The story of Asbjørn provides evidence of a highly competitive society, where generosity in the form of hospitality or gifts is a means to winning adherents. Asbjørn acts as the typical “big man” described by social anthropologists. He cannot command his subordinates, but has to attract them by largesse. Without grain to brew beer and give parties, Asbjørn is nothing. Admittedly, people like Asbjørn probably had slaves and tenants whom they could command, but to become leaders of larger areas, they had to win adherents by generosity and by offering protection. The sagas, those of the Norwegian kings as well as the Icelandic family sagas, are full of examples of this. Snorri has to admit that St. Olav became unpopular among the chieftains, but exonerates him from the accusation that he was stingy. Another king in Heimskringla, Øystein Haraldsson who was killed in 1157 during a battle with his brother, apparently was guilty of this vice. When mobilizing his men to fight for him during the conflict, he received the following answer from one of them: “Let your gold chests fight for you and defend your kingdom.” Then they all left him.
Asbjørn’s story gives a somewhat ambiguous picture of kindred solidarity. Asbjørn and Tore lived close to each other, and there was some rivalry between them. According to Snorri, Tore was the more esteemed of the two because he was the king’s retainer. Asbjørn’s frantic effort at hospitality would seem to be a means to challenge Tore’s standing. Tore’s sarcasm after Asbjørn’s disastrous journey to Sola may suggest that he was not too unhappy to see his relative humiliated. Tore is also unwilling to lose the king’s friendship by avenging Asbjørn, but the gift of the spear in public forces his hand; it would be too great a humiliation not to accept the challenge. Although not Asbjørn’s rival, Erling has a similar problem, but he stands by his nephew and goes to extreme lengths to save his life. In the bilateral system, the obligations of maternal and paternal relatives are equivalent, at least when the kinship is as close as between uncle and nephew. It is also interesting to see that Asbjørn’s mother turns to her brother-in-law rather than her brother to get revenge for her son. The obvious reason for this is that Tore was closer by, but it also says something about the links created by marriage, not only between the spouses themselves but also between their relatives. Here it may be objected that many scholars have regarded the woman urging her male relatives to take revenge as a literary rather than a historical figure, but such a practice is well attested in many societies where revenge is practiced, and there is also contemporary Icelandic evidence of it.
Although the king plays a central part in the drama, there is no clear idea of royal authority. The king’s local representative is a thoroughly unpleasant character and a man of low rank, descended from slaves. Characteristically, when Asbjørn has killed him and the king gets furious, Erling Skjalgsson’s son and Asbjørn’s cousin, who has become a royal retainer, comments: “It is unfortunate, sire, that the deed seems hateful to you, for otherwise a good piece of work has been done.” The reason for the king’s fury is not that Asbjørn killed a royal official, but that the killing took place at Easter and in the king’s presence and “that he used my feet as the chopping block.”
The picture in this story is confirmed by other sources. Divisions between factions during the internal struggles in Denmark and Norway in the twelfth century were based on personal loyalty that derived from friendship, kinship, and marriage or other links based on the exchange of women. There is no evidence that the factions formed in the 1150s were regularly based on preexisting divisions between magnate families. They are more likely to have rested on individual magnates’ personal relationships to individual kings. Once a choice had been made, however, it typically became permanent and was passed on to the magnate’s descendants. Admittedly, there are many exceptions to this, but not so many as to form an argument against the importance of family ties. Friendship should be added to kinship as a basis for faction formation, although the two categories tended to overlap. Despite the fact that there was no automatic solidarity with kindred, friends were often chosen from among relatives. Additionally, personal relationships were deliberately used to link prominent adherents more closely to their leaders. As in earlier times, the kings gave daughters and other female relatives in marriage to their most trusted adherents. The kings themselves normally married foreign princesses, if they married at all, but they had mistresses from prominent Norwegian families who served to form alliances, in addition to fulfilling the sexual and emotional needs of such relationships.
The previous examples point to some continuity in the nature of Scandinavian society before and after the rise of the kingdoms and the introduction of Christianity. There were, however, significant changes, and these will be dealt with in the following discussion. A first step in this direction was the greater involvement in Christian Europe through the Viking expeditions.
Scandinavian Expansion: The Viking Expeditions
Under the year 793, the Canterbury manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains the following entry:
Here terrible portents came about over the land of Northumbria … these were immense flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air, and there immediately followed a great famine, and after that in the same year the raiding of the heathen miserably devastated God’s church in Lindisfarne island by looting and slaughter. (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. M. Swanton [London: Dent, 1996], 54–56)
This is the first recorded example of a Viking raid, but it was followed by several others, in England as well as in other countries. Many narrative sources give dramatic accounts of bands of robbers rising out of the high seas, killing, raping, burning, and carrying off gold, silver, sacred objects, and men and women to be used or sold as slaves. Monasteries and ecclesiastical institutions were particularly exposed, as they were wealthy and often unprotected, but there were also attacks on towns. England and the Carolingian Empire largely managed to fend off the Vikings until around 830, so Ireland, where a number of kings were fighting one another, became the main target during this period. From the 830s onwards, a series of large-scale attacks were directed against many parts of Western Europe. The Vikings exploited internal conflicts in the Carolingian Empire between Louis the Pious and his sons, as well as the later conflicts between the latter, and directed a series of attacks, particularly against France, including two sieges of Paris (855 and 885) and attacks on various other towns. At the same time, they interfered in conflicts between the various English kingdoms to plunder as well as to gain a foothold in this country, which they achieved with the conquest of Northumbria. In 844, a fleet of fifty-two Viking ships attacked Galicia and later Lisbon and Seville. Gradually there was a change from plundering to regular conquest. Viking kingdoms were founded in Ireland and northern England, and in 911 King Charles III granted the Duchy of Normandy to Scandinavian Vikings in order to protect the area against other Vikings. This seems to have worked; there is little evidence of Viking attacks on France in the tenth century. Around the same time the Vikings were also defeated in England, first by King Alfred (870–899) and then by his successors who in 952 or 954 conquered the Viking realm of Northumbria.
One reason for these setbacks may be that the East offered better opportunities for the Vikings during this period. There is evidence of settlements of Scandinavians, called “Rus,” around the Ladoga Sea from the late eighth century. The term Rus is derived from the Finnish name for Svear (Swedes). Archaeological evidence suggests a marked increase in these settlements in the tenth century, which is clearly connected to an increase in trade along Russian rivers with Byzantium and the Arab world. The Scandinavians were well placed to act as intermediaries on the trade routes between Russia and Byzantium and Western Europe, a trade that apparently yielded a substantial surplus, as is evident from the large hoards of silvers found in the Scandinavian settlements. Their merchandise was attractive in the East as well as in the West: the furs of northern Norway and the Kola Peninsula, for example, as well as captives from various raids
to be sold as slaves. The Swedish historian Sture Bolin claimed that the trade route via Russia and the Baltic replaced the Mediterranean as the main link connecting Western Europe and the Arab and Byzantine worlds. Although this is an exaggeration, the northern trade route must still be regarded as important. Trade was thus relatively more important than plundering in the East, and the Scandinavian settlements often seem to have been the result of peaceful cooperation with the local population rather than of conquest. Nevertheless, the Scandinavians were able to found a dynasty with a center in Kiev, which, however, gradually became Slavicized. Igor (=Ingvar) married Olga (=Helga) and was succeeded by his son Svjatoslav, who in turn was succeeded by Vladimir who converted to Christianity in 988.
The rise of Kievan Rus may have limited Scandinavian expansion in this area from the late tenth century, which in turn may explain the last phase of Viking expansion in the West, the Danish conquest of England. Another explanation of this is provided, however, by the unification of Denmark under Harald Bluetooth from the middle of the century. The first major raid on England in 991 was led by Harald’s son Sven Forkbeard, who in the following years led several expeditions against this country, as did also several other Scandinavian warriors. Finally, in the summer of 1013, Sven arrived with a large fleet and chased King Ethelred out of the country. He was acclaimed king shortly before Christmas, but died six weeks later. His son Cnut (Danish: Knud) returned a few years later, conquered the country, and ruled England from 1017 until his death in 1035.
In addition to their plundering expeditions, the Scandinavians also settled on islands in the North Sea and the Atlantic. There were contacts between Norway and the Orkneys already in the seventh century and a number of Norwegians settled there, as well as on Shetland and the Hebrides in the mid-ninth century, after having suppressed the indigenous inhabitants. According to the oldest written account, by Ari the Wise, the first settlers arrived in Iceland in 870 and found the island empty, apart from some Irish monks. During the following sixty years, a number of new settlers arrived, mostly from Norway but possibly also from other countries, after which all the available land had been taken. Greenland was discovered in the late tenth century and settled in the following period. Despite its cold climate—which was probably warmer a thousand years ago—the country was rich in pasture, fish, and game and thus attractive to settlers. Some expeditions from Iceland and Greenland also arrived in North America—remains of their houses have been found on Newfoundland—but there is no evidence of permanent settlement. According to the sagas, the Native Americans made this too difficult.
Various explanations have been suggested for this expansion. One of them is population pressure, leading people to seek new opportunities abroad. There is evidence of demographic growth at the time, expressed in a proliferation of new settlements. Population pressure may also explain why hitherto uninhabited countries, like Iceland and Greenland, were settled during this period. However, it is difficult to explain the Viking expeditions in general in this way. A warlike population does not require population pressure to turn to plundering abroad; military strength and a knowledge of the wealth to be gained are sufficient motivation. Wealthy and undefended monasteries must have posed a particularly strong temptation. In so far as population increase was a factor, it serves to explain the presence of sufficient manpower, not the incentive for the expeditions.
Rather than seeking an explanation in poverty and need, it seems reasonable to seek it in the awareness of new opportunities. A significant factor must have been the development of seafaring technology.
The Viking ship was fully developed around 800, when it was equipped with sails, although at the same time it remained admirably suited to the use of oars. It was one of the most advanced vessels of its time, easy to maneuver and well able to cross the open sea, whereas European ships kept closely to the coast. Another factor in the Vikings’ favor was their familiarity with European countries as the result of increased trade in the previous period. The first Norwegian mentioned by name in history was actually engaged in the fur trade. This was Ottar of Hålogaland, whose narrative of his journey from northern Norway to King Alfred’s court in Wessex was recorded in Anglo-Saxon as a preface to a translation of Orosius (below, pp. 131–32.)
The conquests in the later phase of the Viking Age show that the Scandinavians were able not only to organize raiding expeditions, but also to create their own kingdoms and principalities. There is also some evidence of increasing political organization in Scandinavia itself. Rimbert’s Life of Ansgar and other Carolingian sources from the ninth century mention kings in Denmark and Sweden. A Danish king, Harald Klak, was baptized in Mainz in 826, but was deposed soon after his return to his home country. Although the Swedish kings mentioned in these sources are clearly local chieftains, we cannot exclude the possibility that the Danish kings ruled over larger territories; there is even some evidence that they controlled parts of southern Norway. On the other hand, the use of the title “king” in Carolingian sources need not imply any knowledge of Scandinavian conditions but may simply be a convention for referring to foreign rulers. In any case, we have little evidence either of the size of the territories these rulers commanded and to what extent these territories were regarded as permanent entities. Only from the mid-tenth century onwards is there evidence of a Danish kingdom ruled by one dynasty. This marks the beginning of a major change, the division of Scandinavia into three kingdoms and the introduction of Christianity, which brought them into the European family of kingdoms.
Figure 2. A Viking ship from a burial mound on the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold (Norway). Built 834, excavated 1904, now in the Viking Ship Museum, Bygdøy, Oslo. The Oseberg burial is one of the most important and well preserved finds from Viking Age Scandinavia, containing a fully seaworthy ship with all kinds of equipment for the burial of a high-ranking woman. The shape of the ship and the details of its construction show its advantages over other contemporary vessels. The Viking ship is light, easy to maneuver and elastic, so that it bends rather than cracks in heavy sea. Photo: Dalbera.
The Division of Scandinavia into Three Kingdoms
In the year 1000, a battle was fought between the kings of the three Nordic countries, celebrated in skaldic poetry as well as by later saga writers. The former depict showers of arrows, streams of blood, and eagles and wolves being fed, while the latter gradually prepare their readers for the final tragedy, the disappearance and probable death of the hero, the Norwegian King Olav Tryggvason. His enemies have prepared an ambush for him and are waiting on shore for Olav’s enormous ship, Ormen Lange (=the Long Serpent), believing that one after the other of the large ships passing by is the right one, until it finally arrives and they attack with an overwhelmingly superior force. Spotting his enemies, Olav refuses to flee. He speaks with contempt of the Danes and the Swedes but recognizes his Norwegian adversary, Earl Eirik, as a brave man and a dangerous foe. Olav is proved right; the Danes and the Swedes try to board, but are driven back, while Eirik and his men finally manage to swarm onto Olav’s ship and after hard fighting defeat his exhausted and decimated crew. Olav jumps overboard and is killed—or, as some of the versions have it—escapes and spends the rest of his life as a monk in the Holy Land. Nearly 200 years later, King Sverre of Norway (r. 1177–1202) is said to have mentioned him as the only man standing on the poop of his ship throughout a battle.
The many accounts of the battle in the sagas present the now familiar picture of a Scandinavia consisting of three kingdoms. Although it is doubtful whether we can really reckon with this as early as the year 1000, there is little doubt that the battle was actually fought and that the kings mentioned in the skaldic poetry and the sagas were real persons. It is usually referred to as the battle of Svold or Svolder, an otherwise unknown island off Rügen in northern Germany, where it took place according to the later sagas, but the most likely site is Øresund, where the earliest sources place it. The battle was thus fought near the later bord
er between the three kingdoms, which is significant, giving a glimpse of an important stage in the formation of the three Scandinavian kingdoms.
The origin of institutions and territorial units is a central problem in historical writings. Consequently, the formation of the three kingdoms occupies a prominent part in the Scandinavian national historiography that developed from the early nineteenth century onwards. Typically, historians dealt with the formation of each kingdom separately, explaining when, how, and why the country was “unified.” The previous sketch has indicated that the formation of larger territorial units may have been less novel than is often imagined. On the other hand, the fact that the previous units seem to have been unstable points to the novelty of what happened in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the formation of the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. This raises three questions: First, why was Scandinavia divided into these three units only? Second, why did this happen just at this time? And, finally, why did this division become permanent?
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