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A new study reveals differences regarding the levels of violence between viking age Norway and viking age Denmark. It seems that the amount of violence was higher in the Norwegian society. In Norway much of the violence seems to have been conflicts between different groups, individuals or clans in society. In Denmark the violence often seems to have been executed by the "state", as seen for example in more public executions. These differences was partly because the two societies had different levels of stratification, with Norwegian society being more clan or family based, and the Danish society more "civilianized" and stratified.
The amount of violence have been inferred by studies of traces of violence on human remains and by the amount of weapons found in both countries. To learn about the social structures in both countries also rune stones and common construction works like defensive earthworks have been studied.
quote:Highlights
• Violence-induced skeletal trauma is frequent in Viking Age Norway, rare in Denmark.
• Viking Age weapons (swords) were more numerous in Norway than Denmark.
• Rune stones and earthworks reveal Denmark to be more stratified than Norway.
• Where present, robust centres of authority helped contain violence in Scandinavia.
• Norway and Denmark were distinct societies in the Viking Age.
quote:Abstract
Comparing Viking Age Norway and Denmark, the article examines the primary proposition that as centers of authority become progressively more robust, violence will be proportionately contained. The article introduces a new approach in using indications of violence as a focal point to elicit broader social practices. The disciplines employed in this study – archaeology, osteology, philology, and sociology – are used together in the study of covariance of different indicators across a societal range. The indicators for assessing violence include skeletal trauma and weapon frequency. For assessing the steepness of the social pyramid, we use runestones, indicating variations in social stratification, and monumental constructions as a measure of power to command labor. Among the findings: weapons and interpersonal violence in Norway was much more widespread than in Denmark, and the social pyramid in Denmark was progressively steeper and more complex than in Norway. “Official” executions accounted for the preponderance of violence in Denmark, while rare in Norway. Denmark was evidently a more “civilianized” society than Norway. The comparative research supports the primary proposition. The research, furthermore, suggests that Denmark and Norway were sociologically distinct societies, which accords with recent findings that the respective regions displayed distinct, though still similar, genetic profiles.
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^ I remember learning in anthropology that violence in a society or culture can be legitimized by certain means either social (blood feuds), political (state), or ritual (religious) like human sacrifice. These 3 categories may intersect like for example a feud between nations where the victors would sacrifice enemy prisoners to their gods.
It's funny how popular media portrays the Vikings as being so violent when the so-called more 'civilized' peoples were just as if not more so. For example, how Charlemagne founded the so-called 'Holy Roman Empire' and forced the Germanic tribes into surrender was no less brutal than before the Viking campaigns. Charlemagne would even utilize democide in territories to terrify the others to fall in line. Even the Vikings did not resort to such actions and took prisoners and slaves (for the most part).
Posts: 26849 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^ Ironically enough, weren’t the Franks themselves a Germanic tribe despite their conversion to Christianity and attempts to emulate the Roman Empire?
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The Franks were a Germanic people who were mercenaries of the Later Roman Empire and took on Latin Culture.
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: ^ Ironically enough, weren’t the Franks themselves a Germanic tribe despite their conversion to Christianity and attempts to emulate the Roman Empire?
The Romans and the Latin Kingdoms were def. violent, the Romans are responsible for eradicating numerous European Tribes,for example they(Under Septimus Severus) tried to genocide the "Pictus" aka the Picts
quote:It's funny how popular media portrays the Vikings as being so violent when the so-called more 'civilized' peoples were just as if not more so. For example, how Charlemagne founded the so-called 'Holy Roman Empire' and forced the Germanic tribes into surrender was no less brutal than before the Viking campaigns. Charlemagne would even utilize democide in territories to terrify the others to fall in line. Even the Vikings did not resort to such actions and took prisoners and slaves (for the most part).
Posts: 8872 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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Already before the viking age also the Norse, especially the Danes, were very aware of the threat from the Franks and other southerners. They even built a rather impressive wall to protect themselves from the southern threat. First when the Franks got weakened and their empire got divided the Norse could get the opportunity to seriously plunder in what is now Germany and France, with among others the famous siege of Paris in 845.
Before that also some intensive diplomacy were going on to keep the Franks away.
quote:The Danevirke or Danework (modern Danish spelling: Dannevirke; in Old Norse; Danavirki, in German; Danewerk, literally meaning earthwork of the Danes) is a system of Danish fortifications in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. This historically important linear defensive earthwork across the neck of the Cimbrian peninsula was initiated by the Danes in the Nordic Iron Age about AD 650. It was later expanded multiple times during Denmark's Viking Age and High Middle Ages. The Danevirke was last used for military purposes in 1864 during the Second War of Schleswig.
The Danevirke consists of several walls, trenches and the Schlei Barrier. The walls stretch for 30 km, from the former Viking trade centre of Hedeby near Schleswig on the Baltic Sea coast in the east to the extensive marshlands in the west of the peninsula. One of the walls (named Østervolden), between the Schlei and Eckernförde inlets, defended the Schwansen peninsula.
According to written sources, work on the Danevirke was started by the Danish King Gudfred in 808. Fearing an invasion by the Franks, who had conquered heathen Frisia over the previous 100 years and Old Saxony in 772 to 804, Godfred began work on an enormous structure to defend his realm, separating the Jutland peninsula from the northern extent of the Frankish empire. However, the Danes were also in conflict with the Saxons south of Hedeby during the Nordic Iron Age, and recent archaeological excavations have revealed that the Danevirke was initiated much earlier than King Gudfred's reign, at least as far back as 500 AD and probably well before that. Because of its historical importance and testimony to the defense of trade routes in the Viking Age, the Danevirke and the nearby Viking town of Hedeby were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018.
Violence in war is one thing, but it would also be interesting to study the internal levels of violence in the different societies of Europe before and during the viking age. Probably there exists some studies like that, so it would be interesting to compare.
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 3048 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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^ Archae, is correct. A large factor for the Norse expansions was the threat of the Frankish Empire to their south that was on a rampage.
^ The Saxons were the only buffer to the Danes and other Norse and they were the victims of democidal (some would argue genocidal) campaigns because of their resistance.
By the way the end of the Roman Empire marked the beginning of the Germanic Expansions (300-600 AD) all over Western Europe in areas that were previously Romano-Celtic. So-called 'Western' Civilization should more accurately be called Romano-Germanic civilization since all our legal and cultural systems that we call Western are exactly that-- Roman and Germanic. Not long after Eastern Europe came under Slavic Expansions (530-650 AD) who came under Byzantine influence.
By the way, in the Baltic Sea area the Vikings were held at bay (8th-14 century AD) initially by fierce Slavic pirates called Wends until they were overcome by the Danes.
Posts: 26849 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^^ Still in the early 12th century some Wends could be a problem like the ones that plundered the Norwegian town of Kungahälla (the ruins are today located in western Sweden) in 1135. In 1168 the Wends suffered a severe defeat when their temple at Arkona on the island of Rugen was destroyed by the Danes.
From the east also Finno-Ugric peoples like the Karelians came and plundered, and they also sacked Sigtuna in eastern Sweden (one of Swedens oldest cities) in the year 1187.
Sometimes Karelians and Estonians are called the last vikings since some of them retained a viking lifestyle even after the Christianization and consolidation of the Nordic states.
During the viking age Estonians and Finns had themselves been subject of raiding from vikings from the eastern part of Sweden which is indicated by a viking ship burial from c 750 AD at Salme on the island of Saaremaa.
quote:The Salme ships are two clinker-built ships of Scandinavian origin discovered in 2008 and 2010 near the village of Salme on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. Both ships were used for ship burials here around AD 700–750 in the Nordic Iron Age and contained the remains of 41 warriors killed in battle, as well as 6 dogs, 2 hunting hawks and numerous weapons and other artifacts
quote:Between 2008 and 2012, an extraordinary pair of graves was excavated at Salme on the island of Saaremaa off the Estonian coast: the remains of what appears to be a Scandinavian raiding party, buried in two ships on the seashore where they came to grief at the very start of the Viking Age. These finds arguably represent the most significant Viking discovery of the last hundred years. Crucially, it has been possible to identify the origin of the Salme raiders: strontium isotope analyses of their teeth show that they most likely came from Swedish Uppland, with a considerable probability that they actually were the people either from Valsgärde itself or from nearby power centres.
The Salme burials dates to around 750, in other words exactly at the critical time when the Vendel Period shades into the Viking Age. It may be that the supposed social shift that comes with the Viking expansion is in fact simply the external projection of processes that had long been underway inside Scandinavia, and one of our tasks in the project is to critically probe and perhaps dismantle this Vendel-Viking border.
The discoveries at Salme present us with an unprecedented opportunity to examine the specific culture behind the very first raids, and to do so from a Swedish perspective. Crucially, the Salme expedition, whatever it really was, occurred nearly half a century before the classic beginning of the Viking Age, the famous raid on the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793. This implies that the origins of raiding might well lie within the Baltic sphere, with a focus on the east, not looking westwards as the traditional models would have it. This is actually what we should expect, and is also supported by later written sources, hard though they are to interpret with confidence. Metaphorically speaking, the Salme men were some of the 'first Vikings' and provide a great opportunity to more deeply explore these issues.
As part of the Viking Phenomenon project we have been happy to be able to provide substantial funding support to the Estonian team working on the Salme finds, led by Dr Jüri Peets at Tallinn University. His team of three researchers, together with Marge Konsa from Tartu University, will bring the Salme project to completion.
One of the primary project outputs will thus be the final publication not only of the Valsgärde cemetery excavations but also of the Salme boat burials. Combining Valsgärde and Salme, we have the unique opportunity to reveal the world of the first Vikings, at 'home' and 'away', in a project of a kind never before attempted.
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