Need Viking Data

[Vondy]

I need data on the size of viking settlements and towns, as well as the size of their kingdoms. The period of about 700-900 is what I'm most interested in. I'm trying to extrapolate how many huscarls (I know there is a proper scandanavian name for that) and eorls/jarls a king might have, as well as his potential levy of men and boats. I'm not interested in huge kingdoms, per se. I'm more interested more overblown chieftains or pre-feudal over-kings.

[Markdoc]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

I need data on the size of viking settlements and towns' date=' as well as the size of their kingdoms. The period of about 700-900 is what I'm most interested in. I'm trying to extrapolate how many huscarls (I know there is a proper scandanavian name for that) and eorls/jarls a king might have, as well as his potential levy of men and boats. I'm not interested in huge kingdoms, per se. I'm more interested more overblown chieftains or pre-feudal over-kings.[/quote']

 

The short answer is "No-one knows, really". The data is so skimpy, that there is a huge range of estimates.

 

I can, fortunately offer a little more concrete advice, since this particular question is of specific interest to me, so I've done a few years research on it. Take it with a grain of salt, though - it's my best guess only.

 

Prior to 700 AD, the only real viking kingdom was in what's now southern Denmark/northern Germany. The kings there must have commanded reasonable sized forces - since they built and manned the Dannevirke - a timber faced earth rampart blocking off most of the border with what's now Germany and dug several canals between fjords, the longest of which was large enough to take good sized ships and was about 2 kilometres long. Hedeby and Ribe - the largest cities in this little kingdom probably had populations in the range of 500-1000, which would have doubled or more than doubled for markets (they had market roads stretching for over a hundred kilometres in several directions and quite large wharves). He could probably at the least call on scratch forces of several thousand and a more mobile (and better equipped) army in the hundreds.

 

The rest of the north was split up into brawling fiefdoms of various sizes. Those probably didn't change much in size between 700 to 800 AD, so we can make a rough guess at their limits based on the few villages that have been excavated. At this time, 100-200 people would have been a sizable town, and few districts would have had more than a couple that size. Most villages would have been no more than 6-7 families - say 30-40 people all up. A powerful local lord would therefore have been lucky to have a 1000 people in his area of control, although the strongest local lords apparently ruled over several districts - maybe as many as several thousand people. Given what we know about early viking armies (not much) that could translate to a force of a couple of hundred warriors, even if fewer than 10% of them were what we'd call huscarls. A more typical local lord (a hersir) might have commanded a scratch force of 1-2 dozen warriors, few, if any of whom would have had armour or swords. He'd probably be the only "professional" warrior - and even he would be part time, distinguished mostly by having decent armour and weapons.

 

Things changed rapidly around 800 and by the mid to early 800's the Danish kings had managed to conquer all of what's now Denmark, a good chunk of southern Sweden (Skåne) and part of the Norwegian coast. That gave them command (at least in theory) of a population in the hundreds of thousands, though it took them another 200 years of constant warfare to actually establish a reasonably coherent kingdom. We know almost nothing about army sizes, but the sudden expansion of Danish royal power suggest they must have had reasonably effective armies, probably numbering in the low thousands. At the same time, nobles started to line up behind powerful local men in Norway and Sweden making their own kings.

 

The armies which invaded France in the late 800s were said to number in the tens of thousands. That's not impossible - but I don't know anyone who takes those numbers seriously. However, most historians would agree that the largest armies must have been several thousand strong, as they were able to besiege large cities like Paris while at the same time raiding the surrounding countryside. And those weren't royal armies - they were assemblies of powerful local lords led by a small group of allied lords. One assumes local armies back home in Denmark would have been more numerous - otherwise these lords would have attempted to make themselves king (which they did try, from time to time).

 

Last of all, there's the Micel Here or great army that ravaged parts of England in the late 800's. It's probably the best researched Viking army of all and estimates range from a couple of hundred to several thousand warriors, with the consensus around 2000. Certainly it was big enough to easily take York, a partially fortified city of probably 2000 inhabitants. From the descriptions we have in chronicles written around the time, many of the men in this army had armour and good quality weapons, suggesting a high proportion of professional soldiers, swelled by local allies and shiploads of Danes turning up for a spot of recreational looting.

 

Fleets in this era could range from a half dozen ships to the low hundreds, with the largest seating up to 60-80 warriors or occasionally even more (a more normal size seems to have been 20-30).

 

cheers, Mark

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

There's a nice review article in a recent _Antiquity_ provoked by Chris Wickham's claim of an archaeologically verifiable "flattened hierarchy" in Denmark as late as 700AD. The upshot: perhaps no kings at all. In what follows I am going to assume that we can build a picture of a Scandinavian army-raising society in which a king and organised court or feudal apparatus is only an epiphenomena.

The book I am waiting for promises to deconstruct the entire idea of the Viking. (_Goodbye to the Viking_). There's a real point to that. The classic view is that these communities mobilised for war in the form of warbands of 1--200 persons led by charismatic figures (war chief?) who might become the "Traditionskernel" of a contingent ethnogenesis. In that case, why not Slav, Scot, Irish, Permian, Lapp "Vikings?" More to the point, kingdoms can rise and disappear with the fate of the individual war chieftains.

According to N. A. M. Rodgers (_Safeguard of the Sea_, 13--18) all "Viking" warships are rated in "rooms," defined as the interval between frames. The number of rooms is by definition the number of oars. A 20--25 room vessel of more than 75 feet length would be the typical warship, one of 30 or more (as much as 145 feet long) an exceptional vessel fit for a king --and apparently the true "dragon ship." (Rodgers cautions that some archaeologists disagree.) More than one man at each oar would be the inference here for the larger vessels. (Notice that as a medievalist Rodgers doesn't have to enter the trireme controversy. Presumably the laws of physics have changed to their modern form since the 400s BC.) So you cannot raid, nor establish a new settlement, without, say, 45 men. But is a 100 man warband a reasonable number, either?

It does seem relatively well attested, making a single 20 roomer too small for a warband, so a war chief has at least three long ships. When I think of a Scandinavian notable, I tend to think of someone like Erik the Red. He certainly did not plant a household of 100 warrior males in Greenland, nor did he go there in 3 20s, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't recruit the men and obtain long ships.

So here is the key point: it comes down to the leader in his (and his lineages') pursuit of charisma. He might build wealth from as few as a couple hundred followers in an _economic_ context (where he would need craftspeople, women, older individuals), and deploy that wealth to gather in warriors from all over the northern seas. These individuals would then identify with the leader and perhaps come to be seen as members of his family/tribe/nation, but they could disappear as quickly as they were recruited. In a stable context he would need to be able to feed all of these out of the surplus of the agronomy/fishery under his control. That goes to the expected productive surplus of northern farms. Test cases suggest that the Norse could extract a great deal out of their typical island farms, although you'd never know that from, say, Jared Diamond. Populations of thousands in south Greenland are one way of framing the question. Being able to pull an actual field survey of, say, an Orkney island would be another way. Unfortunately, I don't have that available.

[Vondy]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

Thank you both.

 

I'm working on a hard-boiled "Viking Saga" with film noir and spaghetti western tropes. Not real vikings, mind you, but with a viking-esque milieu. Ahem.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

. . . Have you seen Hraffnung Flyggur? An Icelandic viking revenge story, ver' fun to watch.

 

"Pappi pappi! Der er blodh pa hestin!"

 

"Er dher bodh pa hestin?!"

[Vondy]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

. . . Have you seen Hraffnung Flyggur? An Icelandic viking revenge story, ver' fun to watch.

 

"Pappi pappi! Der er blodh pa hestin!"

 

"Er dher bodh pa hestin?!"

 

Is there a version with English or Hebrew subtitles?

[L. Marcus]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

Gonna go look . . . BRB.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

Okay, here's the IMDb page of the movie. Apparently it's called Revenge of the Barbarians in English.

 

Anyway, nowadays it seems to have become a bit of a collector's item -- there appears to have been no dvd release, and there's an online Icelandic store that sells VHS copies for 2,990 icelandic crowns (I guess somewhere around $400).

 

I don't think it was ever released in Israel.

 

Frankly, this state of affairs sucks. As far as Viking movies go, 13th Warrior doesn't even register on Hravnung flýgur's scopes.

[Markdoc]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

It is around - it showed at a local cinema here last year (though only for a short time). That version was danish subtitled, but I don't doubt that other versions can be found if one cares to hunt: it's a bit of a cult film.

 

Look under the English title "When the Raven Flies". There was a sequel (Shadow of the Raven) but I don't know much about it.

 

cheers, Mark

[L. Marcus]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

. . . And there was a third film -- Vhíti vikingurinn, I think -- The White Viking. There was a pretty nasty bishop in it, played by Sune Mangs, cast completely against type.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

Scandinavia - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia

 

 

Hmmm... you almost need to chose a Kingdom/Country...

 

 

QM

[L. Marcus]

Re: Need Viking Data

 

How so?