool; this was used forcloaks and other garments as well as for trimming theedges of clothing.

Often the cloth or its raw materials were dyed,

sometimes with plants which could be picked locally,sometimes with materials imported at great cost.The variety of colours that can be achieved withoutmodern chemical dyes is surprising, and it is quitemistaken to assume that vegetable dyes necessarilyproduce dull shades. Such "natural" colours are notlimited to greens and browns, but include brightyellows, reds and blues. Brighly coloured clotheswere worn by whoever could afford them. On thewhole, Viking clothing was more sophisticated andmade to higher standards than might be expectedfrom looking at the simple tools with which it wasmade. The finest examples of preserved fabricscount more than 50 threads to the centimetre, andthe variety that could be achieved by differentweaves, treatments and colourings is impressive.Apart from wool the Vikings also used linen to some

extent; but as this is woven from a plant fibre, it hadto compete for scarce fertile land with the plantsneeded for food, whereas sheep would live in areasthat could not be cultivated. To grow linen meantthat you had more land than you needed to feed yourfamily, so it was a sign of wealth. Moreover, linen isless warm and thus less versatile than wool; a manwho could afford only a few pieces of clothing wouldnot have chosen linen. It can be spun to a very finethread and gives thin cloth, so it was often used forunderwear; a special weaving technique gave it apleated look which made it outline the figure.

Silk was a prized material throughout Europeduring the Viking age - a very expensive luxury which 61

(Above) Spinning woollenyarn from fleece was one ofthe never-ending chores ofwomen and children, and onenot regarded highly, despitethe fact that it demands skilland concentration as well aspatience. Note the weight atthe lower end of the spindle,

ensuring an even spin; thisone seems to be made fromsoapstone, but clay was themost common material. Ourspinner wears a linen under-tunic, wool upper tunic andlinen hangerock. The loweredges of upper tunic andhangerock are hemmed up

with an embroidery stitch.

(Above) A vertical weightedloom with work in progress.The vertical warp threads arespanned by loom weights.The horizontal bar rests onthe two Y-shaped arms when itis pulled to the front. The

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upper boom can be rotated inquarter-turns to roll up thefinished cloth. The rests forthe horizontal bar and thelower boom can be moved upand down the frameby meansof pegs. Viking age looms werebuilt for cloth approximately120cm (47ins) wide.

(Left) A dyer at work; usuallythe yarn was dyed, not thefinished cloth. A high inten-sity of colouring is notachieved by simply leaving thewool in the dye for a longtime, but by several shortbaths. The result of a dyingprocess depends on manyfactors, some of them hardlycontrollable, like the solubleminerals present in local water- the same basic ingredientscan give completely differentcolours with two different"hardnesses" of water.

(Above) All the yarns in thisbasket were dyed with mate-rials that were known andavailable in the Viking age;their variety and intensity -especially the reds and yellows- give the lie to our restrictedmodern ideas about the

(Below) Some typical exam-ples of tablet-woven braids,clearly showing the shortrepeat - in all these lengths a

colours which could beachieved with "natural"ingredients. Combinationsof common colouring agentsand mineral mordents gavemedieval dyers a wide paletteof subtle shades,limited onlyby local availability.

change of direction is markedby a vertical symmetrical axis.(Photo courtesyMelanie Donus)

(Above) This woman ismaking tablet-woven braid.Note the square tablets with ahole in each corner, and howthe weaver threads in theweft; the next step will be topush it back with a woodenstick and to turn the whole

block of tablets by 90degrees, in whichever direc-tion is dictated by the pattern.The patterns of tablet-wovenbraid are simple due to the"short repeat", but an inven-tive weaver will always be ableto think up a new variant.

had to be imported over great distances from Asia.Only the very wealthy could afford silk, which was inany case too vulnerable for everyday use in the robustdaily lifes of even the richest Vikings. It was mostoften used for decorative braiding and embroidery; aHaithabu find of a half-finished piece of tabletweaving is believed by archaeologists to have origi-nally included golden wefts and silken warps.

Cotton was worn in the contemporary ByzantineEmpire, and had reached southern Spain with theMoors, but there is no evidence for its use inScandinavian clothing.

Specialist techniquesThe Vikings knew two textile techniques which areworth special mention, as they are nearly forgottentoday.

Since the early Iron Age, tablet weaving was used tomake decorative braiding. In this technique the warpdoes not run over a bar but through holes in thecorners of small square tablets made from wood orbone. Rotating these tablets twists the warp into ayarn; many of these tablets laid side by side will givemany yarns lying side by side, which are heldtogether by a weft running through. The finished 63

(Above) In contrast to mostwarriors or traders pictured inthis book, this labourer isobviously poor; but he iswearing a knife, so cannot bea slave. Apart from some

good luck charms danglingfrom a leather thong aroundhis neck, this seems to be hisonly possesion. He does notown shoes, and his clothes aremade from undved cloth.

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braid will show the colour of the uppermost thread;if threads of different colours are used in the sametablet, patterns can be made. While most examplesshow repeating geometrical or wavy shapes, quitecomplex patterns can be produced if the direction inwhich the tablets are rotated is changed at plannedintervals - flowers, figures, even Viking ships.

Knitting and crocheting were unknown to theVikings, but to make cloth which had to be elastic -e.g. for stockings - they used a technique called naal-binding. A long thread is laid into loops with a thickneedle which is threaded through the last row ofloops, giving a result not unlike knitted work. Evenlarge garments such as cloaks could be made in thisfashion, but are thought to have been uncommon.

ClothingThe basic garment for both men and women in theearly Middle Ages was the tunic, a simple shirt-shape

cut straight and with added sleeves. To give morewidth at the lower edge gussets might be incorpo-rated, sometimes of a contrasting colour. Thewoman's tunic was ankle length, sometimes long- orhalf- sleeved, sometimes sleeveless. It was typicallyworn with a long overgarment made from rectan-gular lengths of material front and back, joined bystraps and brooches at the shoulders (identified forthe purposes of this text as an "apron-skirt", for lackof any more descriptive English term).

The man's tunic reached the knee, and was wornover trousers. Trousers seem to have been cut invarious shapes: full-length, straight and loose; tighter-fitting in the manner of later medieval hose; knee-length, with separate, cross-gartered leggings below;and - for the relatively wealthy, given the amount ofmaterial needed - in the baggy Rus style. Thesegarments, made from woollen cloth and normallyloose enough for easy movement, were often the onlyclothing a Viking owned apart from a simple woollencloak, and a belt to which small possessions might beslung.

(Below) This woman's longcoat was a common femalegarment. She protects herselffrom the winter cold byseveral layers of clothing;under the coat the lower edgesof an undertunic, a tunic andan apron-skirt can be seen.The belt she uses to close the

coat also serves to hold knife,scissors, pouch and drinkinghorn; the coat is also fastenedat the throat with a brooch.Just visible at the right wrist isone of the twisted silverbracelets which typicallyserved both as jewellery andcurrency.

Signs of relative wealth might include an undertunicof pleated linen, and outer garments tailored to atighter fit. The wealthy Viking woman might combinea linen undertunic with a tight apron-skirt and a coat-like outer tunic. Her husband might wear an outertunic cut to fit at the chest, a thigh-length cloak withoverlapping front, and trousers confined by puttee-like leg wrappings below the knee.For protection against bad weather there were cloaks

and tunics of fulled wool, or cowls - hoods with capescovering the neck and upper chest. Some specialwinter clothing was doubled, and sometimes evenhad a filling of down.As mentioned above, a wide variety of coloured dyes

were used, the wealthier sort displaying importedfabrics or expensive colours, the poorer wearinghomespun either undyed or coloured with readilyavailable agents (e.g. a Haithabu find dyed darkbrown with walnut, which also had a disinfectingproperty). Viking clothing was often decorated at thelower edges either with applied braiding or withembroidery, and outer clothing was often trimmedwith fur; the degree of decoration, too, was an indi-cator of wealth.

The same was true of the style and material of thebrooches and pins used to fasten the garments. Arich Viking wore cloak brooches of gold or silver atshoulder or hip, and his wife fixed her apron-skirtwith a pair of richly decorated brooches linked bychains or beads; but a poor man would carve a buttonfrom wood or horn. The design and material of thebelt, its buckle and any metal strap end also dependedupon the owner's resources.

The typical Viking shoe was an ankle-high "turn-shoe" fastened with laces at the side, and usuallymade from goatskin. Higher boots were also worn,some with ankle flaps fastened by toggles. Footwearwas sometimes decorated with embroidery.

JewelleryJewellery was a flourishing trade. Pieces made bysilversmiths and goldsmiths, bronze casters, bonecarvers and glass bead makers were used for display,as a store of wealth and as currency. Viking ageScandinavia had few coins; payment was often bybarter, and if no exchange of goods could be agreedthen payment could be made with an appropriateamount of precious metal - especially the necklacesand bracelets typical of the period, either whole or cutinto smaller pieces. There was clearly no hesitationabout cutting up such "works of art"; so many Vikinghoards contain parts of larger artefacts which havebeen broken up that archaeologists use the specificterm "hacksilver".

Although some of it was made to be broken up andmelted down, Viking jewellery shows a high standardof craftsmanship, employing nearly all techniquesthat are still in use today. The pieces were cast orhammered from a flat piece, the surfaces decoratedwith engraving, filigree work or niello inlay - the onlyunknown technique seems to have been enamelling.Many bronze and silver artefacts were gilded.Through their widespread trading the Vikings hadcontact with many other cultures, and such influ-ences are evident in their jewellery. The Celtic motifof entwined beasts was imported from Ireland, butthe Vikings substituted their beloved dragons for thehuman and dog figures of most Irish originals.Frankish influence can be seen in the trefoil broochesmade mainly in Denmark; in Gotland Slavic formswere copied.Apart from their functions as decoration and means

of exchange, many pieces obviously had everydayuses. Pins, clasps and brooches were needed to keepgarments together, the most striking being the large"tortoise" brooches with which Viking womenfastened their apron-skirts. These were always inmatching pairs, often linked by chains of glass beads.

(Below) Children's clotheswere no different from thoseof adults; these boys wear thesame combination of tunic,trousers and cloak as theirfathers, although less decora-tive. It is likely that theclothes of fast-growing youngchildren were hardly ever

dyed - that the boy at rightwears coloured clothes andeven leather shoes shows thathis parents must be wealthy.The embroidery at the edgesof his cloak serves to fix thehem, whereas that of the cloakat left is purely decorative.

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(Left) A selection of repro-duction belt buckles and strapends as worn by the Vikings,modelled on original finds.The larger buckles incorpo-rating a trefoil design areprobably Viking copies ofIrish originals; there was

much trade and contactbetween Norway and the Irishsettlements, originally via theOrkneys and the Hebrides.Viking belts often had notonly a buckle and strap endbut also belt mounts - smallmetal plates punched into theleather strap.

Trefoil brooches were used by women to fasten ashort, shawl-like cape; cloaks were fastened with asimple pin, a big ring pin, or a silver or bronzebrooch.

Another piece of jewellery in everyday use was theamulet, meant to protect the bearer and bring himgood luck. The most famous contemporary charm isthe "Thor's hammer", made from a variety of mate-rials and in many styles - in bronze, silver or gold,and/or combined with a chain - and apart from thewell-known abstract form there are also miniaturecopies of real hammers. Other types of amulets arealso known. Christian Vikings wore crosses; a smallamber leg found at Haithabu is thought to be a goodluck charm; and there are finds of amber axeheadsand coiled snakes from Scandinavia, Ireland and theDanelaw.

(Left) Children making feltballs. Felt is related to loden,but the fibres are fulledwithout spinning and weavingthem first. Rubbing woolfibres in soapy water andbeating them into a masseventually produces, after

drying, sheets of materialwhich can be handled likewoven cloth. The Vikingsmade both felt and loden.Most likely felt balls were ascommon a toy as the woodenanimal figurines found atTrondheim in Norway.

(Right) This felt trader'sdisplay of goods shows howmany items in everyday usecan be made from felt - capswith and without fur trim,socks, shoe soles, toys andlengths of cloth can be seen.Felt was probably more oftenhome made than widelytraded.

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(Below) Reconstructedpendants of both Christianand pagan origin. The upperrow show the most famoussymbol of Viking paganism,the "Thor's hammer", foundin a wide variety of stylesboth abstract (as here) and inthe form of realistic hammers.Bottom left and right show aninteresting intermediate form,reversed here: the cross wasactually worn like a Thor'shammer, with the long armupward. The wolf's maskwhich shows at the bottomhere was the point where a

(Left) These brooches showtwo different Viking decora-tive styles. The upper one iscopied from a find atLindholm Hoeje, and showsthe Urnes style - a develop-ment of the Ringerike style,characterised by fluidlycurved lines of varyingwidths. The Urnes style devel-oped in the 11th century, anddid not feature the leaf motifsof other Viking styles. Thelower brooch, of Jellinge style,shows the "gripping animal"motif so beloved by theVikings - an intertwined beastgrasps with its claws at itsown body or other elementsof the motif, such as theframe.

chain or thong was threadedthrough; the wolf was animportant pagan Vikingsymbol. Bottom centre is froman original found at Ribe,Denmark, and depicts awarrior with two birds on hishelmet - perhaps dedicated toOdin, or even meant to repre-sent Odin himself; two ravens,two wolves, and an eight-legged horse are amongOdin's attributes. The shapehints at the traditional misin-terpretation of Viking helmetsas "horned".

(Left) A caped hood - ofwhich originals have beenfound at Haithabu and othersites - was the ideal comple-ment for a tunic in badweather, covering the neckand giving excellent protec-tion; this basic designsurvived all over Europe formany centuries. A lining oflooser-woven cloth was notuncommon; some even had afilling of down between thetwo layers.

(Above) Naalbinding, aprocess using a long, thickneedle to loop a thread, givesa result not unlike knitting -equally elastic, though slightlythicker. This woman wears asimple linen tunic (presum-ably used as an undertunic

for most of the year) closed atthe neck with a small silverpin. The linen is undyed, butthe silver bracelet and Thor'shammer, amber necklace andglass beads indicate that she isnot poor.

67

The Viking Woman

The Viking girl was married off early; the fact thatan Icelandic law fixes the marrying age for girlsat 12 years or more suggests that previously it

was not unknown to marry even younger. Questions ofrelationships between clans played an important part inarranging a marriage, which might cement an impor-tant regional alliance. This could bring more influencein the thing or assembly, as the two clans were nowexpected to support each other and to vote together.The bridegroom had to pay a certain amount of moneyto the father of the bride, as well as proving that hecould maintain his wife.The clothing of the Viking woman was not inferior to

that of the men in decoration and material, a fact whichshows that they enjoyed high social status. Apart fromorganising all aspects of the domestic life of the home-stead and preparing the meals, the production ofclothes was their main task; the necessary techniques,from spinning the yarn to dying and weaving, weremainly practised in the home. If one keeps in mind thata skilled spinner needs approximately ten hours to spinthe yarn for one simple tunic, it is clear which task filledmost of the woman's time.

(Left & above right) Thetypical clothing of the Vikingwife. Here she wears a linenundertunic, which would becovered in colder weather bya similar woollen tunic. Overall she wears the suspended"apron-skirt", the hangerock,here in green with simple redbraid edging. The strapsattaching the front and backpanels of the hangerock arefastened at the shoulder withoval "tortoise" brooches. Inwintertime a doubled outertunic or coat could be wornover the other clothing. Mostgarments were of anklelength, and some depictionson runestones and jewelleryshow even longer, trailingdresses. The tunic could belong-sleeved, short-sleeved orsleeveless; a woman's armswere considered a point ofattraction, and young womenprobably preferred to showthem off when appropriate.Married women tied theirhair up in a knot and coveredit with a headscarf; unmar-ried girls wore it loose, orsimply confinedwith a piece of braid.This woman has fixed

chains of glass beads andamber pendants to her

"tortoise" brooches; amberwas thought to have magicalproperties. The centrepiece ofthe chains is a silver pendantin the style of Jellinge,showing the "grippinganimal". Pendants of thistype, made in various stylesand from gold, silver andbronze, have been found inScandinavia, England, Irelandand Russia.The brooches themselves are

copied from a find from awoman's grave in Norway.The Jellinge-style pierceddecoration shows three inter-laced ribbon-shaped beastswith their heads in profile.Most women must haveowned a pair of brooches tofasten the hangerock, andmany different forms areknown; this particular style israther rare, however.

(Inset left) Among the manyduties of the Viking womanwas holding the keys for doorsand chests. These keys couldbe hung by a thong or, asshown here, a chain from oneof the "tortoise" brooches or aseparate brooch. The brasskey belongs to a chest; thesteel bar-key at right opens aViking-style padlock. The

illustrated scissors are typicalfor the early Middle Ages;finds range from a fewcentimetres long, for needle-work, to large clippers forshearing sheep, and most areforged from a single piece ofsteel. Scissors have beenfound among the belongingsof both men and women, butsmall ones like these appearonly in the graves of women.

(Below) Reconstructions ofvarious clasps and broochesworn by the Viking age

woman. The concave"tortoise" brooches (top left &right) are found nearly every-where Vikings settled and inall styles. The trefoil (topcentre) was used to fasten ashawl at the breast. Thecircular brooches below thisare characteristic of Finland,and were also worn in pairs.Animal mask brooches (bottomleft & right) were associatedwith Gotland but are alsofound elsewhere; apart fromthese all the others are deco-rated in the Jellinge style.

69

Daily Life among theVikings

Slaves and Free Men

Viking society was divided into two groups: free, andslave. Free men were allowed to carry weapons andto own land, which gave them a vote in the thing or

assembly. These rights were denied to slaves; a slave wasthe property of his master, who could kill him withoutpunishment as long as he openly admitted it. On the otherhand, the master was responsible for the slave's mainte-nance. A Scandinavian of the Viking age could be a slaveby birth, or could descend into slavery. Contemporaryauthors tell of Vikings who lost home and hearth bygambling, and risked their freedom as the last stake. Awoman could also lose her free status if she had relationswith a slave.

(Below) For the poorer classthe table may rarely have beenso well furnished. Hunger wasa constant threat; bad harvestswere common, and even ingood years the crop was onlytwice the seed. Nevertheless,in good times there were twomeals per day from the meatof domesticated cows, sheep,pigs, goats and horses as wellas from game such as deer,boar, bear, elk and reindeer.The kitchen garden gave peas,

onions, garlic and cabbage; inthe woods could be gatheredwild cherries, blackberries,raspberries and strawberries,and nuts. The milk of cowsand goats was used to makebutter and cheese; chickenand geese gave both meat andeggs. Fishing was naturally ofgreat importance to theViking table; the York excava-tions even discovered a sortof production line for fishproducts.

(Above) A Viking child wasformally accepted into thefamily only when the fathertook it on his knee and calledit by its name. Sometimes afamily who could not feed anewborn child would abandonit; this was not actuallyforbidden by law, but wastolerated only if the child wasdeformed or had not yet been

accepted into the family. Thisinfant is certainly in nodanger of such treatment; hismother has taken trouble todecorate his clothes and tonaalbind his socks. Thewoman's headcloth or wimpleshows Anglo-Saxon influence;perhaps this family live in theDanelaw?

Although a slave was not normally allowed to carryweapons there were exceptions to this rule: if a farm wasattacked the slaves often fought in its defence at theirmaster's side. Sometimes slaves were given a share of theharvest of the land they worked, and could buy theirfreedom sooner or later. Even if they did, however, theywere hardly better off than before in terms of their dailylives: without any land or capital they had no choice but tohire out as labourers, doing the same work as before. Onlyslaves who were given a piece of land or a greater sum ofmoney on being set free by their masters had a real chanceof improving their lot.There is no information on how often slaves were set free

or bought their freedom, but it happened at least oftenenough for there to be laws governing the procedure. TheNorwegian Frostathing law, written down in the 13thcentury but probably regularising earlier custom, statesthat the former slave must prepare a feast for his former

master; if the master did not come the seats of honour wereleft empty. The freed slave and his family owed allegianceto his former master for several generations, but could buyhimself out of this duty.

The price for a slave was calculated by age and strengthand also, for a female slave, by good looks. A boy cost threegoats; a grown man of good health and strength, a poundof silver; and a beautiful woman much more.The status of a free Viking depended on several things. A

landowner was regarded as superior to a landless manserving another; a rich man was superior to a poor one; anda member of an important family counted more than thechild of a less influential clan. Relationships were impor-tant to the Vikings; having the right connections assuredthem of help in time of difficulty - the clan was obliged tostand by its members. Fortunes and land were usuallyinherited by family members so that they did not leave theclan, and if a Viking was forced to sell his land out of needthen his relatives had the right to make the first bid.

Women's rightsAs already mentioned, marriages were a question of familypolicy, arranged at a clan level and fixed by contract ratherthan being solely a private decision for bride and groom. Itwas only in the Christian period that the Vikings acceptedthat the bride should be asked for her consent; even so,women's respected social status and their often robustcharacter suggest that forcing a betrothal against awoman's fixed objection might be a perilous business.Originally the bridegroom simply paid a price to the fatherof the bride; later this sum was passed on to the bride as aninheritance; and finally, the sum was given directly to thebride by the bridegroom. This may have been the reasonwhy daughters received a lesser share of their fathers'inheritance than sons, since their portion was partly settledon marriage.The fact that marriages were arranged should not be taken

to mean that the Viking woman was without rights; thesagas are full of strong and fearless women. The housewife

(Above right) Inside thehouse the cooking cauldron -usually circular, with a roundbottom - was hung on a chainfrom the roof; out of doors itwould hang from a tripod.Note the construction ofinterwoven, riveted iron

(Right) Young boys started totrain in the handling ofhunting and fighting weaponsat an early age. Our littleViking holds a children'sshield made from wickerwork,and probably also owns awooden sword. Duringwinter, when most men

straps. In most Viking house-holds the meals were cookedover the fireplace in the hall,at the centre of daily life.Some finds at longhouse sitesshow evidence of separaterooms being used as kitchens.

stayed close to home, fatherstaught their sons all theyneeded to know to join araiding party when they werethought ready - perhaps asyoung as 12, and often by theage of 15 years. However,finds of toys prove that therewas still enough time for play. 71

72

was the unquestioned ruler of the household, and the keysfor all locks which she carried with her were the symbol ofher authority. Women had their own money, and couldinherit from their parents, husbands, or sons if these diedwithout wife or children. A widow was free to decidewhether she wanted to remarry or stay independent.

The Landnamabok, a saga of the settlement of Iceland,tells the story of Aud, whose husband died. She thenmarried off her daughters to husbands on the Orkneys andFaroes, and set of on an expedition with 20 free Vikings tosettle in Iceland. She seems to have been a historicalperson around whom many tales were later invented; butthe core of all these tales is a free and independent womantaking her fate into her own hands, and respected for it.

HomesteadsMost of the Scandinavian population gained their liveli-hood by farming, and due to the shortage of good landtheir steadings were usually scattered quite far apart. Sucha farm consisted of a main building sheltering both manand beast; combining the house and the byre had theadvantage that in winter the animals' presence would help

(Above left) Viking house-hold goods included table-ware and kitchenware madefrom wood, iron, earthenwareand - among the rich -precious metals and importedFrankish glass. Our pictureshows several wooden bowls,spoons of wood and horn,pottery cups, a wooden chest,a pan and a knife. The

(Middle left) Frying panswere made from an iron platewith a light rim riveted onto along handle; the original ofthis reconstruction was foundin Telemark, Norway. In the

(Left) During the winter theVikings spent their time incarving, among otherpastimes, and items of dailyuse were often decorated inthis way - it has been said that"the medieval world abhorred

(Right inset) The startingpositions of the tafl game; thedark pieces are the defenders,the larger one in the middlethe king. Boards were usuallymade from wood, pieces fromclay, bone, walrus ivory,amber, glass and other mate-rials; there are finds fromTrondheim and the Faroesamong other places.

Vikings also knew the cooper'strade; note the tall cup and thelarge bowl leaning against thechest, the latter with ironhooping. Small silver cups likethe one on the small box wereused by the wealthy evenbefore the Viking age, probablyfor strong fruit wine; the orig-inal for this cup was found atFejö.

foreground is an eating knife;food was taken with the handsor a spoon, and the knife wasused to cut meat. (Forkswould not become part of thepersonal cutlery for centuries.)

an undecorated surface".One spoon found at Haithabufeatures a dragon's-headhandle; this collection givesan impression of howpersonal spoons might bedecorated.

(Far right inset) A boardnear the end of a game; herethe corners are not speciallymarked, suggesting a game bya variant of the rules underwhich the king only has toreach the edge of the board.

heat the building. In addition to the main building therewere often smaller houses for labourers, sheds and work-shops; these might be partially dug into the ground so thatless material was needed to build them. The constructionof the main building depended on the available resourcesof the area. If timber was plentiful locally then the houseswere log cabins. If trees were sparse, a framework of beams

(Left) This re-enactor ispictured in her larder. Shestores her supplies in potteryjars, covered with pieces ofcloth weighted with glassbeads so that no vermin canenter. The housewife wasresponsible for storage and

(Below) Pottery was a desir-able traded item, and waseven imported from theRhineland. These potterybottles are just one exampleof the large range of crockerywares used in a Viking house-hold for storage, preparation

supervision of the foodsupplies, and had to planthem so that they would lastover the winter. Often themidwinter feast was the lasttime before the spring thawthat there was enough to eatfor everybody.

and serving. The Vikingsused built-up coil techniquesfor potting, or hollowed outlumps of clay. The use of apotter's wheel late in theperiod is proved by a findfrom Haithabu.

Board gamesThe Vikings enjoyedgames and weree n t h u s i a s t i cgamblers. Onegroup of table-top -tafl - games, playedon boards ofbetween 7x7 and19x19 squares,seem to have beenvery popular withall classes. Manyboards and pieces

have been found, of qualities from the simplest to themost precious; and one poem refers to the world as"Odin's tafl-board".The rules do not survive completely,but re-enactors have devised a reconstruction whichseems to work well.The attacker, starting at the edges, tries to break the

defender's lines and capture his king, which starts in thecentre. The defender tries to take his king to safety bymoving him onto one of the four corner squares. Playersmove their pieces alternately, the attacker usuallystarting. Pieces may be moved horizontally or verticallyfor any distance, but cannot jump over other pieces of

either side. The central square is the "throne" whereonly the king may rest; all other pieces have to stopbefore it or move across. The king is the only piecewhich may move onto one of the corner squares.

Players "capture" the opponent's pieces bysurrounding them. A normal piece is captured if theopponent positions one of his pieces on each of twosides, either directly in front and behind or to the leftand right; or traps the piece up against the throne or acorner square. The king has to be surrounded from allfour sides to be captured.

73

would be filled in with wickerwork, moss or peat, and clay;and peat would replace logs as the main fuel. Daily lifewent on around a central fire which served for heating andcooking alike; a Viking's importance in the householdcould be guessed by the distance of his sleeping place fromthe fire. The furniture consisted of chests, benches andstools, but it is impossible to say how they were distributedin the house. There is mention of closed off cupboard-bedsused by married couples, but privacy for most was prob-ably limited to curtains. For light there were lamps with oil

(Below) Women and menwere equally respected, buttheir areas of life were strictlyseparate. Spinning, weaving,sewing, embroidery, brewingand cooking were a woman'sdaily round. Women's gravescontain kitchenware, spindlesand other household goods,whereas weapons, huntingand fishing items and toolsare found in the graves ofmen. This hard-working

young wife, her hair modestlycovered by a scarf, wears thesimplest clothes and does notown brooches or otherjewellery - yet: if her husbandgets a place on a successfulraiding expedition he will beproud to bring her adorn-ments. Incidentally, one Arabtraveller mentions Vikingwomen wearing attractive eyemake-up.

(Above) Bread was not adaily food to the Vikings, andgruel was a much morecommon way of eatingcereals. Made without yeast,their unleavened bread couldnot be stored as it quicklywent stale. Apart from barley,the most important bakingflour of the Vikings, the

Ringsthula also mentions thinwheaten bread eaten in thehouses of the rich; and abread find from Swedenincludes pea and pine barkflour. Baking was a woman'stask at home; this Vikingbaking his own simple flat loafis probably on a journey.

or simple tallow dips, later tallow candles, and for the rich,wax candles.

The household goods would include pots of iron, earth-enware and soapstone for cooking the two daily meals, ironskewers, earthenware storage pots, wooden or hornspoons, plates and bowls of wood or earthenware, and inthe richest households cups of silver or imported glass -although Vikings commonly used a horn for drinking.Knifes were not part of the household goods but belongedto the individual, being carried at all times; they are foundin both women's and men's graves. For food there was themeat of wild and domestic animals, fish, beans and peas,greens, nuts, berries, and of course cereals, which werecooked as gruel or hand-milled for flour to bake bread.

ReligionThe beliefs of the pagan Vikings - a complex mythologicalstructure which can only be touched upon here - featureda multitude of gods and goddesses divided between twogroups, the Aesir and Vanir. The Aesir, who lived inAsgard, were the lords of the world; the Vanir dwelt withthem as a mixture of hostages and guests. The supreme

(Above) There are finds ofViking age tents, used duringjourneys, seasonal fishing andgathering expeditions, etc.(Top) These end frames,decorated with beast-head

carvings, are taken from thetents found with the Osebergship. (Bottom) These carvedframe ends probably representOdin's ravens Hugin andMunin.

(Above) From the sagas weknow that the leader or ship'scaptain used to sleep in a tentwhen ashore while his crewslept round the campfire inthe open. The reconstructed

furnishing of this tent is lux-urious for the Viking age.Apart from a bedstead, astool and a sea chest it hasa tapestry hanging, and fursare strewn on the floor.

god of the Aesir was Odin, the One-Eyed, the Traveller, theSpear-carrier, the god of heroes; he granted the warriorluck in battle, but every so often he decided to withdraw hisfavour, in order to gather the fallen hero to his own hall.He knew that one day he would have to face his last battleagainst the giants and the forces of darkness, and thereforetried to gather all great heroes to the hall Valhalla, to feastand prepare for the final battle - the Ragnarok.With Odin stood Thor, the god of farmers, ruler of wind

and rain, thunder and lightning. Unlike the mysteriousOdin, who would do anything and suffer anything toachieve his ends, Thor was honest, straightforward andfearless, though sometimes destructively boisterous; he wasviewed with affectionate humour as well as awe. Hismagical hammer Mjöllnir enabled him to win every fight.

Loki was the element of chaos in the Nordic myths, notonly the trickster figure but tirelessly plotting the fall of thegods. Baldur, the purest and most beloved of the gods,died at the hands of a blind innocent tricked into it byLoki. Loki was the father of monsters who would fightagainst the gods at the Ragnarok: the Fenris wolf, chainedup for now at the price of Tyr the Swordsman's sacrificed

right hand, but destined to kill Odin; the Midgard serpent,which would die under Thor's hammer in the last fight butwould kill him with its venom; Hel, the goddess of thedead, half-woman, half-corpse. . .

Among all these dark apocalyptic visions the lovers Freyrand Freya, brother and sister, stood out. They were Vanir,members of an older and more peaceful race of gods; theydid not grant luck in battle, cleverness, success or power,but presided over love and fruitfulness.

We know little about the ritual practices of the heathenVikings. They did not build temples but did homage totheir gods under the open skies; reports of these rituals areoften obscure and distorted, not least because they werewritten largely by Christian monks. Adam of Bremendescribed the great pagan holy place at Uppsala in about1070, writing that a major ritual was held every nine yearsat the spring equinox. During nine days nine male speci-mens of "every living creature" were sacrificed, and theirbodies hung from the trees of the sacred grove, "dogs andhorses side by side with men". In the end the number ofsacrifices totalled 72.

Other chroniclers also write of human sacrifices as the 75

highest form of homage accorded only to the most impor-tant gods; but they claim that Freyr preferred a stallion.This may have been the reason why eating horseflesh wasexplicitly forbidden to the early Scandinavian Christians;the sacrificed animals were usually eaten by the celebrantsin the pagan sacrifice, the meat being believed to be a giftin return for the life which the god had received.

Christian conversionScandinavia made contact with Christianity in the earlyyears of the Viking age, and attempts to convert the Vikingswere soon made, both at home and in their settlementsoverseas. These missionaries met with little success, andoften enough with martyrdom. However, the Vikingsbecame interested in trading with Christians; and as theseequally interested potential trade partners were oftenforbidden to do business with pagans, a solution was foundin the "first blessing". The Viking in question would betold of the Christian beliefs and would receive a blessing;this made him acceptable to Christians for businesspurposes, but - since he had not been baptised - he couldcontinue to follow the old gods without any problems ofconcience.

When the Scandinavian countries were united as king-doms the Christians pursued their usual tactic: theyconverted the king - for example, Harald Bluetooth, king ofDenmark, in 965 - and left it up to him what method hechose to spread the new faith among his people. If he triedto convert them at the point of the sword, then on his soulbe it; there were a number of bloody revolts over forced

(Below) It is not unlikely thatthis girl would have spun thewool for her grey-dyed tunicherself - this was often chil-dren's work. She wouldcertainly have known how tocook and bake, and might

have had her first practicallessons in weaving. Herparents might already havetheir eyes open for a suitableboy of influential family tomarry her when she reachesher mid-teens.

(Above) This woman checkswhether her pot is watertight- it would have been treatedwith a mixture of dairy prod-ucts to achieve this. Note theriveted plate constructionand the dished lower plate.

Against the cold she wearsa leather cap with fur trim,

and a caped hood made fromcloth of different colours.Although today's re-enactorscamp in their tents even inwinter, this was not the Vikingcustom. Parties who had towinter on a strange coast builtthemselves houses, as told inthe Greenland saga.

mass conversion. By c.1000 Norway, Iceland, Greenland,Orkney and the Faroes were all nominally converted.

Only in Iceland did Christianity come peacefully, by avote of the allthing, and at first the old believers were onlyasked to serve their gods out of sight. Several years laterpaganism was banned by another vote of the assembly.Nevertheless, the Nordic religion lived on in Scandinaviauntil the 12th century, Finland becoming the last bastionof the followers of Thor and Odin.

(Above) This well-dressedViking child enjoys watchingsome game or competition -perhaps wrestling or skill atarms among the menfolk;

(Above left) This highlycarved drinking horn (fore-ground) might have been usedat Viking feasts; some drinkinghorns were richly mountedwith silver rims and tips. Theusual alcoholic drinks weremead, fermented from honey,and a beer made from waterand malt only. Viking drinkinghabits are suggested by the

(Middle left) Millstones weremade from basalt; especiallydesirable was the black basaltof the Eifel region, importedfrom the Franks. Analysis of asurviving piece of Viking agebread from Sweden includedmany small stone fragments,presumably worn off the mill-

(Left) Leather bottles likethese were used to carry wateron journeys. To make a bottlelike this two pieces of leatherwere sewn together round theedge and soaked in water; thenthey were filled with sand, and

perhaps dancing, which was acommon part of Viking festivi-ties; or perhaps she is justlistening to a skald - minstrel -recounting a saga.

fact that both drinking hornsand "turn-over cups" couldonly be put down when theywere empty. A Swedish rune-stone depicts two men at agame, one of them drinkingfrom a horn. The plainer hornin the background representsthose blown to sound alarmsor pass signals at a distance, inwar, hunting or travelling.

stone. Preparing largeamounts of flour with handmills like this is tedious andtiring work - which is perhapspart of the reason why theVikings usually ate gruel, forwhich the cereals only have tobe ground coarsely.

left to dry. Afterwards thesand was removed and thebottle was filled with wax,which was later melted outagain; this makes it completelywatertight. Stoppers were ofwood or rolled leather. 77

Traders and Craftsmen

It cannot be repeated too often that although theNorsemen earned their fearsome reputation bylooting and killing, Scandinavian traders trav-

elled as widely as raiders throughout this period.Plundering could bring a quick fortune, but onlypeaceful trade could ensure a steady supply of thedesired goods. One of these was Arabian silver, forwhich the Vikings traded slaves, furs, honey,Norwegian soapstone, wax and weapons - eithermanufactured in Scandinavia or acquired by forceduring their long trading voyages. They bartered notonly raw materials and finished goods but also toolsand "blanks" for later finishing.Their intensive traffic along all main trading routes

between Iceland and the Caspian Sea also brought tonorthern and eastern Europe luxury goods fromwestern European, e.g. Friesian cloth, black basaltfrom the Eifel, wine, and glass, as shown by manyfinds on the sites of the Viking trading centres atBirka, Kaupang, Gotland and Haithabu.

Many traders should more correctly be termed"trader-farmers"; they often owned productive land

in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland or Greenland,as well as settling along the trading routes to foundnew Viking villages and trading posts where materialswere worked or finished.

The first Viking trading centres had already reachedtheir prime by the 9th century, and often came underthe special protection of the Norwegian, Swedish andDanish kings. Some of the later centres, likeHaithabu, were even founded by kings, because thetaxes paid to them by the traders quickly paid for theinvestment. At Birka, for example, the Swedish kinghad a three-day option to buy all newly importedgoods, ensuring him the best quality and good prices.

Haithabu, one of the main European trading centresbetween 800 and 1066, counted about 1,000 inhabi-tants at its peak. Situated close to the Danewerk, theborder between Denmark and the Slavs and Franks,it connected western Europe to the trade routesacross the Baltic Sea. A nearby port on the NorthSea, only 20km (12.4 miles) away, made it unneces-sary for Irish and English traders to sail around theJutland peninsula.

Gotland is supposed to have been the centre of tradein the Baltic Sea. Here archaeologists have foundabout half of the total number of 20,000 silver coinsof Frankish, Arabian and Anglo-Saxon origin recov-ered in all Scandinavia. The inhabitants of Gotlandhad extraordinary seafaring skills even by the stan-dards their fellow Vikings and were famous for thehigh quality of their ships, allowing them to range farafield - and their ships were fast enough to escapepirates. Excavations at Birka near Stockholm inSweden, a trading city connecting Eastern tradingroutes with Haithabu in the 8th to 10th centuries,have recovered trade goods including wine, pottery,bronze dishes, weapons and silk, and iron was prob-ably traded here too. However, the main income of

(Left) With luck a Vikingtrader could earn a fortunewithin a short time, and hewould show his wealth bywearing expensive clothingand jewellery. The quickestand most dangerous way ofgetting rich was the slave tradewith Arab countries; the"stock" was usually collectedby force on the way down the

Russian rivers to Byzantium.Our trader wears a highlydecorated red tunic, and acloak made of so much cloththat it can be doubled at theshoulders. MainlandEuropean merchants thoughtViking traders shifty anduntrustworthy, but admiredtheir skills.

(Above) Reconstruction ofthe folding scales used byViking traders. Although theywere probably of Easternorigin, these scales were usedfrom Russia to the BritishIsles and have been found at

Smolensk and Dublin, amongother sites. This pair is ratherplain; Viking scales were oftenrichly ornamented, withengraved decoration to thepans.

the Birka traders was from the fur trade. Birka hadits own assembly; and - as indicated in manuscriptsby missionaries who tried to convert the local popu-lation - it had connections to Dorestad, a tradingcentre in today's Netherlands.

In addition to the big trading centres a largenumber of seasonal market places catered for morelocal trade; examples are Kaupang in Norway andMoosgard in Denmark. Here goods from Englandand Ireland - including jewellery, found in manylocal graves - were bartered for furs, raw hides,walrus tusks and walrus hide ropes with traders fromthe north. With their capture of York the DanishVikings also took over an important and long-estab-lished Anglo-Saxon trading centre. The Vikings alsofounded many trading posts in their conquered terri-tories, e.g. Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Wexford andWaterford in Ireland.

Haithabu is thought to be the birthplace ofScandinavian coinage. Silver was the preferredmedium of exchange, and coins came to Scandinaviafrom the Arabs and Franks. Their value was calcu-lated by their weight in silver, so cannot be comparedto modern currencies. As already mentioned, theScandinavians used jewellery such as rings, bracelets,chains and pendants as currency - whole, or cut intopieces. Many Viking hoards found at former tradingposts contain large quantities of this "hacksilver"together with foreign silver coins. For example, tenchickens cost a gram of silver; two pounds of grain,3g; a coat, 12g; a shield and spear, 140g; and a mailshirt, 820 grams.

Wherever traders settled they would be accompa-

(Above) Viking trader usinghis scales to weigh payment.As coins were not yetcommon in Scandinavia themedium would often beprecious metals, which had tobe weighed on the spot. Theweights used for this wereusually transported togetherwith the scales in a special

leather bag or box. One suchbox found in Sweden bears aspell threatening that the"corpse cuckoo" will feed onthe body of any thief. Ourtrader probably hails from theDanelaw, as he wears a"Phrygian" cap in Anglo-Saxon style.

nied by a variety of craftsmen adapting their work tothe requirements of the merchants, who supplied thenecessary raw materials if they could not be foundlocally. Viking craftsmen were highly skilled anddeveloped a variety of different styles over thecenturies, which can be seen in surviving woodcraftsand jewellery. The styles of Bro, Oseberg, Borre,Jellinge, Mammen, Ringerike and Urnes have beendistinguished, evolving from one another and influ-enced by encounters with non-Scandinavian 79

(Left) Glass beads werepopular as jewellery and astrading goods. To make them,raw glass was melted in potsand cast into sticks. Thesewere then heated again andwrapped around an iron rodto make a bead - it is this stepwhich is illustrated here. Tomake multi-coloured beads

several sticks of differentcolours were combined orthreads of coloured glass wereinserted (the techniquetermed today millefiori). Onthe board at the upper left wesee pieces of raw glass, as theywere found in Jutland andGotland; these were probablyimported from northern Italy.

cultures.The Vikings had blacksmiths, potters, bone and

horn carvers, stonemasons, makers of glass beads,bronzesmiths, silversmiths, weavers, dyers, andtanners. To make glass beads - an expensive jewelleryin the Viking age - broken glass was imported from

(Right) During the Vikingage Scandinavia began tostrike coins, which werealready in longtime use inwestern Europe. It was inaround 825 that the first coinswere minted in Denmark,probably to ease trade withthe Franks. The tools shownhere include several coin diesand blanks. The blanks wereplaced between two dieswhich were struck with ahammer. Sometimes theblanks were so thin that theycould only be struck on oneside because the punchedpattern would go through tothe other side (coins of thistype are termed bracteats bynumismatists).

western Europe, heated, drawn into long strings, andthen cut into beads; often glass of different colourswas mixed to give more colourful beads. Amber fromthe Baltic Sea and jet from northern England - bothbelieved to have magic properties - were used bothfor jewellery and for small items like pieces for taflgames.

HandicraftsMany crafts were known in almost every householdand practised during the long, hard winters in areasof Viking settlement. Archaeological finds show uswomen making wool and linen cloth and menmaking baskets or carving wood and bone. Thecarving of bone and walrus ivory was very wide-spread, producing belt buckles, strap ends andcombs. Finds of bone combs of Viking origin all overEurope show the popularity of these items; some,carved from deer antlers, are made of several sepa-rate pieces - side plates, teeth plates, etc. - and arefound with a case also made from antler. (There is

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(Right, above & below)Smithies, to meet everydayrequirements, are found at themajority of Scandinavian farmsites. In Norway blacksmiths'graves have yielded severaltypes of chisel, files, hammersof different sizes, sledgehammers, anvils, and tools formaking nails and wire and forcasting. One blacksmith wasburied with his productsincluding four swords, fourspearheads, seven axes, twoshield bosses and 13 arrow-heads; the pattern-welded andsilver-inlaid spearheads showthat even complex techniqueswere known to a simplevillage blacksmith. Raw iron

was stored in the form ofbars; another Norwegian findshows 137 of these bars invarying sizes. Large finds ofslag prove the production ofiron in Norway, and the tradein raw iron and unfinisheditems like axeheads or swordblades is proved by a find of12 axeheads with a pine staffthreaded through all of them;these were washed ashore inJutland and are thought tohave been produced inNorway. Here one of ourblacksmiths is blowing up hisfurnace with bellows, whilethe other forms the tang of aknife on his anvil.

an Anglo-Saxon text which complains about theVikings' unfair advantage in attracting Saxon womendue to their vain habit of bathing and dressing theirhair every week...)Almost all households, especially isolated farms, had

their own smithies where everyday tools could beforged. Finds prove that tools, wire, nails, hinges andother fittings could be made and repaired in thesehousehold smithies. The blacksmith's tools includedanvils, hammers, pliers, files, metal shears, chiselsand punches as well as special tools to make nails anddraw wire. Professional blacksmiths, whether travel-ling journeymen or established at a trading centre,often specialised in a single technique such as makingmail or weapons.

(Below) The original of thishearthstone is thought to befrom Norway or southernSweden. The face is assumedto represent the god Loki, whowas the god of fire amongother things and therefore had

a special relationship to black-smiths. The lines through hismouth are an allusion to atale in which Loki got hismouth sewn closed because ofa lost bet.

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(Below) Fishing equipment,including all the tools neces-sary to spin yarn and to makenets - spindles, spools ofthread, shuttles and scissors.Hooks were made from wood,horn or metal, and severalwere fixed to one line. Atright foreground are five

weights as used to hold downnets which spanned rivers.Little fishing kit has survivedfrom the Viking age, buttextual references prove thatfishing was practised with rodand line as well as with nets,at sea and on the lakes and

(Left) Fishing was a majorsource of food for theScandinavian peoples. Thepopulation of Haithabu areknown to have had more than20 different sorts of fish onthe menu, including bothfresh water and salt watervarieties. Fish was preservedby salting, drying or smoking,

which allowed it to be traded.Fishing was performed bythrowing nets from smallboats or, if local tidal streamsmade it feasible, by settingnets across the waterway tocatch fish at low water.Bigger fish were also spearedfrom the banks of the rivers.

(Above) This net made froma forked branch is used forlanding fish caught with rodor line. In the left back-

ground stands a small liddedwooden tub of the type usedin Scandinavia for holding allkinds of small odds and ends.

Evidence of metal casting has been found byarchaeologists at all major trading posts. The varietyof produced items ranges from rare and expensivegold and silver jewellery to cheap mass producedwares. The metal was melted in a charcoal furnacepowered by bellows. The piece was first formed fromwax and this master was embedded in clay. When theclay mould had hardened the wax was melted outand the resulting space was filled with molten metal

(Below) Bone and antlerwere much used for everydayitems. The bones usedincluded those of whales,from which large, flat piecescould be cut. The deerantlers used for carving didnot have to be from hunted

game, but could be simplycollected in the forest after theannual cast. The toolspictured here are suitable forcarving bone and wood: saw,whetstones, hammer andknives.

(Above) Comb carved frombone (bottom centre), plane,whetstone, knives, file andauger. The bone carver usedthe auger to drill fixing holesinto belt buckles and strapends; to make an openworkcarving he would first drill ahole through his material and

(Below) Some establishedtrading posts even boastedsmall huts which new arrivalscould rent for a time; butnormally the trader wouldsimply raise his tent, or sellhis goods directly from theship. Here a traveller has setout his various trade goodsincluding furs, shoes, blanketsand weapons; his wife guards

then continue carving fromthere. The comb illustratedhas a fitted case made similarto the comb side plates.Combs of this type are foundall over Europe, and were oneof Scandinavia's mainexports.

the stock while he is offscouring the camp forcustomers. The tent form istypical for the Viking age: twotriangular frames linked bythree parallel horizontals, thecanvas fixed to the frame withropes. This type of tent wasoriginally found on theOseberg ship.

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(Above) Every item seen herewas made from bone, horn orantler. The list ranges fromweaving tablets, needles,combs, rings, needlecases anda "weaving sword" to strapends, jewellery and dice.Finds have also included bonebeads, belt buckles, buttons,chess pieces, knife handles,

cloak pins, tools forsmoothing cloth, sword cross-guards, and chest panels forfitting into a metal frame-work. In the early medievalperiod all Europeans madefrom bone the thousand andone small items of dailynecessity which today wemake from plastic.

- the so-called lost wax method. When the metal wascold the clay was broken off, and the piece finishedby filing, adding pins, gilding, etc. Simpler itemscould themselves be pressed into clay to makemoulds for mass produced castings.Viking craftsmen were very inventive, always devel-

oping new products, styles and methods of produc-tion. But it often took a hundred years or more fora new technique to be spread across the borders ofthe region by travelling craftsmen and traders, sotechnological progress was slow. Indeed, craftsmenoften deliverately held back from spreading newinventions so as to avoid competition for their wares.

(Below left) This craftsmanowns a tool which was rela-tively rare in Viking times: asaw. The only craft for whichthis was absolutely necessarywas comb-carving; othercraftsmen could make do withvarious straight blades. The

chests in front of him wereused both as sea chests androwing benches by travellingVikings, which accounts forthe trapezoid-shaped sides;they could be fastened with apadlock.

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(Below) A woman's sewingkit. Pins and needles weremade from bone and wouldonly become smooth withregular use. Because needlesbroke easily, especially at the

points, the Vikings madeneedle cases from long bones- that illustrated here wasmade from the foreleg of alamb.

(Above) On the farm shoe-making was a homecraft, butthere is plentiful evidence thatat the major centres it was acommercial trade performedby specialists; Haithabu and

Birka have provided manyfinds of shoes and leatheroffcuts. Our shoemaker isputting the upper leather of ashoe onto a last to make it fitthe form of a foot.

(Above) The shoemaker'swife is perforating the edgesof the sole to make it easier tosew to the upper. Footwearof this period were "turn-shoes", i.e. the seams were on

the inside. Although fittedonly with a simple leather solethese shoes are warm enoughto be worn in winter ifprovided with a felt inner sole;they also give a good grip.

(Right) Various reconstructedshoes of the 7th to 11thcenturies. (Top left) Highboot, as originally found atHaithabu. (Centre, left toright): Decorated, side-lacedankle boot from StarjaLadoga; shoe from Haithabu;ankle-high shoe fromNorwich, the flaps to befastened with toggles. (Bottomleft to right); Similar toNorwich example, the originalfound at York; decorated shoefound at Ballymacob; shoefrom Middleburg, lined withlambswool. Varying shapesand decoration suggest thatshoes, as well as clothing,were influenced by localcustom and styles, although itis quite unrealistic to speak of"fashion" in the modernsense.

Runestones

The Vikings had an oral tradition; their system ofrunic characters was originally used mainly formagical inscriptions and for the shortest texts. It

was only later contact with Christianity which introducedliteracy to Scandinavia. The interpretation of pagan Vikingculture is thus a problem for historians, as there are fewwritten documents.

Runestones are among the most important textual findsof the Viking age because - in contrast to the major textssuch as the Landnamabok, Iceland Saga and Prose Edda,which were written down after the actual Viking age torecord tales which had only been passed down orally up tothen - runestones were genuinely contemporary. Theywere carved by the Vikings themselves as a permanentrecord of events, as memorials to the dead, or to makeother types of formal public statement.

Of course, even the analysis of all known surviving rune-stones would not give us a complete picture of Vikingculture; but each stone illuminates some small aspect of asociety which we would otherwise know only in the wordsof its enemies and victims.

For example, a Viking woman is recorded as setting up arunestone in memory of her missing son: this shows us thatshe could undertake an independent, public project and bereported as its initiator, and that she was wealthy enoughto pay the craftsman to carve the inscription. Moreover, intimes when men disappeared on raiding parties never toreturn, the setting up of a memorial stone may havemarked an official declaration of death for inheritancepurposes. The circumstances of a violent death, which areoften set down on such stones, also throw light on thesense of honour governing behaviour among peoples whowere often dismissed by (not unnaturally) biasedforeigners as barbaric and treacherous.Their reputation for anarchic individualism is also contra-

dicted by the number of runestones set up to record apublic service. In Scandinavia there was no centrally

organised road construction, and the individual wasresponsible for maintaining the roads crossing his land. AViking taking the trouble or expense to build a bridge or alength of new road would set up a runestone so that thepublic knew who deserved the credit. (The carver of thestone itself also usually recorded his name.)

The runic alphabetThe interpretation of runestones is made especially difficultby the fact that the alphabet of 16 runes used by the Vikingsdoes not have enough characters to cover all the sounds ofthe Nordic tongue. A single rune served for several sounds;and, as there was no standard notation but every word waswritten phonetically, a single word can have several runenotations - and these are often influenced by dialects.Moreover, double consonants were often contracted to asingle mark; e.g. if one word ended with N and the nextword started with N, only a single N-rune was marked.

To add to the difficulty, runes were often integrated intopictorial carvings; the most typical are snakes and dragonswith the runes engraved along their entwined bodies. If theartist had miscalculated the length of the text the remainingrunes were squeezed somewhere in between - and thechaos for the translator is complete. It is hardly surprisingthat translations of the same text by different scholars ofteninclude not only slight differences in wording, butcompletely different meanings, neither one of which isobviously the less convincing.

The runestones do clearly demonstrate that the Vikings,despite their oral culture, were by no means completelyilliterate. There is no sense in setting up a publicannouncement which none of your neighbours can under-stand. Those who went to the trouble and expense oferecting them presumably expected that a considerablenumber of passers-by would know how to read them, orwould know somebody else who could. However, neithersuch stones - nor the carved sticks which were used to pass

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runic inscriptions fromhand to hand - were a suit-able medium for recordingthe details of personal orfamily history at anylength. For such a purposethe ancient oral tradition ofheroic poetry, passed downthe generations by bards,was both more practicaland more appropriate tothe Viking character - theywould have had littlesympathy for the Romanhistorian Tacitus' declaredgoal of recording the coldfacts "with neither angernor enthusiasm".

(Right) All over northernEurope archaeologists haveidentified the runestones usedby Vikings as a permanentrecord of some publicannouncement or importantprivate event. After the runiccharacters were chiselled intothe stone they were oftencoloured to make them standout; and sometimes wordswere distinguished from oneanother by the use of alter-nating colours. One of themost famous and eloquentexamples is a marble lionstatue which used to stand inthe Greek port of Piraeusnear Athens. It bears twolines of a Norse runic inscrip-tion, now almost completelyworn away, but oncescratched into the stone asgraffiti by some Vikingmercenary fighting forByzantium - a vandal, but notan illiterate one. . .

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The Normans

The major Christian power at the time of the emer-gence of the Vikings from their northern mists wasthe so-called Carolingian Empire. Founded in the

mid-8th century by the Frankish King Pepin, this was ledto its greatest prestige by King Charles the Great("Charlemagne"), who was crowned Holy RomanEmperor in 800. From its heartland between the Rhineand Meuse it had spread to embrace most of continentalwestern Europe, from the Atlantic to Bohemia and fromthe North Sea to Rome.

Trading connections between Scandinavia and the Franksvia Friesia on the North Sea coast predated the first Norseraids on the empire; but an attack by King Godfred'sDanish Vikings on Friesia in 810 started a plague whichwould afflict the continent for a century and a half. Fromthe death of the Emperor Louis I in 840 central authorityweakened; from 887 the empire formally split into French

(Left) Most speculationabout the early Normanfighting man is based on theBayeux Tapestry depicting theconquest of England in 1066.Norman knights are shownheavily armoured with nasalhelmets, mail hauberks withcoifs, and carrying the longkite- shaped shield which

became common in the 11thcentury. The 11th centuryringmail hauberk was knee-length or even longer, splitfront and back for riding,with sleeves at least to theelbow; there is also someevidence for mail leggings toprotect riders' legs.

and German kingdoms; Frankish military preparednessdecayed, at exactly the time when it was needed most.

In 834 Dorestad was devastated; in 841, Rouen; in theyears which followed cities far up the Garonne and theSeine were plundered, among them Paris in 845, 857 and886. Like the Anglo-Saxons before them, the Franks underCharles "the Bald" tried to buy peace by paying danegeld tothe Vikings; just the first of 13 payments recorded between845 and 926 amounted to 3500kg (7,7001bs) of silver.Predictably, these subsidies only bought a short respite;Hamburg was plundered by Vikings in 845, Cologne in862/863, and Trier in 882. Neither was the Atlantic coast

(Below) While light troopslike bowmen, and somepoorer mercenaries, still wentinto battle wearing tunics or,at best, padded gambesons,the bulk of the battle linewould now have beenequipped with ringmail. Wecan assume that William theConqueror provided at leasthis own household troopswith this expensive piece ofequipment. Although someof these re-enactors still wearthe old-fashioned shorter

corselet, the second and thirdfrom the left show the longer,split-skirted defence. Theirhelmets are a variety ofdifferent spangenhelms, allwith nasal protection. TheSaxon huscarls, too, wouldhave worn ringmail andhelmets, and many werearmed with the long Danishaxe. On the Bayeux Tapestrymost Norman knights arearmed with swords andspears, only a few carryingaxes and saxes.

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of the empire safe: in 835 an island monastery in the mouthof the Loire was plundered, and ten years later the Vikingsrowed up the river to pillage Nantes.

In the middle years of the 9th century the Christian inha-bitants of the empire suffered repeated massacre, pillageand destruction, to the extent that large areas of theFrankish kingdoms became depopulated by mass flight.Although the empire could field the first seeds of whatwould become the classic heavy armoured cavalry ofwestern Europe, it was weakened by the collapse of centralauthority; by a strained exchequer after it ceased its earlierwars of expansion and conquest; and by the simultaneousdistraction of a Moslem threat from the south.

Payment of danegeld developed into the actual ceding ofFrankish territory for Viking settlement. In the mid-9thcentury the island of Walcheren in Friesia was granted tothe Danes in return for protection against further Vikingattacks. In 911 Rolf, the leader of a Viking army which hadplundered northern France, was granted the area betweenthe rivers Bresle, Epte, Avre and Dives as a fief from KingCharles III "the Simple" of the West Franks, in return forhis sworn loyalty and military support. Rolf converted to

(Left) Although many varia-tions of detail are probable,the most typical helmet forthe era of the NormanConquest was probably thespangenhelm with nasal, asdepicted in many periodsources; its constructionwould have been quicker and

cheaper than a helmet"drawn" over a stake byhammering a single sheet ofmetal. This reconstructedexample is worn with a closemail coif which leaves onlythe face exposed, thoughprotected by the broad nasal.

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Christianity, taking the name Rollo, and Normandy servedas a buffer zone against further Viking attacks. His son,Duke William I, received further territory.

The new settlers from Scandinavia mixed with the existingGallo-Roman and Germano-Frankish strains. This wasachieved more readily in the central region around Rouenthan on the coastal fringes, and Normandy was not finallyunified until 1047, when a rebellion by coastal lords wasput down by Duke William II "the Bastard" and KingHenry I of France. Henry's attempts to conquer his over-mighty Norman vassal in 1054 and 1057 failed, cementingWilliam's position.

The death of the Anglo-Saxon King Edward "theConfessor" in 1066 sparked the events leading to a Normanexpansion all over Europe. Duke William had beenpromised the throne of England by his kinsman Edward;when his claim was usurped by the great Saxon magnateEarl Harold Godwinsson, William landed an invasion forceon the south coast of England on 28 September 1066. Acompeting attempt was made by "the last of the Vikings",King Harald Hardrada of Norway, who landed on theYorkshire coast. Harold Godwinsson defeated the Vikingarmy, then force-marched south to meet the Normanthreat. The last Saxon king of England was killed and hisarmy defeated at Hastings on 14 October; the Normanduke - descended over a few generations from the paganViking raider Rolf, but now a Frankish nobleman in all butname - was crowned King William I of England onChristmas Day in Westminster Abbey.

From the mid-11th century their extraordinary energy,hardihood, greed and quarrelsomeness spread the rule ofrestless Norman barons across a great part of Europe.Though they had long forgotten their ancestral culture,men who could trace their paternal blood to Rolf's plun-derers seized power as far south as Sicily and the Balkans;Norman knights put an end to Byzantine predominance inthe Mediterranean, and launched the First Crusade in theHoly Land. A new age of the world was growing out of thelong confusion of post-Roman Europe; and with everygeneration the Vikings receded further into heroic legend.

(Above) This Norman re-enactor can be seen to wear agambeson beneath his mail - anecessary defence against theimpact of blows ("blunttrauma"), since the ringsthemselves only give protec-tion against cuts. Without

padding to cushion and spreadthe impact, the crushing forceof, e.g., a Danish axe - whichcould actually dismember menand horses - would still breakmajor bones, and force splitmail rings deep into the fleshbeneath.

(Left) Period depictions showwhat re-enactors have learnedfor themselves: that the onlycomfortable way to carry amail shirt is slung on a polethrough the sleeves. Thespecial dynamics of thedistribution of its weight alsomake a long hauberk verydifficult to put on or pull offwithout help. Note here thesplit upwards from the hemto allow riding, and an addedflap of mail on the chestwhich was laced upwards toprotect the face.

(Above) The so-called "kite"shield, which slowly replacedthe old round type throughoutmuch of Europe during the11th century, covered thewhole front of the bearer'sbody from chin to ankle, witha slightly dished cross-sectionto give even better protection.It was made from severalglued planks, and probably

(Above right) The longshield was carried by anumber of leather straps thatcould be gripped in differentways to lift and move theshield. The weight of theshield could be transferred tothe shoulders by a sling.Although it is most likely thatthe shield was carried verti-cally in the fight, pictures also

(Right) A slight variation ofthe shield grips; and detail ofa reconstructed Normansword. These were longerthan their Viking predecessors;often used from horseback,they had to give a longerreach. The larger crossguard

covered with leather andrimmed with leather or ironto stop the wood from splin-tering. Contemporary depic-tions show shields both withand without bosses. Shielddecorations on the BayeuxTapestry feature the Christiancross as well as dragons,griffons and floral motifs.

show warriors holding it hori-zontally. There are no 11thcentury finds of such shields,and reconstructions are basedon contemporary picturesand 13th century originals.To make carrying the shieldmore comfortable paddinghas been added here to theinside surface under theleather straps.

and pommel, which were slidonto the tang of the swordand welded in place, balancethe weight of the longer bladearound its centre of gravity,making it still controllablewith one hand.

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(Above & right) Threestages in donning the typicalNorman head protection.Some kind of padded cap isthe necessary first step, madefrom thick woollen cloth,leather or linen; it performsthe same protective functionas the gambeson beneath themail corselet, and also stopsthe wearer's hair gettingcaught in the mail coif orhood worn over it. In the

11th century this was alreadyseen attached permanently tothe hauberk, but separate coifswere also in use. The lowerface is then covered with asquare flap of mail, attachedto the breast along its loweredge and - presumably - lacedup to the coif. Finally thehelmet is put on, this examplebeing the typical Europeanspangenhelm with nasal.

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Norman Cavalry

At the decisive battles of Val-és-Dunes in 1047 andHastings in 1066 the Normans successfully deployedtheir knights as cavalry. The hard core of William the

Conqueror's army can rightfully be called "knights", as thefeudal system was already entrenched: a pyramid of mutualobligation based on sworn loyalty and land tenure, the landgrant providing the revenue which equipped the vassal knightto fulfill his military duties when summoned by his lord, andfreeing him from most mundane daily concerns.

During his childhood the future Norman man-at-arms wastrained for war both formally and by hunting from horsebackin rough terrain. By about 12 years of age the son of a knightwas familiar enough with the handling of horses and weaponsto begin his duties as a squire, the servant/apprentice of aknight. He might be knighted by his lord at around the age of21; if an elder son, he might marry and settle down on hisfamily land; if landless, he might take paid service with a lord.It was this type of young men who followed William to Englandin 1066 to seek their fortunes.

The cavalry was probably deployed in groups of 25 to 50riders; and during the early Middle Ages these units operatedwith much less co-ordination, once launched into battle, thanwould satisfy later ideas of "command and control". The indi-vidual fighting man would use his weapon according to hisown judgement. The spear was probably used for stabbingboth overarm and underarm, rather than levelled for the co-ordinated frontal charge of later periods.

Cavalry were mainly used for flank attacks, or for exploitinggaps hacked in the enemy formations by the infantry, to turn amoment of wavering into rout and defeat. Frontal attacks onan unbroken enemy force would be costly; the unarmouredhorses were vulnerable to arrows, and at close range to javelinsand spears. It is, in any case, almost impossible to make ahorse charge right into a standing formation like a shield wall;at Hastings the Norman cavalry would have been reduced toriding up and down in front of the Saxon shields, stabbingdown with their spears or throwing them like javelins inattempts to break the line.

Once the fighting opened out, however, a horse's herdinstincts would make it run with the others, and with footsoldiers; and once the enemy were put to flight cavalry wereideal for pursuing the fugitives to prevent them from rallying,cutting them down left and right. Riders were also used forreconnaissance, as foragers to commandeer supplies, and asraiders to ravage the enemy's territory.

Training and maintenance of war horses was costly, andcavalry were precious to a commander; therefore they wereusually held back behind the foot troops out of range of missileweapons, and only deployed when they were sure of a decisiveeffect.

(Left & inset) The 11th centuryNorman cavalryman probably didnot look very different, in terms ofclothing and armour, from anyother fully equipped northernEuropean warrior. Judging by theBayeux Tapestry he was armedwith both lance and sword(though there is an isolated imageof an armoured rider with a bow).His armour consisted of helmetand ringmail hauberk, and a slungkite-Shaped shield protected hiswhole left side down to the foot.Such evidence as we have suggests

that shield motifs at this date werepurely decorative; the complexmedieval system of heraldic iden-tification had not yet appeared.When fighting he controlled his

horse with one hand and by thepressure of his legs and spurs.The detail shows the stirrup, herereconstructed with a leathersocket laced on for resting theferrule of the lance while riding.Simple iron spurs of the erarecovered by archaeologists arestraight with small pointed tips.

(Above) Seen from behind, ourcavalryman shows the necessityfor the central splits from the hemof the mail hauberk - they allowthe mail to fall smoothly over thethigh when the rider is in thesaddle. Some knights are alsoshown wearing protective mail

(Below) This spangenhelm has nobrow band; the rivets around thebottom presumably secure anadjustable leather lining cap. Thehelmet has cheekpieces, a frontalnasal and a similar bar at the back

leggings. Note the neckguard ofthe helmet; some images in theBayeux Tapestry show this type ofrear bar protection. The clothingof our man-at-arms is simple,consisting of a tunic, trousers, legwrappings and ankle-lengthleather shoes.

to protect the neck. Helmets withexactly this combination offeature's have not been found, buteach can be proved for our period,so the existence of such a helmetis likely.

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