The document discusses the social structure and political institutions of Scandinavian communities during the Viking Age from 700-900 AD. It analyzes the social hierarchy and divisions based on sex, age, and status using archaeological evidence, textual sources, mythical tales, and literary accounts. Women generally had high social status and equal rights to men. The sources describe distinct social classes of slaves, freemen, and rulers. Archaeological evidence like the rich Oseberg ship burial shows some women held elite aristocratic roles. Overall, the document aims to understand Viking society by examining evidence from multiple genres of sources.

1. The Vikings at Home
Social Structure and Political Institutions of the
Scandinavian Communities

2. Social Structure

In this lecture, we shall look at the social
structure of Scandinavia in the first half
of the Viking Age (AD 700 – AD 900)

This shall also encompass an overview
of relations amongst the regions and
peoples of Scandinavia and their
immediate neighbours to the south, east
and west

Let us consider the most fundamental
aspects of the social structure in
Scandinavia: sex and labour divisions,
patterns in land ownership, craft
specialisation, and hierarchical
organisation

It remains to be demonstrated that
these patterns were shared across this
vast region and evolved at the same
rate

3. Sources

At the outset, it is worth enumerating
the nature of the sources which
provide us with an insight into social
structure

At the risk of over-simplification, we
can arrange the sources in the
following broad categories:
1.Archaeological
2.Textual
3.Mythical
4.Literary

Each of these affords only a partial
perspective and introduces a series of
biases inherent to their basic
premises

4. Archaeological Evidence
 The incompleteness and randomness of
the textual evidence, along with the many
interpretive difficulties inherent in the
mythical and literary sources, has
compelled many to privilege the evidence
deriving from archaeological investigations
 This evidence is, however, also potentially
problematic
 Although the archaeological evidence may
be regarded as 'objective', it has no
meaning in itself and must be situated into
an interpretive framework for it to acquire
significance for understanding social
relations
 It would be incorrect and misleading to
suggest that the archaeological evidence
is not interpreted within a framework that
is partly built on textual, mythical and
literary sources

5. Inferences

6. Textual Evidence

A reasonable quantity of
documents exist that describe
Scandinavia and Scandinavians in
the first phase of the Viking Age

Many of them were descriptions
made by the clergy in their attempts
to spread Christianity to the
heathen lands

The political circumstances are
outlined by Frankish sources as the
nascent Danish kings came into
conflict with Charlemagne and his
descendants

Unflattering descriptions are also
offered by Arabic sources

7. Problems of Interpretation

The principal problems that arise in using
the textual sources describing
Scandinavia and Scandinavians in the
Viking Age are that they are culturally
biased and incomplete

Biases arise from the attitudes of the
chroniclers towards pagan societies, but
also towards less urbane and
sophisticated cultures

Sometimes the biases are introduced by
the nature of their relations: the Frankish
sources are content to merely describe
the political circumstances that brought
them into conflict with Scandinavians

The incompleteness is also a problem, as
they are usually short and we know little
of the places or people that they are
describing in any detail

8. Mythical Sources

In some circles, particularly those of the
French sociological schools that trace
their descent from Émile Durkheim, it is
suggested that the myths convey vital
information concerning social
organisation and the ideal relationships
amongst social groups

As the pagan Scandinavian societies
were illiterate, none of their practices nor
their beliefs were recorded

We know of their religious life only
through myths recorded in the Icelandic
Sagas and the historical writings of the
Scandinavian chroniclers from the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries

It is therefore difficult to be certain of the
authenticity of the beliefs and customs
recorded in these sources

9. Populating the Scandinavian World

One of the more curious mythical
accounts is the tenth century poem
entitled Rígsþula ('The Song of Rig)
which outlines the origin of three
divinely ordained social classes:
slaves or bondsmen, freemen, and
rulers

In this myth, the deity Heimdall is
identified as the father of all mankind

This account is partly at odds with
other mythical traditions, but this
should not reduce its value—the
important aspect of this tale is the
identification in broad terms of
different social classes which must
have appeared quite natural to those
hearing the poem

10. Literary Sources

The richness of the Icelandic Sagas has
tempted many generations of scholars to
regard them as accurate accounts of the
Viking Age

This assumption was comprehensively
demolished by the Swedish scholars Curt
Weibull and Lauritz Weibull and the
Norwegian scholar Halvdan Koht in their
studies

Many of the accounts were jettisoned as
historical sources and seen instead as
literary embellishments with no value for
proper historiography

Nonetheless, even in these accounts there is
the possibility of identifying recurring themes
that might not reflect history in our strict use
of the term, but instead represent the
prevailing social structure

11. Sex and Age Distinctions
Identifying the Division of Labour Based on Sex
and Age in the Viking Age

12. The Mortuary Evidence

In the reconstruction of social
relationships and hierarchy,
archaeologists privilege the mortuary
record above all else

This is because it is assumed that the
social status of an individual is reflected
in the investment of labour lavished on
the disposal of the corpse

The mortuary traditions of Scandinavia in
the earlier Viking Age are, however,
diverse and this may not correlate
closely with status on every occasion

Some of the diversity is probably
attributable to religious affiliation,
whereas others may represent regionally
favoured traditions if not aspects of life
and death that we could not reconstruct
from the archaeological evidence alone

13. Distinctions Based on Sex

The most fundamental social divisions
are those based on sex and age

In the mortuary record of Scandinavia,
however, there is little evidence of
sexual distinctions

Graves and cremations of men and
women are similar, and high status
mortuary features such as the ship
burials are not specific to any sex

The only differences in the graves and
cremations are grave good, but only
those of incidental significance: these
are usually the result of men and
women being buried in their clothes and
jewellery and do not represent any
deliberate inclusion or omission of any
grave goods

14. Sexual Distinctions: Other Sources

But what do we know about the
sexual distinctions obtaining in
Scandinavian society from other
sources ?

The textual, literary and mythical
sources provide valuable insights
into the social distinctions and
division of labour between men and
women in the Viking Age

As a rule, women in Scandinavian
society enjoyed many rights and
were largely the equals of men in
most respects

Evidence corroborating this
statement largely derives from the
literary, textual and mythical sources

15. The Account of the Rus

A description of the
Scandinavians along the Russian
and Ukrainian rivers, known to the
indigenous population as the Rus,
was written by the Ibn Fadlan

He was sent by the Caliphate of
Baghdad with an embassy to the
King of the Bulgars on the middle
stretches of the River Volga in AD
921

We shall return to this account in
more detail, especially for its vivid
description of burial rituals, but for
the moment let us consider its
statements concerning the status
and treatment of women

16. Dress and Status

The status of the women seems to be
largely dependent on the wealth of the
husband: 'Each woman wears on either
breast a box of iron, silver, copper or
gold; the value of the box indicates the
wealth of the husband'

Distribution of wealth at death is
described thus: 'They burn him in this
fashion: they leave him for the first ten
days in a grave. His possessions they
divide into three parts: one part for his
daughters and wives'

This last statement suggests polygamy,
but it is not encountered in any other
sources

Perhaps Ibn Fadlan did not distinguish
between a wife and a concubine, or that
there were customs prevalent in the east
that are not recorded elsewhere

17. Priestesses

Ibn Fadlan then describes a priestess,
responsible for the sacrifice of the slave
girl: 'Then came an old woman whom
they call the Angel of Death, and she
spread upon the couch the furnishings
mentioned. It is she who has charge of
the clothes making and arranging all
things, and it is she who kills the girl
slave. I saw that she was a strapping old
woman, fat an louring'

This suggests (and there is no reason to
doubt the account) that females were
also responsible for the administration of
religious rites

We have similar testimony from Tacitus
and other classical writers, describing
rites over which females officiated

19. Rulers and Aristocrats

It appears, from both the written and
archaeological evidence, that women
were full members of the aristocratic
circles

The most salient example of this is
afforded by the extraordinarily rich ship
burial at Oseberg, in Norway

This contained the remains of a woman
that oral tradition identifies as Queen Ása

Inside the mound was a skeleton of a
woman, so this is consistent with the oral
tradition

Most of all, though, it reveals that a
woman's status was not governed
exclusively by her sex but her family
connexions and marriage

20. Oseberg Mound

21. Oseberg Carriage

22. Oseberg Tapestry

23. Status Distinctions
Social Hierarchy, Class Distinction and Political
Structure

24. Bondsmen and Freemen

Men and women could be free
(bondi and karls) or be slaves (thrall
for males, ambett for females)

It is difficult to discriminate between
freemen and bondsmen through the
archaeological record

Many of the burials and cremations,
for instance, were simple and lacked
grave goods of any note

This was presumably identical for
the lower levels of the freemen and
bondsmen

It is nonetheless possible to
associate different social classes
with certain settlements and houses

25. Common Mortuary Traditions

27. Ladby, Fyn