An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland

by Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae

Section X.

Commerce and Navigation.

The Northmen, who in ancient times sailed to foreign shores, were far from always being Vikings, bent only on rapine and plunder, and the conquest of new possessions. They were very often peaceful merchants. The remote situation of Scandinavia, and the dangers which the natives of more southern countries pictured to themselves as attendant upon a voyage to that ultima Thule and its heathenish inhabitants, must in ancient days, when navigation was very limited, have deterred foreign merchants from visiting it regularly, and bartering their wares. The Scandinavian tribes, on the contrary, were at that time almost the only seamen. From the want of all that belonged to the exterior comforts and conveniences of life in Scandinavia, the business of a merchant who bartered the products of the north and south, and who brought home with him a knowledge of distant and unknown lands, must early have become a profitable, and, from the dangers connected with it, an honourable profession. The trading voyages of the merchant were not, indeed, held in such esteem as those of the Vikings; yet from the most ancient times certain established customs were observed in the north for the protection of merchant vessels; and the merchant who, as was frequently the case, had distinguished himself by warlike qualities and shrewdness of understanding, was neither despised in the company of Vikings, nor in the King’s hall. Even chiefs of royal descent did not regard it as anything dishonourable to exercise the mercantile profession. Already, in the most ancient times, a number of trading places were scattered round the north, and large annual fairs were held. Once a year the ships of the merchants assembled together from the whole of Scandinavia, perhaps even from the other nearest situated countries, in the Sound of Haleyri, or, as it is now called, Elsinore. Booths were erected along the shore; foreign wares were bartered for fish, hides, and valuable furs; whilst various games, and all sorts of merry-making, took place.

During the Roman dominion in England, and probably even in far earlier times, a tolerably brisk commerce appears to have been kept up between England and the countries of Scandinavia, especially Jutland, Vendsyssel, and the districts round the Limfjord; where also, as a consequence of this, genuine Roman antiquities have been dug up at various times. After the conquest of England by the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons, and still more after the Danes and Norwegians had begun to settle there, this intercourse became still more frequent. We may safely assert that, so early as the close of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century, a very brisk trade must have existed between England and the North. The Scandinavian element was then so well established, that not only did Scandinavian kings reign, and coin money, in the north of England, but even that extremely important old Saxon city, “North-weorig,” which lay in the very heart of England, was called by the Saxon kings themselves, on their coins, by the foreign name of “Deorabui” (Deoraby, Dyreby, Derby); although this name, according to the English chroniclers’ own statements, was first given to it by the immigrant Danes. Some will even recognise Derby in the name of “Doribi,” which stands on a coin of King Ethelwulf of the middle of the ninth century (837-857). At all events it is a certain and remarkable proof of the early and wide-extended influence of the Scandinavian settlers, even in places far in the interior of the country, that “Deorabui” appears repeatedly on coins of King Athelstane (924-940), and of his immediate successors. It was this same Athelstane who is said to have visited Scandinavia, where he learned the language; and who afterwards educated at his court Hagen Adelsteen, the law-giver, who subsequently became the first Christian king in Norway. This fact also indicates the wide-spread and peaceful connection between England and the North, which not long afterwards induced the Norwegian King’s son, Olaf Trygvesön, in his treaty of peace with the English king, Ethelred, whose lands he had long harried, expressly to stipulate for certain rights and privileges in favour of the Scandinavian merchant ships in the English harbours.

Even in Alfred the Great’s time (A.D. 900) the seas and lands of Scandinavia were but very little known to the Anglo-Saxons; for which reason Alfred, chiefly with a view to trade and commerce, sent Ulfsten and the Norwegian Ottar on voyages of discovery to the Baltic, and along the coast of Norway to the White Sea. That according to the laws of his country an Anglo-Saxon merchant obtained the rank and title of Thane, or Chief, when he had thrice crossed the sea in his own ship, sufficiently attests how desirous the Anglo-Saxon kings were to awaken among their subjects, by means of large rewards, a desire for such voyages. Subsequently, however, during the expeditions of the Vikings and Normans, when the dangers attending long voyages had become still greater than before for the Anglo-Saxons, owing to the perfectly overwhelming force of the Northmen at sea, the trade, with Scandinavia at least, must have continued to remain in the hands of the Scandinavian merchants; who, as we learn from the Sagas, were continually making voyages, as well from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as from the still more distant Iceland, to England, and the other countries of the West. Wherever the Normans had won new settlements, Scandinavian merchants likewise established themselves in order to maintain a steady connection with their ancient home. It is for this simple reason that we find in those times so many Danes and Norwegians settled in the most important trading places, not only in England (in London, Southwark, Derby, Grimsby, York, Whitby, and other towns), but also, as we shall see in the sequel, in Ireland and in Normandy, where the city of “Ruda,” or Rouen, is spoken of as an important place of trade often visited by the Northmen.

The Scandinavian merchant vessels brought not only the wares of Scandinavia to the British Islands and other countries of the West; they likewise brought merchandise from the remote East. From the most ancient times, indeed, the Northmen had maintained connections with the eastern countries; which was a natural consequence of their having emigrated thence into the North, and left friends behind them there. By means of these connections, metals otherwise totally unknown in the North, and especially gold, were certainly brought thither at a very early period from the mountains of the East. Subsequently, in the fifth and sixth centuries, when fresh migrations from the East had taken place, a closer connection was opened with the eastern Roman Empire, and particularly with Constantinople, so that coins of that empire, and other valuables, began to be circulated in the North. After the Scandinavian colonists, too, had conquered kingdoms for themselves in the countries which now form modern Russia, and taken possession of the city of Novgorod, a regular commercial route appears to have been opened, through Russia, between Constantinople and the North, by which the Varangians passed, who entered as body-guards into the service of the Emperors of the East. But as far as regards trade, Novgorod and the Scandinavian colonists in Russia promoted a connection with Asia, which was of far greater extent and importance.

Before the passage to the East Indies by sea was discovered, and particularly before the Genoese and Venetians began to trade in the Black Sea and on the coasts of Asia, the main road from Arabia and the countries round the Caspian Sea to the Baltic and Scandinavia, lay through Russia, along the great rivers. To judge from the Oriental coins found both in Russia and in the Scandinavian countries, this commercial road must have been used from the eighth until far in the eleventh century, when it was broken up by internal disturbances in Asia, and by contemporary revolutions in Russia and the North. The road ran either from Transoxana (in Turan) to the countries north of the Caspian Sea, whence the merchandise was then brought along the river Volga to the Baltic; or else from Khorasan (in Iran), through Armenia, to the Black Sea; whence the Khazars and other people again conveyed it up the rivers farther towards the North. How considerable this trade must have been may be seen from the numerous hints in the Sagas, as well as from the still-existing Arabian accounts of merchants who in those days visited the coasts of the Baltic for the sake of trade, where considerable trading places, such as Sleswick and many others, are mentioned; but still more than all these, from the very great number of Arabian coins that have been dug up both in Russia and Scandinavia. In Sweden, and particularly in the island of Gothland, such an immense quantity of these has been found at various times, that in Stockholm alone above twenty thousand pieces have been preserved, presenting more than a thousand different dies, and coined in about seventy towns in the eastern and northern districts of the dominions of the Caliphs. Five-sixths of them were coined by Samanidic Caliphs. Together with the coins, a great mass of ornaments has been dug up, consisting of rings and other articles in silver, which are distinguished by a peculiar workmanship. On the whole, it appears that silver first came by this way into the North, where it was not generally circulated before the ninth and tenth centuries, and consequently at the time when the trade with Arabia was in full activity.

These discoveries of Arabian coins in the north of Europe, but which are confined to the shores of the Baltic, the German Ocean, and the Irish Sea, undoubtedly prove that Scandinavia, and particularly the countries on its eastern coasts, together with the islands of Gothland, Öland, and Bornholm, must have been the principal depôt for Arabian merchandise. It was the trade with the East that originally gave considerable importance to the city of Visby in Gothland; and it was subsequently the Russian trade that made Visby, in conjunction with Novgorod, important members of the German Hanseatic league. As long as the Arabian trade flourished, Gothland was the centre of a very animated traffic. Even now an almost incredible number of German, Hungarian, and particularly Anglo-Saxon coins, of the tenth and eleventh centuries, is dug up in the island. The collection of coins in Stockholm comprises an assortment of Anglo-Saxon coins, mostly the product of these discoveries, which, for extent and completeness, surpasses the greatest collections of the sort even in London and England.

The important and extensive commercial intercourse between Scandinavia and England, to which this so decidedly points, can also be traced in England itself. Oriental or Arabian coins, struck in the countries near the Caspian Sea, are dug up both in England and Ireland in conjunction with the very same kind of peculiar silver rings, and other ornaments of the same metal, that are also found with the Arabian coins in Scandinavia and Russia; nay, they are sometimes dug up, as in Cuerdale, in conjunction with coins of Danish-Norwegian kings and jarls; a fact which still further confirms the opinion that they were brought over to the British Isles by the Northmen. This connection with Arabia through the countries of Scandinavia may probably have brought to England, as well as to the North, such a mass of silver as enabled the Anglo-Saxon kings to mint that surprising number of silver coins, which appears at once in such forcible contrast to the want of silver in the preceding centuries. The ancient Britons had little or no silver before the Roman conquest. The Romans, who had large silver mines in Spain, certainly brought silver money with them into the British Islands; but after the overthrow of their dominion, a want of silver again prevailed, and continued, as the coins show, until far into the eighth and ninth centuries. Silver was consequently introduced into England and Scandinavia, generally speaking, about the same time; and there is undoubtedly far greater probability that it was brought into these countries in the same way—that is, from Asia through Russia—than that it should have come into England through the Moors in Spain; of whose caliphs there are very rarely any coins found in England, and between whom and the English the intercourse at that period seems to have been but very limited. In the treasure found at Cuerdale the rings and other silver ornaments were for the most part broken, and twisted, or even melted, together. Something similar has been observed in the treasure trove in the countries round the Baltic, and in Russia. This clearly proves that silver, as an article of commerce, was brought from Asia to the North, where it was melted and converted into ornaments and coins.

As long as the Norman expeditions lasted, and on the whole as long as the Scandinavian supremacy at sea sufficed to protect the Scandinavian merchants and their ships, they continued to make voyages on their own account to the countries colonized by the Northmen. Thus the Anglo-Saxon coins dug up in the island of Gothland indicate a brisk and uninterrupted commerce between Scandinavia and England from the time of the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar (959-975) down to the death of Edward the Confessor and the Norman conquest (1066). But from that time, and particularly after the year 1100, there is a remarkable decrease in the Anglo-Saxon coins found in Gothland; which is a natural result of the interruption of the previous connection, through the hostile relations that ensued between the descendants of William the Conqueror and the Scandinavian kings, who steadily continued to claim the crown of England. Later in the middle ages the countries of Scandinavia fell more and more under the commercial yoke of the German Hanse Towns; whilst in England, on the contrary, a freer and healthier state of commerce was continually developing itself. The Danish king, Canute the Great, made it a point of the utmost importance to conclude commercial treaties with various foreign nations; and the Scandinavian merchants settled in England essentially contributed to make these leagues profitable. Old authors expressly notice the influence of these merchants on British trade. We also find evidence of it not only in their great number, and the weight they possessed in several English towns,—especially London, where they had their own churches, markets, and courts of law, and where, as before stated, they even at times decided the election of a king, as in the case of Harald Harefoot,—but also in the names of money afterwards retained in the English language, as “March” and “Ora,” from the Scandinavian “Mark” and “Ore.” It was a natural consequence that commerce should at the same time make great progress, as the numerous Scandinavian settlers in England, and the Danish conquest, had infused a new and hitherto unknown life into everything relating to navigation, without which no animated trade could have flourished in the British Islands.