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Scandanavian History

photo by Dana D. Klein M.Div, Editor

The people’s religion, described in the later Prose Edda, included belief that the sun was pulled across the sky each day by two horses, Arvak and Alvsinn, pursued by a huge wolf wanting to swallow the sun and bring on Ragnarok (‘end of days’). A gilt-bronze chariot found at Trundholm, Denmark, dated c1200 BC, originally had two horses, but one survives. Early rock carvings and grave goods show a god with a hammer, logically coming from the first group with metallurgy, which became the Viking era’s primary god, Thor, lord of the skies, in his goat-drawn cart, and a symbol of royalty among Germanic people (if the sun itself had horses, a super-human god would rate a goat). The people also worshipped fertility gods, later called the Vanir, to bring prosperity. At this time, Odin, the classic war god of the Viking era, had not yet gained importance—this happened during the Roman era (2nd-3rd century AD).

Bronze Age Scandinavians buried their dead, this practice climaxing in the

rich burials of the Vendel era (4th-6th centuries) in Sweden and the great ship burials of the 9th and 10th centuries in Oslo area.

Starting around 1200 BC, late Bronze Age great political order imperial Egypt and the Hittites, collapsed, decreasing organized, literate civilization in the Near East and so the market declined for Arctic products, breaking down trade all the way across Central Europe to Scandinavia. But in the 5th Century BC, La Tene (Iron Age Celtic) civilization in Central Europe emerged and trade picked up.

CELTIC and ROMAN era Scandinavians

Around 450 BC in the Rhine heartland, the La Tene (Iron Age Celtic) civilization climaxed a series of Central European civilizations skilled in metallurgy. Celtic Europe (Gaul, southern Germany and the Lowlands) saw towns (which the Romans called oppida, singular oppidum) enclose several acres, specialized areas for manufacturing and agriculture. These towns needed wanted much labor, luxury goods and food, so Scandinavia traded raw materials and prestige objects to them (anyone want a nice fish dinner? any wealthy merchant want a thick winter fur?). The trade resulted in more construction of carts and ships, more work for woodsmen and skilled metalworkers. Trade with Celtic civilization brought to Scandinavia prestige trade items such as the Gundestrup cauldron (c100 BC), of Celtic design depicting heads, marching warriors, sacrifices and gods paralleling those of Scandinavia.

Ancient Germanic gods, including Scandinavian, borrowed iconography and rituals from the Celtic, as the Romans had adopted Greek gods into their pantheon.

Yet the Scandinavians kept their own Germanic language, quite different from Celtic, Greek or Latin. In burials, they used ship, not cart, imagery. They lived in scattered villages, did not develop them into towns.

During 58-49 BC, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and began the Roman conquest of Central Europe up the Danube. Julius Caesar left the first record, in 1st Century BC (followed later by medieval Christian writers and Arab geographers), describing Scandinavians as tall, fair complexion, light eyes, blonde or redheaded and hardy.

The Romans saw Scandinavian religious practices as different than Celtic—for instance, the Scandinavians had no priestly caste, no druids. The religious practices remained particularly Scandinavian—for instance, the Tollund man (found in a Danish bog) was probably strangled or hanged as a sacrifice to an early form of the god Odin.

Augustus completed the conquest of the Danube area—in less than a generation, the Celtic world was shattered, incorporated in the Roman Empire, most of Central Europe was now open for migration by Germanic people. Germanic tribes spread from Scandinavia to lands between the Rhine and Vistula and north of the Danube, with the Romans called Germania, and expanded to include not only Central Europe, but also Scandinavia.

The Celtic became the foundation of Roman provincial civilization in Britain, Gaul and the Danube from the 1st to 5th centuries AD. Romans stationed 150,000 soldiers along the Rhine, and their demand for goods resulted in, for instance, most of western Germany’s and Denmark’s cattle industry being devoted to feeding the Rhineland Roman army. The Romans also needed labor—day workers, slaves, auxiliary warriors. Many German tribes moved to the region under contract to farm.

In return, Roman goods, including fine tableware, glass, Roman ceramics were imported into Denmark and southern Sweden, transforming the lives of Scandinavian aristocrats.

Scandinavians held some things too sacred to change, but readily changed others. Tacitus, writing Germania in c100 AD, says Danish priests paraded the idol of the goddess Nerthia in a sacred cart. Yet they habituated to drinking wine and would gamble everything for fine imported vintages.

The Scandinavians also imported superior weapons—early chain mail in 200-400 AD. Petty kings of dynasts began to consolidate power. They had been disorganized in the 1st Century, but were no longer by 100 AD onward. Some local kings retained warriors (comitatus in Latin), described by Tacitus similarly as by later Norse literatures as berserkers (frenzied warriors inspired by Odin to fight). Tacitus said these warriors formed a wedge (cuneus, ‘shield wall’), which later Norse legend called a gift from Odin.

By 260 AD in Central Europe, major confederations of Germans formed—Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, Goths. Warship burials at Nydam, Denmark (c350) and Sutton Hoo (c625) show the Scandinavians had also learned from the Romans how to use sails. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus says the Germans were using sails in 4th century raids.

Use of sails made possible the Goths, having crossed over the Baltic from Sweden, and follwing amber routes, to move into the Roman Empire. When the empire collapsed, so did the trade that had brought to Scandinavia many new developments. However, the governmental instability in the vacuum caused by the empire breaking down led to an age of migrations. This, coupled with the use of sails and following Roman trade routes, made possible the Anglo-Saxons’ migration from Denmark to Britain, and enough Germanic-speaking people traveled to Britain to linguistically and culturally change Britain to England.

All these developments led to the embryo of Viking civilization later described in legends and sagas.

CONCLUSION

This has been the first of an intended several articles on Scandinavian history, the next to range into the subject of the Migration era, of Norse gods, runes, visual arts, legends and kings. The one after that will shipbuilding, Viking war and society, merchants and commerce, and the beginning of Christian influence on Scandinavians.