Beyond Economics

In this chapter, the social, symbolic, and cultural attributes of Viking Age silver is addressed through an exploration of coin-pendants: coins taken out of circulation and suspended on necklaces to be worn as jewellery. Surveying material from a newly collated dataset, the chapter first outlines the key features of coin-pendants from across Scandinavia, including the rate of transformation of different coin types and their technical features. It then addresses the question: what made coin-pendants desirable? Discussion considers the aesthetic and bullion content of the pendants, as well as their value as exotic items and/or as items with long life histories. A case study is presented of an Arabic dirham-pendant, found in an inhumation grave at Birka, Sweden.

Provenancing Viking Age Silver

This chapter investigates the changing sources of silver during the tenth century at Hedeby, an important Viking Age trading centre and mint situated between the economies of the Baltic and North Seas. It first characterizes regional and chronological differences in Viking Age silver, in terms of both elemental composition and lead isotopes. A dual archaeometric approach to the analyses of silver items is then advanced. Observed differences in the trace elements and lead isotope ratios of Anglo-Saxon, Carolingian, and Islamic coin are exploited to determine the likely origin of silver bullion and coin circulating at Hedeby. The so-called Malmer KG7 coinage, together with a significant hack-silver assemblage, appears to be related to silver of eastern origin, which reached southern Scandinavia and the Baltic region prior to the large-scale influx of Samanid silver in the early-to-mid tenth century. Such results provide new insight into the chronology and movement of silver in the Viking Age.

From Local Supply to Long-Distance Trade Networks

This chapter introduces the third theme of the volume: the sources of Viking wealth. It presents a theoretical and methodological framework for ‘fingerprinting’ early medieval silver by archaeometric methods. A combined approach, integrating elemental (especially gold and bismuth) and lead isotope analysis, is advanced. The methods involved, including state-of-the-art laser ablation ICP-MS, are introduced, and the limitations of the approach clearly laid out. These methods are then used to evaluate the diffusion of silver produced at the mine of Melle (Aquitaine, France): a major source of silver coinage in the Frankish kingdoms, which the Vikings acquired through their raids in Aquitaine during the ninth century.

Tracing the Late Viking Age and Medieval Butter Economy

Easily preserved and high in energy, butter was a reliable foodstuff during the medieval period for northerners vulnerable to short growing seasons and occasional crop failure. This chapter assesses the value of butter as commodity-money in late Viking Age and medieval Orkney, and advances new methodologies to aid the identification of perishable foodstuffs used in payments. It reviews documentary evidence for payments in butter, which indicates that farms produced butter not only to meet their own needs, but also to pay taxes, rents, and tithes. It then proposes a means of identifying butter payment in the archaeological record. It argues that zooarchaeological and other bioarchaeological evidence from excavated farm sites can elucidate the strategies employed in raising dairy animals, allowing the identification of sites that probably produced high quantities of butter. This is demonstrated through an investigation of local subsistence strategies at Quoygrew, a settlement of farmers and fishers on the island of Westray in Orkney.

Gold as a Means of Exchange in Scandinavian England (c.AD 850–1050)

The Viking bullion economy is often characterized as a silver economy, based on the weight and fineness of silver objects, regardless of their form. In this chapter, new archaeological evidence from England is presented which suggests that gold objects had a greater monetary role than has previously been appreciated. The material consists of tested gold ingots, hack-gold, and weight-adjusted gold ornaments, found in areas of documented Scandinavian activity and settlement. The date of the items suggests that most belong to the ninth century. A case is made for linking the monetary use of gold with the contemporary activity of the Viking Great Army and their heightened gold resources following Viking raids in western Europe. The mounting evidence for gold bullion highlights the diverse material forms ‘money’ could take in the Viking Age, providing a more rounded and accurate view of Viking Age exchange.

The Importance of Containers for the Deposition and Non-Retrieval of Silver Hoards

This chapter investigates the reasons for the deposition and non-retrieval of Viking Age silver hoards, focusing on the two areas with the biggest hoard concentrations in the Baltic zone: Gotland and Pomerania (the southern shore of the Baltic sea area in modern-day northern Germany and Poland). The chapter advances a new model for determining the possible reasons for hoard deposition and non-retrieval, arguing that hoards intended for retrieval were placed in containers, with containerless hoards likely deposited for ritual motives, without the intention of recovery. The impact on local soil chemistry on the preservation of hoard containers is considered. The evidence for containers is then integrated with analysis of the weight of hoards and local settlement archaeology. A key finding is that, on Gotland, the practice of symbolically depositing small silver hoards on ‘broken fields’ (newly established farms) was widespread.

Reflections on Kingship, the Church, and Viking Age Silver in Ireland

This chapter considers the wealth of some of Ireland’s kings, as represented by Viking Age silver hoards, and relates it to investment in the ecclesiastical sphere. While the rich Irish annals do not contain references to hoards or hoarding, there are some mentions of the phenomenon in early literary sources, and these relate to the church. Considering the occurrence of hoards and silver-working on ecclesiastical estates, as well as the status of the cross-marked ingot, it is argued that Viking Age silver hoards were deposited on church land with higher frequency than has hitherto been appreciated. This finding, in turn, suggests Irish secular elites obtained considerable quantities of silver wealth from the Scandinavians and gifted it to the church, with whom they often had close dynastic connections.

Royalty and Renewal in Viking Age Ireland

This chapter examines the relationship between coinage and kingship in early medieval Ireland. First, the Hiberno-Scandinavian coinage produced in Dublin is contextualized within a discussion of the use of silver in Ireland between the tenth and twelfth centuries. The chapter then discusses the coinage’s organization and administration. Study of coin weight and silver fineness, alongside evidence for currency renewal (the demonetization of official coins, and the issuing of a new type), reveals that the coinage constituted a well-regulated currency that was effectively monitored by successive kings of Dublin. Examination of the timings of currency renewals reveals that, rather than being overtly political, they were motivated by commercial viability, with the aim of facilitating trade around the Irish Sea.

Introduction

The Introduction sets out the scope and aims of the book, and explains how it departs from earlier publications dealing with similar themes. It then discusses the four themes around which the fourteen chapters are structured: the monetary and quasi-monetary functions of silver; the role of precious metals in primarily non-monetary (i.e. social and ritual) contexts; the sources of silver as assessed through archaeometric methods; and the monetary role of non-silver currencies, namely gold, cloth, and butter. The processes by which non-silver currencies were given value as currency are considered, alongside the social implications of the large-scale production of such currencies, particularly with respect to women’s economic agency.

Vaðmál and Cloth Currency in Viking and Medieval Iceland

In medieval Iceland, apparently alone among the North Atlantic Norse colonies, cloth evolved into a highly standardized form of currency within a broader-based commodity-money system imported from Norway. Within the Icelandic economy, the production of currency cloth (vaðmál or vöruvaðmál) was legally regulated and was used within Iceland to pay debts, taxes, and tithes. This chapter presents the first detailed analyses of over 1,000 archaeological textiles stored in Icelandic museum collections. The way in which this ‘legal cloth’ was woven and constructed provides insights into the emergence of standardized cloth currency and its use across Iceland. Analyses challenge the assumption that organic forms of commodity-currency are unavailable to archaeologists studying early economic systems. Cloth currency, produced chiefly by women, emerged around the end of the Viking Age. It was central to the Icelandic economy until the mid 1500s, after which its role progressively declined as Iceland entered into the increasingly globalized trade networks of the early modern industrialized world.