Cross and Scepter (3 page)

CHAPTER ONE

The Origins of the Scandinavian Kingdoms

Early Scandinavian Society

Although most histories of Scandinavia, including the present one, focus on the period from the formation of the kingdoms in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the area as a whole has a long history going back to the first settlements which date to the end of the last glacial age around 10,000 BC. The earliest inhabitants were hunters and gatherers. Agriculture was introduced gradually from around 4000 BC, first in the form of slash and burn cultivation, later with the establishment of permanent settlement. Already during the last centuries BC, a largely homogenous agricultural zone had developed in Denmark, southern Sweden, the coastal regions of Norway up to Trøndelag, and southern and western Finland. The rest of Scandinavia was dominated by low-intensive agriculture, hunting and gathering, or pastoral nomadism (the Sami in northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland). The high-intensive agricultural zone gradually expanded until the demographic crisis caused by the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, after which a new expansion of the zone of intensive agriculture followed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In parts of the north, however, nomadic or half-nomadic life continued until the twentieth century.

Because of its climate and terrain, large parts of Scandinavia pose problems for agriculture. The Scandinavian countries are situated between around 54 and 70 degrees north, thus forming the northernmost part of Western Christendom. In addition to being far north, large parts of Scandinavia are also highland, particularly in Norway, and to some extent also in northern Sweden. However, because of the Gulf Stream, the climate is far warmer than in any other part of the world at this latitude—by as much as 5 to 7 degrees C. Thus, it is possible to grow grain at around 70 degrees north in Norway.

As the southernmost of the three kingdoms, with no elevations greater than 200 meters above sea level, Denmark is clearly best suited for agriculture. In the Middle Ages, this country was both the most populous and the most densely settled, its population equal to or perhaps even larger than Sweden and Norway combined. In absolute numbers, the population of Denmark has been estimated at more than 1 million, perhaps nearly 2 million in the early fourteenth century, that of Norway at between 350,00 and 500,000, and the Swedish population at somewhere between 500,000 and 650,000.

But even in Denmark there are local variations. The islands and eastern Jutland were the richest agricultural areas in the Middle Ages, while heath and more marginal land prevailed in western and northern Jutland. Sweden, the largest of the three countries, also had significantly less highland than Norway and correspondingly larger agricultural areas. The latter were mainly concentrated in two parts of the country, in the Mälar valley west of present-day Stockholm and around the large lakes further west, Vänern and Vättern. The southern coast of Finland also has good agricultural land. It eventually became densely settled and formed an important part of the kingdom of Sweden. The remaining part of Sweden and Finland are more hilly and have less productive soil. Taken together the main agricultural areas in Norway, the area
around Lake Mjøsa in the east, Jæren in the southwest, and the large valley north of present-day Trondheim in the north, cover a far smaller area than the corresponding districts in Sweden. However, the more marginal areas of this country have other assets, which make them suitable for human habitation. The coast of Norway, as well as its rivers and lakes, have rich fisheries, and the forests and mountains abound in game (elk, deer, and various smaller animals), and provide pasture. Although it is not particularly well suited to agriculture, the western coast of Norway has a mild climate, which protects the grain from frost and, together with the fisheries and wide areas suited for pasture, creates conditions conducive to relatively dense settlements. By contrast, eastern Norway and the more marginal parts of Sweden have the same advantages when it comes to hunting and pasture, and fish are plentiful in the lakes and rivers, but crops are more exposed to frost.

Iceland is by far the most marginal of the Scandinavian countries, not because it is so far north—at 63–67 degrees, it is just south of the Arctic Circle—but because it is situated far out in the Atlantic and its soil is mostly ill-suited to agriculture. When the immigrants arrived, mostly in the period between 870 and 930, the pastures and fisheries were extremely rich. It was also possible to grow grain there until around 1100, when the climate became colder. Eventually, the pastures deteriorated because of too much grazing, the forest was cut down or destroyed by the animals, and the soil became poorer because of erosion. Iceland became a marginal country with very difficult living conditions.

The natural conditions largely explain settlement and to some extent also social organization. Village settlement, which was the normal form of habitation in most of England and large parts of the Continent, was only to be found in Denmark and the best agricultural parts of Sweden. Settlement in the rest of Scandinavia was dominated by individual farms, although, particularly in
western Norway, such farms, at least in later periods, are known to have been divided between several families whose houses were joined around a common courtyard.

The written sources give the impression that the Scandinavians suddenly came into contact with Europe around 800, with the expansion of the Carolingian Empire and the Viking expeditions, and that Scandinavia was then transformed as the result of the introduction of the monarchy and the conversion to Christianity. In addition, earlier scholarship has often depicted Scandinavian society in the previous period as relatively egalitarian, a society of free and independent farmers organized in extended families. This society was then gradually transformed, as a result of demographic growth and the new impulses from Europe, into the hierarchical and aristocratic society we know from the following period.

More recent research has revised this picture. There is archaeological evidence dating back to the first centuries AD of contacts with Europe as well as social stratification. A number of graves excavated in various parts of Scandinavia contain exquisite objects of Roman origin: drinking-horns and cups of glass, silver plates with reliefs of warriors and deer, and arm-rings used as indications of rank. Even a drinking-cup of silver has been found, showing two scenes from Homer: King Priam of Troy humbly asking Achilles for the body of his son Hector and Odysseus stealing Hercules's bow from Philoctetes.

Some of these objects may of course just be booty from plundering expeditions in parts of the Roman world, but their number and the context in which they have been found suggest something more. They may be the result of gift exchanges or rewards for war services rendered to the Romans, and they certainly form evidence of powerful rulers already at this time. The sacrifices of thousands of conquered arms, dating from the beginning of the Christian era until around 500, found in swamps in Denmark, complete the picture. The arms come from various parts of Europe, but most are from Germany and the other Scandinavian countries. It is likely that they indicate victories over people in these areas. They may even form a kind of parallel to the Roman triumph; the fact that only arms and not men were sacrificed makes it most likely that the arms were captured abroad. Did the Danish chieftains stage a procession similar to the Roman triumph but then destroy the arms as a sacrifice instead of retooling them for use by their own army, as the Romans did?

There is also evidence from the Roman period of principalities in various parts of Scandinavia, first in Denmark, southern Sweden and southern Norway, and the Baltic islands of Gotland and Öland; later from northern Sweden, and parts of Finland and Norway as far north as Lofoten in northern Norway.

A reduction of the quantity of grave-goods in finds from the seventh century was earlier interpreted as evidence of an agrarian crisis, similar to the one that took place in the fourteenth century, and was explained in the same way, namely as a consequence of the plague, which we know hit the Mediterranean region from the sixth century onwards. Later archaeologists found evidence of continued population growth and attribute the shortfall of grave-goods to cultural change rather than poverty. There thus seems to be a greater continuity between the wealth of the powerful chieftains of the Roman and Merovingian periods and the Scandinavian chieftains we meet in Carolingian sources from the eighth and ninth centuries and during the Viking expansion.

Taken together, the evidence suggests the existence of kingdoms and principalities in Scandinavia from the first centuries of the Christian Era onwards, possibly covering quite extensive areas, although it is impossible to trace exact borders. Large territorial units and strong rulers are therefore not necessarily a novelty resulting from the formation of the three kingdoms in the tenth and eleventh centuries. However, there is little to suggest
that the earlier units corresponded to the later ones; most probably, we are dealing with various entities in mutual competition and with considerable changes in the centers of power over time.

Although there is no sure way to quantify the distribution of landownership or to delineate the social structure in the early Middle Ages, it is reasonable to imagine a wider distribution of land and less social stratification than in the following period. Most important institutions were local, with the king's position depending on his ability to gain adherents and satisfy them, failing which he might easily be deposed or killed. The Eddic poem
Rigsthula
may provide some clues. Here society is depicted as consisting of three classes, represented by three individuals: the slave, the commoner, and the earl. The commoner represents a kind of middle class, living respectably in contrast to the slave but not in luxury, in contrast to the earl. Although the date of
Rigsthula
is uncertain and disputed, there are good reasons to believe that it dates from the Viking Age. Moreover, we can point to other evidence confirming its picture. Archaeological material as well as foreign sources suggest the existence of large armies, in contrast to the elite forces that dominated from the twelfth century onwards, and place names point in the same direction.

This does not mean that early-medieval society mostly consisted of small, independent farmers owning their own land. Instead, we should probably imagine landownership as less strictly defined than in later times. Examinations of early-medieval agrarian structures in Norway based on place names and archaeological evidence suggest a combination of larger farms, probably owned by local magnates, and smaller ones dependent on them, but probably in a kind of patron-client rather than owner-tenant relationship. As in the rest of Europe in the early Middle Ages, land was not particularly valuable in itself. What was most important was control over the people who worked the land. Moreover, chieftains needed subordinates not only to cultivate the land, but
also to serve them as warriors, both as participants in Viking expeditions and in conflicts with other chieftains. Thus, even if early-medieval society was neither democratic nor egalitarian, there are reasons to believe that it was less hierarchical than it later became. The magnates were more numerous and less wealthy and the social distance between them and the rest of the people was not as great.