Archaeologists use the excavated remains of Viking houses and references in Viking sagas to work out how their settlements might have once looked. The remains of the houses in Hedeby and Jorvik (York) suggest that people in towns lived mostly in single storey structures on small, fenced plots. Most houses had a well and an outhouse, and many had other outbuildings. . Although their interpretation of the evidence sometimes differs, it is likely that settlements in the Viking period would have been similar across the Viking Lands.
Town dwelling and Trade
Some of the most famous Viking towns are Hedeby in Denmark, Birka in Sweden, “Jorvik” (York) and “Dubh Linn” (Dublin). Towns developed in areas which were both rich in natural resources and situated along trading routes. They became centres of exchange were craftsmen made their living by making and selling their goods.
In these towns Vikings could also buy imported luxury goods like jewellery, glassware, silk, Eastern spices, French wine, German weapons and Rhineland pottery.
By the 8th century A.D. the Vikings had developed trade routes to western and eastern Europe, Byzantium and even China and India. They could sail right round France and Spain into the Mediterranean and use the rivers to travel into Russia and as far east as the Caspian sea.
The Vikings had goods to sell that southerners wanted, like soapstone, furs, walrus ivory, iron and amber which came from their homelands. They also sold slaves they had captured in raids. In exchange the Vikings wanted silver, silks, wine from southern Europe and the East.
Many raiders were attracted by the valuable articles on offer so towns had to be well defended.
Coinage
The Vikings first discovered coins when they traded in Western Europe and the Middle East. They did not use coins as currency instead they circulated them for their value in weight and purity. The Vikings mostly traded in silver and only sometimes gold. They traded in metal bars, ingots and jewellery. They used small scales to weigh metal. Large pieces of jewellery were often chopped up into smaller pieces known as 'hack-silver' to make up the exact weight of silver required.
It was the tenth century before the Vikings started striking their own coins. In England the first coins struck where imitations of the native coinage.
References:
Peterborough Museum Exhibition
The Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price, Allen Lane, 2020
Vikings life and legend Edited by Williams, Gareth, Pentz, Peter, Wemhoff, Matthias. The British Museum Press, 2014
Images:
Århus viking town by eget værk. Wiki commons. In the public domain
Market Stall - Peterborough Museum
Thurcaston Viking mixed coin hoard - A total of 12 coins, consisting of Viking, Saxon, and Arabic issues, found between 1992 and 2000. Only 3 were found together and considered Treasure, the others were single finds. When viewed together the coins obviously constituted an important mixed coin hoard, the most southerly yet found, deposited around 923-925. The Portable Antiquities Scheme/ The Trustees of the British Museum. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Viking Ship Lofotr licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
