TWH – A new study published in The Journal of Anthropological Archeology argues that, based on material evidence examined through what the authors call “a lens of violence,” the Viking Age societies in Denmark and Norway had remarkably different relationships with violence. Using multiple disciplinary approaches, including archeology, osteology, philology, and sociology, the authors demonstrate that Denmark formed a society with a “steeper social pyramid” that led to reduced interpersonal violence, while Norway, which had a less centralized society with a flatter social hierarchy, shows evidence of much more violent trauma for the average person.
The study, “Violence as a lens to Viking societies: A comparison of Norway and Denmark,” is authored by Jan Bill, David Jacobsen, Susanne Nagel, and Lisa Mariann Strand, a multinational group of scholars based in Norway, Germany, and the United States.
Elaborate Viking swords with decorated hilts (handles, grips), ornated blades, home-forged and foreign-made, found in Telemark, Nordland, and Hedmark counties in Norway, dated to AD 800-1000. Photo taken on February 26th, 2020 at the VÍKINGR – Viking Age exhibition in the Museum of Cultural History of the University of Oslo (UiO Kulturhistorisk Museum) in Oslo, Norway. [Wolfmann, Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0]
The study begins by noting the centrality of violence to ancient Nordic paganism: “The belief system of Viking Age Scandinavians was riven with violence,” the authors write. “The Vikings idealized their warrior gods Þor (Thor), Týr and Oðinn. The most honorable way to die was to die violently.” (One could note that this perspective leaves out the places in Old Norse literature that state it’s better to be alive and at peace than dead in battle, like in Odin’s advice in Hávamál, but it is hard to deny the basic point that the Norse myths are full of violence.)
From there, they situate their findings in the context of a scholarly tradition that has examined how the centralization of authority in the development of states – and, importantly, their monopoly on violence – leads to a lower amount of internal violence, even as these centralized authorities develop ever greater power to instigate external violence through warfare. Far from the peaceful, benevolent societies envisioned by philosophers like Rosseau (and quite a few modern Pagans), pre- and non-state societies tend to be much more violent, as evidenced by the frequency of skeletal trauma in remains from those groups.
Turning to Norway and Denmark in particular, the authors focus on four categories of evidence:
- The frequency of weapon-related trauma on skeletal remains.
- The frequency of Viking Age weapons, especially swords, in graves.
- The frequency, size, and types of earthworks. (This serves as a proxy for the centralization of power and resources by elites.)
- The frequency and character of social hierarchies indicated in runestone texts.
The authors find that in the Norwegian sample, there is a greater frequency of skeletal trauma and a greater number of swords, both of which indicate a society where interpersonal violence was a major concern for the average person. By contrast, in Denmark, there were fewer examples of trauma overall and fewer swords; where there was trauma, it often appears to be the result of execution and other kinds of standardized punishment by authorities, rather than assaults by individuals. “Denmark was
evidently a civilianized space to a surprising degree for the time,” the authors write. “Norway, conversely, displayed very high levels of violence, and fear of violence is
evident in the extent people armed themselves.”
Further supporting the idea that Denmark’s relative peace was the result of its centralized power structure, the authors point to the creation of earthworks, projects that required substantial resources and societal organization to create. These projects came to a head under the reign of Harald Bluetooth, whose reign in the 10th century led him to claim rulership over not only Denmark, but Norway as well. The runestone evidence also points to Denmark’s greater social stratification: while Norwegian runestones focus exclusively on family ties, suggesting a clan-based society, the Danish runestones also include noble titles of different degrees, including the thegn (nobleman) and konungr (king).
What is especially interesting is that the differentiation between Denmark and Norway was long established. “These developments in Viking Denmark are striking,” the authors write, “insofar as they are taking place mostly before the establishment of Christianity in Denmark and anticipates developments that would take place later elsewhere in (Christian) Europe. That, in turn, provokes historical and sociological questions regarding the Vikings, and for theoretical understanding of ‘state development’ more broadly.”
That is to say, there is no simple narrative by which Denmark adopted Christianity and thereby became a more peaceful society – rather, these distinctions were already present when Christianity arrived in Scandinavia, and Christianity was then incorporated into them.
Indeed, one can question whether Denmark’s relative “civilianization” really means it was a more “peaceful” society than Norway at all. While the average Dane seems to have had less to fear in terms of individual violence, Denmark’s centralized authority is what let it prosecute massive foreign wars that the Norwegians could only dream about:
“Can we discern different patterns of “force projection” and overseas warfare between the more centralized Danes and the more decentralized Norwegians?” the authors ask near the end of the study. “It is suggestive, in this regard, that the mostly Norwegian Vikings in the northern parts of the British Isles controlled small, insular, and coastal territories around Scotland, with a potentially late establishment of an earldom… The Danes, on the other hand, could coordinate the Great Army—even if it was not a unified army as such but based on the coordinated command of several kings, jarls, and other noblemen —and occupy swathes of England, in what came to be called the Danelaw.”
Ultimately this study indicates that far from being monolithic, the different societies we think of as “the Vikings” were distinct in many ways, including their approach to violence both internal and external.
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