c. 790
Scandinavia around 790
Around 790 Scandinavia is a land of many peoples and small realms. The Danes hold Jutland, the Danish islands and Scania. The Svear live around Lake Mälaren with their royal centre at Uppsala, and the Götar live to their south and west. The Norwegians hold the long Atlantic coast, the Sámi live by hunting, fishing and reindeer in the far north, and the Finns live east of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Iron and bronze helmet from boat grave I at Vendel in Uppland, 7th century, Swedish History Museum, StockholmWikimedia Commons, Ola Myrin/Statens historiska museum, CC BY 2.5 (Vendel I helmet 456059.jpg)
Power lies with chieftains and petty kings. The kings’ sagas that name these rulers were written in the 12th and 13th centuries. Archaeologists estimate about nine petty realms in western Norway alone and at least 20 in the whole country. In Denmark the Kanhave canal on Samsø, dug about 726, and the first rampart of the Danevirke, built about 737, point to a royal power able to order such works.
Excavation of the Black Earth, the town area of Birka on Björkö in Lake Mälaren, in 1991Wikimedia Commons, Holger.Ellgaard, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Birka Svarta jorden 1991.jpg)
Trade gathers in a few market towns. Ribe on the west coast of Jutland is a market from the early 8th century, trading mostly with Frisia and England, and coins may be struck there about 720. Birka, on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren, is founded about 750, and its 500 to 1,000 inhabitants trade furs bought from the Sámi and the Finns. Kaupang in Vestfold is founded in the 780s and has about 1,000 people who trade in iron and soapstone, and Hedeby at the head of the Schlei, first named in 804, links the Baltic with the North Sea by a portage of less than 15 km.
Reconstructed houses on the site of Hedeby by the Haddebyer Noor, photographed in 2020Wikimedia Commons, Matthias Süßen, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Haithabu-msu-2020-9-8561.jpg)
The fullest early account of the North comes from Ohthere of Hålogaland, who visits King Alfred of Wessex about 890. He lives farther north than any other Norwegian. He describes the Sámi, whom he calls Finnas, in the mountains east of the Norwegians, and the land of the Swedes beyond them. He says a ship camping each night cannot sail from his home to the market of Sciringes heal in a month, taken to be Kaupang, and from there he sails on to Hedeby.
Sources
- Janet Bately and Anton Englert (eds.), Ohthere’s Voyages: a Late 9th-Century Account of Voyages along the Coasts of Norway and Denmark and its Cultural Context (2007).
- Dagfinn Skre, Kaupang in Skiringssal (2007).
- Knut Helle (ed.), The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, vol. 1 (2003).
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