Scandinavian history in the Viking age - Department of Anglo-Saxon ...

Scandinavian History in the Viking Age
N. TRADE AND TOWNS
The significance of Viking-age trade for social, political, and religious developments is now well
appreciated; it provided not only for extended and deep-rooted contacts with the outside (especially
Christian) world, but also helped to fuel the growth of an aristocratic elite that came to dominate and
thrive upon the traffic in luxury goods.
Trade
For the Pirenne hypothesis, that the incursions of the Arabs into the Mediterranean in the seventh and
eighth centuries forced Europe to look north for its trading contacts:
[N1] H. Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne (1939) [UL 532:3.c.95.15]
[N2] R. Hodges and D. Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the origins of Europe: archaeology
and the Pirenne thesis (1983) [UL 532:15.c.95.26]
Viking-age commerce
Surveys of trade links in the pre-Viking age are best approached through the general handbooks in (A)
and the detailed studies of Iron-age Denmark in particular (D20 ff.). Aside from a growing organisation
of commercial activities, it is the extension in the range and quantity of goods carried that tends to mark
off Viking-age trade from the traffic of the preceding period.
[N5] C. Blindheim, ‘Commerce and trade in Viking age Norway: exchange of products or organized
transactions?’, NAR 15 (1982), 8-18
[N6] P. Sawyer, ‘Ohthere and Viking age trade’, (B106a):43-55
[N7] C. Blindheim, ‘Internal trade in Viking age Norway’, Untersuchungen zu Handel und Verkehr der
vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Zeit in Mittel- und Nord-europa. 4: Der Handel der Karolinger- und
Wikingerzeit, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen 156, edd. K. Düwel et al.
(1987), 758-72 [UL P500.b.5.183]
[N8] U. Näsman, ‘Sea trade during the Scandinavian Iron age: its character, commodities, and routes’,
(M103):23-40
[N9] L. Hedeager, ‘Warrior economy and trading economy in Viking-age Scandinavia’, JEA 2:1 (1994),
130-48
[N10] M. Bäck, ‘No island is a society: regional and interregional interaction in Central Sweden during
the Viking age’, (O80):129-61
For the notion of ‘peace’ as a prerequisite to trading, see (I91).
Foreign contacts
Foreign contacts are illuminated by the studies above and above all by the artefacts found in Scandinavia
itself. Burial finds (M300 ff.) and urban excavations (N170 ff.) in particular are a useful source for such
material.
The North sea
It is now widely recognised that Scandinavian links across the North sea have a far longer pedigree than
the Viking age, and these connections seem to have been paramount not only in the beginning of the
western Viking age (C35 ff.) but also in the establishment of early commercial centres such as Ribe
(N185 ff.); for the artefacts, see (N30 ff.).
[N15] E. Bakka, ‘Scandinavian trade relations with the continent and the British Isles in pre-Viking
times’, Early medieval studies 3, AArkiv 40 (1971), 37-51
[N16] J. Hines, The Scandinavian character of Anglian England in the pre-Viking period, BAR British
series 124 (1984) [UL L474.b.85.115], plus ‘The Scandinavian character of Anglian England: an update’,
(M355):315-29
[N17] B. Weber, ‘Norwegian exports in Orkney and Shetland during the Viking and middle ages’,
(O70):V,159-67
The Baltic (and beyond)
Scandinavian links across the Baltic were also extensive before, during, and after the Viking age; most of
the relevant material is to be found in (J10 ff.).
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