Notes

The Vikings

Vikings are called the Norse seafarers which are only known to speak the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of northern, central, eastern and western Europe. This had been going on during the late 8th to late 11th centuries. This time, our generation has now known it as the Viking Age. This period of Nordic military, trading and expansion is an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, Estonia, the British Isles, France, Kievan Rus’ and Sicily.

Societal Structure

In the Viking era, honouring family and lineage were crucially important. This caused society to be bound together by traditions and norms. If these norms were broken, then an individual’s honour and society’s approval could be lost. Personal honour was achieved through particular attributes, such as courage, cleverness, generosity and fellowship.


Gender Roles

The two main tasks for women were producing clothing and preparing food. Women baked, cooked, made alcoholic drinks, and made dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese. A process that women became to do for there chores were milking sheep and cows. In winter, the animals were in 'homesteads’ longhouses' but the animals were out grazing and were watched over by shepherds who could be either male or female in summer.

Agriculture

Agricultural work (aka food working), were the men's jobs. This involved fertilising, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, and seperating grains. During the harvest, all members of the household would typically join in the work because it was so laborious that all available hands were needed, even if they were male or female. The men who left their homeland in search of riches in faraway lands became known as the Vikings, but the term now largely refers to the whole of the Scandinavian people of that time.

Law and Government

During the Viking Age, the Norse had an oral culture and only reigned when writing existed. However, the Vikings had both law and government even without written law. All free men of the Vikings would gather in their communities to make a law and to decide cases in a meeting called a Thing. Each community had its own independent Thing.

Rather than have all disputes settled by duel or family feuds, the Thing was instituted to both write a Viking law and to decide cases of disputes within the law. The Thing met at specific, regular times. Each Thing had a law speaker who would recite the law from memory. The law speaker and the local chieftain would judge and settle the cases of what they heard. Although all free men of the community had a say, Things were most likely dominated by a local, powerful family or families.

Houses

Viking houses were built of wood. The longhouses had bowed walls that would form a ship-like outline. The walls were lined with clay or consisted of wooden planks placed vertically into the ground, which supported the roof that would go along with two rows of internal posts. Outside the house was often supported by sloping posts. Roofs were slanted and could be thatched, wooden, or be covered in grass for insulation.

In the middle of the house was the long fireplace. The fireplace was where the food was made. The houses had no chimneys or windows, and instead there was a hole in the roof so the smoke from the fire could escape. Along the walls there were plank beds for when the Vikings could sit or sleep. At one end of the house the animals were housed in stalls in the winter if there were no stables at the farm. The Vikings constantly repaired their houses. Damp was the great enemy as it led to rotting. However, they also knew how to protect the wood by scorching the posts of their houses.

Clothing

Finds of clothes from the Viking era are rare. These often consist of small pieces of material. Our knowledge about Viking clothes is supplemented by written sources, as well as clothes found on small figures and tapestries.

The same as what the people do here today, the Vikings dressed according to sex, age and economic status. The men preferred trousers and tunics, whilst the women dressed in strap dresses worn over undergarments. Usually Viking clothes were made of local materials, like wool and flax, woven by the women. On the other hand, findings from the graves of wealthy individuals show that some clothes were imported. The upper classes displayed their wealth by covering themselves in silk and gold threads from foreign parts, like Byzantium. The Vikings supplemented their attire with jewellery and furs by using different animals.

Hygiene and Beauty

Archaeological finds of “beauty items” from the Viking era show that most equipment have not significantly changed over the years. If we examine “the toilet bags” of the Vikings we find beautiful, patterned combs, ear picks and tweezers. Marks on the teeth also indicate that toothpicks were used. Make-up can also be added to the list of beauty items. A Spanish Arab who visited Hedeby around the year 1000 described how both men and women in the town wore make-up to look younger and more attractive.

In England, Viking men reportedly had great success with the local women. The Viking males were apparently clean and always smelling good. This is because they took a bath on Saturdays, combed their hair, and were well dressed.

Writing

The Vikings had a system of writing called runes (in Old Norse, “rune” meant “secret knowledge and wisdom”). Runes carved into stone lasted longer than wood or bone that were intended to mark boundaries or glorify an ancestor’s bravery in battle. Viking history was generally not written but passed down the generations by people telling them in verse stories called sagas.

Leisure Time

Life in the Viking Age was tough and hard which made physical work filled much of their days, but their lives were not without leisure. There were a few different kinds of leisure activities the Vikings engaged in, including outdoor sports, indoor games and drinking games.

Many of the physical games that entertained Vikings were violent and showed there masculine self. Ball games were also popular in the Viking Age. In saga the games called knattleikr, involved full body contact, and sometimes included a wooden bat which was made to be used much like baseball and cricket.