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Norse seafarers, merchants and raiders From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),[3][4][5][6] who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.[7][8][9] They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Greenland, and Vinland (present-day Newfoundland in Canada, North America). In their countries of origin, and some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'.[10]
Expert sailors and navigators of their characteristic longships, Vikings established Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast, as well as along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes across modern-day Russia, Belarus,[11] and Ukraine,[12] where they were also known as Varangians. The Normans, Norse-Gaels, Rus' people, Faroese, and Icelanders emerged from these Norse colonies. At one point, a group of Rus Vikings went so far south that, after briefly being bodyguards for the Byzantine emperor, they attacked the Byzantine city of Constantinople.[13] Vikings also voyaged to Iran[14][page needed] and Arabia.[15] They were the first Europeans to reach North America, briefly settling in Newfoundland (Vinland). While spreading Norse culture to foreign lands, they simultaneously brought home slaves, concubines, and foreign cultural influences to Scandinavia, influencing the genetic[16] and historical development of both. During the Viking Age, the Norse homelands were gradually consolidated from smaller kingdoms into three larger kingdoms: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
The Vikings spoke Old Norse and made inscriptions in runes. For most of the period, they followed the Old Norse religion, but later became Christians. The Vikings had their own laws, art, and architecture. Most Vikings were also farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and traders. Popular conceptions of the Vikings often strongly differ from the complex, advanced civilisation of the Norsemen that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century; this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.[17][18] Perceived views of the Vikings as violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers owe much to conflicting varieties of the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy. These representations are rarely accurate—for example, there is no evidence that they wore horned helmets, a costume element that first appeared in the 19th century.
The etymology of the word Viking have been much debated by academics, with many origin theories being proposed.[20][21] One theory suggests that the word's origin is from the Old English wicing 'settlement' and the Old Frisian wizing, attested almost 300 years prior.[22] Another less popular theory is that víking came from the feminine vík 'creek', 'inlet', 'small bay'.[23]
Another etymology that gained support in the early 21st century derives Viking from the same root as Old Norse vika 'sea mile', originally referring to the distance between two shifts of rowers, ultimately from the Proto-Germanic *wîkan 'to recede'.[24][25][26][27] This is found in the early Nordic verb *wikan 'to turn', similar to Old Icelandic víkja 'to move, to turn', with "well-attested nautical usages", according to Bernard Mees.[26] This theory is better attested linguistically, and the term most likely predates the use of the sail by the Germanic peoples of northwestern Europe.[27][26][28]
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In the Middle Ages, viking came to refer to Scandinavian pirates or raiders.[29][30][31] The earliest reference to wicing in English sources is from the Épinal-Erfurt glossary (c. 700), about 93 years before the first known attack by Viking raiders in England. The glossary lists the Latin translation for wicing as piraticum 'pirate'.[32][33] In Old English, the word wicing appears in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith, probably from the 9th century. The word was not regarded as a reference to nationality, with other terms such as Northmen and Dene 'Danes' being used for that. In Asser's Latin work The Life of King Alfred, the Danes are referred to as pagani 'pagans'; historian Janet Nelson states that pagani became "the Vikings" in standard translations of this work, even though there is "clear evidence" that it was used as a synonym, while Eric Christiansen avers that it is a mistranslation made at the insistence of the publisher.[34] The word wicing does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts.
The word Viking was introduced into Modern English during the 18th-century Viking revival, at which point it acquired romanticised heroic overtones of "barbarian warrior" or noble savage.[35] During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to seaborne raiders from Scandinavia and other places settled by them (like Iceland and the Faroe Islands), but also any member of the culture that produced the raiders during the period from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries, or more loosely from about 700 to as late as about 1100. As an adjective, the word is used to refer to ideas, phenomena, or artefacts connected with those people and their cultural life, producing expressions like Viking age, Viking culture, Viking art, Viking religion, Viking ship and so on.
The Viking Age in Scandinavian history is taken to have been the period from the earliest recorded raids by Norsemen in 793 until the Norman conquest of England in 1066.[36] Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south.
The Normans were descendants of those Vikings who had been given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France, namely the Duchy of Normandy, in the 10th century. In that respect, descendants of the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe. Likewise, King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, had Danish ancestors. Two Vikings even ascended to the throne of England, with Sweyn Forkbeard claiming the English throne in 1013 until 1014 and his son Cnut the Great being king of England between 1016 and 1035.[37][38][39][40][41]
Geographically, the Viking Age covered Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden), as well as territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria,[42] parts of Mercia, and East Anglia.[43] Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland;[44] and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000.[45] The Greenland settlement was established around 980, during the Medieval Warm Period, and its demise by the mid-15th century may have been partly due to climate change.[46] The Viking Rurik dynasty took control of territories in Slavic and Finnic-dominated areas of Eastern Europe; they annexed Kiev in 882 to serve as the capital of the Kievan Rus'.[47]
As early as 839, when Swedish emissaries are first known to have visited Byzantium, Scandinavians served as mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire.[48] In the late 10th century, a new unit of the imperial bodyguard formed. Traditionally containing large numbers of Scandinavians, it was known as the Varangian Guard. The word Varangian may have originated in Old Norse, but in Slavic and Greek it could refer either to Scandinavians or Franks. In these years, Swedish men left to enlist in the Byzantine Varangian Guard in such numbers that a medieval Swedish law, the Västgötalagen, from Västergötland declared no-one could inherit while staying in "Greece"—the then Scandinavian term for the Byzantine Empire—to stop the emigration,[49] especially as two other European courts simultaneously also recruited Scandinavians:[50] Kievan Rus' c. 980–1060 and London 1018–1066 (the Þingalið).[50]
There is archaeological evidence that Vikings reached Baghdad, the centre of the Islamic Empire.[51] The Norse regularly plied the Volga with their trade goods: furs, tusks, seal fat for boat sealant, and slaves. Important trading ports during the period include Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod, and Kiev.
Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation, and conquest. In this period, voyaging from their homelands in Denmark, Norway and Sweden the Norsemen settled in the present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, the Netherlands, Germany, Normandy, Italy, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,[52] Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, as well as initiating the consolidation that resulted in the formation of the present-day Scandinavian countries.
In the Viking Age, the present day nations of Norway, Sweden and Denmark did not exist, but the peoples who lived in what is now those countries were largely homogeneous and similar in culture and language, although somewhat distinct geographically. The names of Scandinavian kings are reliably known for only the later part of the Viking Age. After the end of the Viking Age, the separate kingdoms gradually acquired distinct identities as nations, which went hand-in-hand with their Christianisation. Thus, the end of the Viking Age for the Scandinavians also marks the start of their relatively brief Middle Ages.
Slavic and Viking tribes were "closely linked, fighting one another, intermixing and trading".[53][54][55] In the Middle Ages, goods were transferred from Slavic areas to Scandinavia, and Denmark could be considered "a melting pot of Slavic and Scandinavian elements".[53] Leszek Gardeła, of the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at the University of Bonn, posits that the presence of Slavs in Scandinavia is "more significant than previously thought",[53] while Mats Roslund states that "the Slavs and their interaction with Scandinavia have not been adequately investigated".[56]
A 10th-century grave of a warrior-woman in Denmark was long thought to belong to a Viking. However, new analyses suggest that the woman may have been a Slav from present-day Poland.[53] The first king of the Swedes, Eric, was married to Gunhild, of the Polish House of Piast.[57] Likewise, his son, Olof, fell in love with Edla, a Slavic woman, and took her as his frilla (concubine).[58] They had a son and a daughter: Emund the Old, King of Sweden, and Astrid, Queen of Norway. Cnut the Great, King of Denmark, England and Norway, was the son of a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland,[59] possibly the former Polish queen of Sweden, wife of Eric.
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Colonisation of Iceland by Norwegian Vikings began in the 9th century. The first source mentioning Iceland and Greenland is a papal letter from 1053. Twenty years later, they appear in the Gesta of Adam of Bremen. It was not until after 1130, when the islands had become Christianised, that accounts of the history of the islands were written from the point of view of the inhabitants in sagas and chronicles.[60] The Vikings explored the northern islands and coasts of the North Atlantic, ventured south to North Africa, east to Kievan Rus (now – Ukraine, Belarus), Constantinople, and the Middle East.[61]
They raided and pillaged, traded, acted as mercenaries and settled colonies over a wide area.[62] Early Vikings probably returned home after their raids. Later in their history, they began to settle in other lands.[63] Vikings under Leif Erikson, heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up short-lived settlements in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. This expansion occurred during the Medieval Warm Period.[64]
Viking expansion into continental Europe was limited. Their realm was bordered by powerful tribes to the south. Early on, it was the Saxons who occupied Old Saxony, located in what is now Northern Germany. The Saxons were a fierce and powerful people and were often in conflict with the Vikings. To counter the Saxon aggression and solidify their own presence, the Danes constructed the huge defence fortification of Danevirke in and around Hedeby.[65]
The Vikings witnessed the violent subduing of the Saxons by Charlemagne, in the thirty-year Saxon Wars of 772–804. The Saxon defeat resulted in their forced christening and the absorption of Old Saxony into the Carolingian Empire. Fear of the Franks led the Vikings to further expand Danevirke,[65] and the defence constructions remained in use throughout the Viking Age and even up until 1864.[66]
The southern coast of the Baltic Sea was ruled by the Obotrites, a federation of Slavic tribes loyal to the Carolingians and later the Frankish empire. The Vikings—led by King Gudfred—destroyed the Obotrite city of Reric on the southern Baltic coast in 808 AD and transferred the merchants and traders to Hedeby.[67] This secured Viking supremacy in the Baltic Sea, which continued throughout the Viking Age.
Because of the expansion of the Vikings across Europe, a comparison of DNA and archeology undertaken by scientists at the University of Cambridge and University of Copenhagen suggested that the term "Viking" may have evolved to become "a job description, not a matter of heredity", at least in some Viking bands.[68]
The motives driving the Viking expansion are a topic of much debate. The concept that Vikings may have originally started sailing and raiding due to a need to seek out women from foreign lands was expressed in the 11th century by historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his semi-imaginary History of The Normans.[69] [70][71] As observed by Adam of Bremen, rich and powerful Viking men tended to have many wives and concubines;[72] and these polygynous relationships may have led to a shortage of women available to the Viking male. Consequently, the average Viking man may have felt compelled to seek wealth and power to have the means to acquire suitable women.[73] Several centuries after Dudo's observations, scholars revived this idea, and over time it became a cliché among scholars of the Viking Age.[74] Viking men would often buy or capture women and make them into their wives or concubines;[75][76] such polygynous marriages increase male-male competition in society because they create a pool of unmarried men who are willing to engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviors.[77][78] The Annals of Ulster states that in 821 the Vikings plundered an Irish village and "carried off a great number of women into captivity".[79]
One common theory posits that Charlemagne "used force and terror to Christianise all pagans", leading to baptism, conversion or execution, and as a result, Vikings and other pagans resisted and wanted revenge.[80][81][82][83][84] Professor Rudolf Simek states that "it is not a coincidence if the early Viking activity occurred during the reign of Charlemagne".[80][85] The ascendance of Christianity in Scandinavia led to serious conflict, dividing Norway for almost a century. However, this time period did not commence until the 10th century. Norway was never subject to aggression by Charlemagne and the period of strife was due to successive Norwegian kings embracing Christianity after encountering it overseas.[86]
Another explanation is that the Vikings exploited a moment of weakness in the surrounding regions. Contrary to Simek's assertion, Viking raids occurred sporadically long before the reign of Charlemagne; but exploded in frequency and size after his death, when his empire fragmented into multiple much weaker entities.[87] England suffered from internal divisions and was a relatively easy prey given the proximity of many towns to the sea or to navigable rivers. Lack of organised naval opposition throughout Western Europe allowed Viking ships to travel freely, raiding or trading as opportunity permitted. The decline in the profitability of old trade routes could also have played a role. Trade between Western Europe and the rest of Eurasia suffered a severe blow when the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century.[88] The expansion of Islam in the 7th century had also affected trade with Western Europe.[89]
Raids in Europe, including raids and settlements from Scandinavia, were not unprecedented and had occurred long before the Vikings arrived. The Jutes invaded the British Isles three centuries earlier, from Jutland during the Age of Migrations, before the Danes settled there. The Saxons and the Angles did the same, embarking from mainland Europe. The Viking raids were, however, the first to be documented by eyewitnesses, and they were much larger in scale and frequency than in previous times.[87]
Vikings themselves were expanding; although their motives are unclear, historians believe that scarce resources or a lack of mating opportunities were a factor.[90]
The slave trade was an important part of the Viking economy, with most slaves destined to Scandinavia although many others were shipped east where they could be sold for large profits.[91] The "Highway of Slaves" was a term for a route that the Vikings found to have a direct pathway from Scandinavia to Constantinople and Baghdad while traveling on the Baltic Sea. With the advancements of their ships during the 9th century, the Vikings were able to sail to Kievan Rus and some northern parts of Europe.[92]
Jomsborg was a semi-legendary Viking stronghold at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea (medieval Wendland, modern Pomerania), that existed between the 960s and 1043. Its inhabitants were known as Jomsvikings. Jomsborg's exact location, or its existence, has not yet been established, though it is often maintained that Jomsborg was somewhere on the islands of the Oder estuary.[93]
While the Vikings were active beyond their Scandinavian homelands, Scandinavia was itself experiencing new influences and undergoing a variety of cultural changes.[94]
By the late 11th century, royal dynasties were legitimised by the Catholic Church (which had had little influence in Scandinavia 300 years earlier) which were asserting their power with increasing authority and ambition, with the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden taking shape. Towns appeared that functioned as secular and ecclesiastical administrative centres and market sites, and monetary economies began to emerge based on English and German models.[95] By this time the influx of Islamic silver from the East had been absent for more than a century, and the flow of English silver had come to an end in the mid-11th century.[96]
Christianity had taken root in Denmark and Norway with the establishment of dioceses in the 11th century, and the new religion was beginning to organise and assert itself more effectively in Sweden. Foreign churchmen and native elites were energetic in furthering the interests of Christianity, which was now no longer operating only on a missionary footing, and old ideologies and lifestyles were transforming. By 1103, the first archbishopric was founded in Scandinavia, at Lund, Scania, then part of Denmark.
The assimilation of the nascent Scandinavian kingdoms into the cultural mainstream of European Christendom altered the aspirations of Scandinavian rulers and of Scandinavians able to travel overseas, and changed their relations with their neighbours.
One of the primary sources of profit for the Vikings had been slave-taking from other European peoples. The medieval Church held that Christians should not own fellow Christians as slaves, so chattel slavery diminished as a practice throughout northern Europe. This took much of the economic incentive out of raiding, though sporadic slaving activity continued into the 11th century. Scandinavian predation in Christian lands around the North and Irish Seas diminished markedly.
The kings of Norway continued to assert power in parts of northern Britain and Ireland, and raids continued into the 12th century, but the military ambitions of Scandinavian rulers were now directed toward new paths. In 1107, Sigurd I of Norway sailed for the eastern Mediterranean with Norwegian crusaders to fight for the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem; the kings of Denmark and Sweden participated actively in the Baltic Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries.[97]
A variety of sources illuminate the culture, activities, and beliefs of the Vikings. Although they were generally a non-literate culture that produced no literary legacy, they had an alphabet and described themselves and their world on runestones. Most contemporary literary and written sources on the Vikings come from other cultures that were in contact with them.[98] Since the mid-20th century, archaeological findings have built a more complete and balanced picture of the lives of the Vikings.[99][100] The archaeological record is particularly rich and varied, providing knowledge of their rural and urban settlement, crafts and production, ships and military equipment, trading networks, as well as their pagan and Christian religious artefacts and practices.
The most important primary sources on the Vikings are contemporary texts from Scandinavia and regions where the Vikings were active.[101] Writing in Latin letters was introduced to Scandinavia with Christianity, so there are few native documentary sources from Scandinavia before the late 11th and early 12th centuries.[102] The Scandinavians did write inscriptions in runes, but these were usually very short and formulaic. Most contemporary documentary sources consist of texts written in Christian and Islamic communities outside Scandinavia, often by authors who had been negatively affected by Viking activity.
Later writings on the Vikings and the Viking Age can also be important for understanding them and their culture, although they need to be treated cautiously. After the consolidation of the church and the assimilation of Scandinavia and its colonies into mainstream medieval Christian culture in the 11th and 12th centuries, native written sources began to appear in Latin and Old Norse. In the Viking colony of Iceland, extraordinary vernacular literature blossomed in the 12th through 14th centuries, and many traditions connected with the Viking Age were written down for the first time in the Icelandic sagas. A literal interpretation of these medieval prose narratives about the Vikings and the Scandinavian past is doubtful, but many specific elements remain worthy of consideration, such as the great quantity of skaldic poetry attributed to court poets of the 10th and 11th centuries, the exposed family trees, the self-images, and the ethical values that are contained in these literary writings.
Indirectly, the Vikings have also left a window open onto their language, culture and activities, through many Old Norse place names and words found in their former sphere of influence. Some of these place names and words are still in direct use today, almost unchanged, and shed light on where they settled and what specific places meant to them. Examples include place names like Egilsay (from Eigils ey meaning Eigil's Island), Ormskirk (from Ormr kirkja meaning Orms Church or Church of the Worm), Meols (from merl meaning Sand Dunes), Snaefell (Snow Fell), Ravenscar (Ravens Rock), Vinland (Land of Wine or Land of Winberry), Kaupanger (Market Harbour), Tórshavn (Thor's Harbour), and the religious centre of Odense, meaning a place where Odin was worshipped. Viking influence is also evident in concepts like the present-day parliamentary body of the Tynwald on the Isle of Man.
Many common words in everyday English language stem from the Old Norse of the Vikings and give an opportunity to understand their interactions with the people and cultures of the British Isles.[103] In the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney, Old Norse completely replaced the local languages and over time evolved into the now extinct Norn language. Some modern words and names only emerge and contribute to our understanding after a more intense research of linguistic sources from medieval or later records, such as York (Horse Bay), Swansea (Sveinn's Isle) or some of the place names in Normandy like Tocqueville (Toki's farm).[104]
Linguistic and etymological studies continue to provide a vital source of information on the Viking culture, their social structure and history and how they interacted with the people and cultures they met, traded, attacked or lived with in overseas settlements.[105][106] A lot of Old Norse connections are evident in the modern-day languages of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic.[107] Old Norse did not exert any great influence on the Slavic languages in the Viking settlements of Eastern Europe. It has been speculated that the reason for this was the great differences between the two languages, combined with the Rus Vikings' more peaceful businesses in these areas, and the fact that they were outnumbered. The Norse named some of the rapids on the Dnieper, but this can hardly be seen from modern names.[108][109]
The Norse of the Viking Age could read and write and used a non-standardised alphabet, called runor, built upon sound values. While there are few remains of runic writing on paper from the Viking era, thousands of stones with runic inscriptions have been found where Vikings lived. They are usually in memory of the dead, though not necessarily placed at graves. The use of runor survived into the 15th century, used in parallel with the Latin alphabet.
The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: Denmark has 250 runestones, Norway has 50 while Iceland has none.[110] Sweden has as many as between 1,700[110] and 2,500[111] depending on the definition. The Swedish district of Uppland has the highest concentration with as many as 1,196 inscriptions in stone, whereas Södermanland is second with 391.[112]
The majority of runic inscriptions from the Viking period are found in Sweden. Many runestones in Scandinavia record the names of participants in Viking expeditions, such as the Kjula runestone that tells of extensive warfare in Western Europe and the Turinge Runestone, which tells of a war band in Eastern Europe.
Other runestones mention men who died on Viking expeditions. Among them are the England runestones (Swedish: Englandsstenarna), which is a group of about 30 runestones in Sweden which refer to Viking Age voyages to England. They constitute one of the largest groups of runestones that mention voyages to other countries, and they are comparable in number only to the approximately 30 Greece Runestones[113] and the 26 Ingvar Runestones, the latter referring to a Viking expedition to the Middle East.[114] They were engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark.[115]
The Jelling stones date from between 960 and 985. The older, smaller stone was raised by King Gorm the Old, the last pagan king of Denmark, as a memorial honouring Queen Thyre.[116] The larger stone was raised by his son, Harald Bluetooth, to celebrate the conquest of Denmark and Norway and the conversion of the Danes to Christianity. It has three sides: one with an animal image; one with an image of the crucified Jesus Christ; and a third bearing the following inscription:
King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Thyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.[117]
Runestones attest to voyages to locations such as Bath,[118] Greece (how the Vikings referred to the Byzantium territories generally),[119] Khwaresm,[120] Jerusalem,[121] Italy (as Langobardland),[122] Serkland (i.e. the Muslim world),[123][124] England[125] (including London[126]), and various places in Eastern Europe. Viking Age inscriptions have also been discovered on the Manx runestones on the Isle of Man.
The last known people to use the Runic alphabet were an isolated group of people known as the Elfdalians, that lived in the locality of Älvdalen in the Swedish province of Dalarna. They spoke the language of Elfdalian, the language unique to Älvdalen. The Elfdalian language differentiates itself from the other Scandinavian languages as it evolved much closer to Old Norse. The people of Älvdalen stopped using runes as late as the 1920s. Usage of runes therefore survived longer in Älvdalen than anywhere else in the world.[127] The last known record of the Elfdalian Runes is from 1929; they are a variant of the Dalecarlian runes, runic inscriptions that were also found in Dalarna.
Traditionally regarded as a Swedish dialect,[128] but by several criteria closer related to West Scandinavian dialects,[129] Elfdalian is a separate language by the standard of mutual intelligibility.[130][131][132] Although there is no mutual intelligibility, due to schools and public administration in Älvdalen being conducted in Swedish, native speakers are bilingual and speak Swedish at a native level. Residents in the area who speak only Swedish as their sole native language, neither speaking nor understanding Elfdalian, are also common. Älvdalen can be said to have had its own alphabet during the 17th and 18th century. Today there are about 2,000–3,000 native speakers of Elfdalian.
There are numerous burial sites associated with Vikings throughout Europe and their sphere of influence—in Scandinavia, the British Isles, Ireland, Greenland, Iceland, Faeroe Islands, Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Russia, etc. The burial practices of the Vikings were quite varied, from dug graves in the ground, to tumuli, sometimes including so-called ship burials.
According to written sources, most of the funerals took place at sea. Funerals involved either burial or cremation, depending on local customs. In the area that is now Sweden, cremations were predominant; in Denmark burial was more common; and in Norway both were common.[133] Viking barrows are one of the primary sources of evidence for circumstances in the Viking Age.[134] The items buried with the dead give some indication as to what was considered important to possess in the afterlife.[135] It is unknown what mortuary services were given to dead children by the Vikings.[136] Some of the most important burial sites for understanding the Vikings include:
There have been several archaeological finds of Viking ships of all sizes, providing knowledge of the craftsmanship that went into building them. There were many types of Viking ships, built for various uses; the best-known type is probably the longship.[143] Longships were intended for warfare and exploration, designed for speed and agility, and were equipped with oars to complement the sail, making navigation possible independently of the wind. The longship had a long, narrow hull and shallow draught to facilitate landings and troop deployments in shallow water. Longships were used extensively by the Leidang, the Scandinavian defence fleets. The longship allowed the Norse to go Viking, which might explain why this type of ship has become almost synonymous with the concept of Vikings.[144][145]
The Vikings built many unique types of watercraft, often used for more peaceful tasks. The knarr was a dedicated merchant vessel designed to carry cargo in bulk. It had a broader hull, a deeper draught, and a small number of oars (used primarily to manoeuvre in harbours and similar situations). One Viking innovation was the 'beitass', a spar mounted to the sail that allowed their ships to sail effectively against the wind.[146] It was common for seafaring Viking ships to tow or carry a smaller boat to transfer crew and cargo from the ship to shore.
Ships were an integral part of Viking culture. They facilitated everyday transportation across seas and waterways, exploration of new lands, raids, conquests, and trade with neighbouring cultures. They also held a major religious importance. People with high status were sometimes buried in a ship along with animal sacrifices, weapons, provisions and other items, as evidenced by the buried vessels at Gokstad and Oseberg in Norway[147] and the excavated ship burial at Ladby in Denmark. Ship burials were also practised by Vikings overseas, as evidenced by the excavations of the Salme ships on the Estonian island of Saaremaa.[148]
Well-preserved remains of five Viking ships were excavated from Roskilde Fjord in the late 1960s, representing both the longship and the knarr. The ships were scuttled there in the 11th century to block a navigation channel and thus protect Roskilde, then the Danish capital, from a seaborne assault. The remains of these ships are on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde.
In 2019, archaeologists uncovered two Viking boat graves in Gamla Uppsala. They also discovered that one of the boats still holds the remains of a man, a dog, and a horse, along with other items.[149] This has shed light on the death rituals of Viking communities in the region.
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Viking society was divided into the three socio-economic classes: thralls, karls and jarls. This is described vividly in the Eddic poem of Rígsþula, which also explains that it was the god Ríg—father of mankind also known as Heimdallr—who created the three classes. Archaeology has confirmed this social structure.[150]
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