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Y302: The Viking Age c.790–1066

Viking society, administration and livelihood: royal power and Scandinavian livelihood

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on royal power, political developments in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Scandinavian livelihood, including trade, developments in shipbuilding, seafaring, money, farming, hunting and craft-working.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Who and when

How did a silver economy work before regular coinage?

Key term

Name three important Scandinavian trading centres.

Who and when

How did the adoption of the sail change Scandinavian seafaring?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Trace the political development of Denmark across the Viking age.

    Model answer

    Ninth-century kings such as Godfred already commanded frontier works and trade, Gorm and Harald Bluetooth united the kingdom and Christianised it in the tenth century, and Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut then turned it into the centre of a North Sea empire.

  2. 2

    What do the Trelleborg-type fortresses tell us about Danish royal power?

    Model answer

    These precisely planned circular fortresses were built to a single design at several sites around 980, which shows a king able to command surveyors, timber and labour across the whole kingdom.

  3. 3

    Outline the unification of Norway.

    Model answer

    Harald Fairhair is credited with subduing rival chieftains after a victory at Hafrsfjord in the late ninth century, but real unification came only with Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson around the turn of the millennium, and was contested throughout.

  4. 4

    How did Sweden's development differ from Denmark's and Norway's?

    Model answer

    Power was split between the Svear around Lake Malaren and the Gotar to the south, kingship remained weaker and more elective, and both unification and conversion came later than in the other two kingdoms.

  5. 5

    Name three important Scandinavian trading centres.

    Model answer

    Hedeby at the neck of Jutland, Birka on Lake Malaren, and Ribe on the west coast of Jutland.

  6. 6

    How did a silver economy work before regular coinage?

    Model answer

    Silver won by trade and raiding, much of it Islamic coin carried up the Russian rivers, circulated by weight as coins, ingots, arm-rings and cut-up hacksilver, tested for purity by nicking and weighed on portable folding balances.

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