Smerds meek
In a peaceful field, they are lovely.
(Sigurd the Crusader. Poetry of the Skalds. Translation by S. V. Petrov)
This rune-speckled stone from Hillersje, Sweden is one of the finest examples of runic writing surviving from Viking times (over 5,000 runestones have been found in total). Runes, wriggling in an intricate serpentine, tell the story of a woman who inherited her daughter's estate. This message confirms one of the features of social life of the Vikings, distinguished by exceptional liberalism for that time - the right of women to own property.
Of course, the finds of gold things and jewelry are always pleasant, but carbonated grain and bones of people and animals are much more important for science. Not a single opportunity went unused. For example, in Denmark, scientists excavated a site that was covered with sand during the Viking Age and found farmer footprints, cartwheel tracks and plow furrows underneath. Underwater exploration has further expanded our knowledge of Viking life. In Hedeby (Denmark) from the bottom of the harbor, they even raised brushes for pitching boats, made from … pieces of old clothing of Viking shipbuilders. And that gave information on how the Vikings dressed. It is clear that it was not possible to find out the cut of the clothes, but this is what the fabric was from …
Long House of the Viking Age. Modern renovation.
That is, it became obvious that while some Scandinavians made sea voyages and fought in a foreign land, others provided themselves with food not by raids, but by animal husbandry and agriculture. They were engaged in hunting and fishing, collecting wild plants, honey and eggs. Own land was enough, despite the fact that the farmers themselves worked tirelessly. The surrounding land was covered with forest. And in order to reclaim new plots for plowing from him, it was necessary to cut trees and clear them of stones, which were often piled into small pyramids that haunted archaeologists for a long time - what are they for? Meanwhile, the stones were simply piled up as the farmer plowed his allotment. Moreover, in mountainous Norway, people treasured every piece of arable land.
Cooking boiler. National Museum, Copenhagen.
Climatologists and paleobotanists were able to determine that during the Viking Age, Scandinavia was several degrees warmer than earlier and later this time. The successful development of agriculture naturally led to population growth and the development of new lands. For a long time, sacks of grain and the number of livestock served as the measure of wealth, which generated, on the one hand, competition between landowners who wanted to have new plots, and on the other hand, outbreaks of violence from the poor, who at all times seemed to be in such a situation unjust. There was nowhere to go like that, and they willingly joined the squads of the earls - sea kings, and went to a foreign land for wealth.
The trilobite brooch was a favorite practical adornment of Scandinavian women in the Viking Age. National Museum, Copenhagen.
How did Scandinavian farmers live - farms or settlements? Excavations in Denmark indicate that people preferred to settle together. Although the villages were small - six or eight farms. But each farm was a self-sufficient world with a residential building and outbuildings.
"Thor's Hammer", amulet and mold for casting it. They are found more often than other items during the excavation of "long houses". National Museum, Copenhagen.
Excavations have shown that Scandinavian farms usually consisted of several houses and buildings, and were always surrounded by a wall of rough stones that were brought to the house from the surrounding fields. The house usually looked like a long, rectangular structure of logs and sod, similar to a Russian peasant hut. The walls were made of wicker and covered with clay. At one end of the house there were living quarters, at the other - stalls for livestock, from where a pleasant warmth breathed in winter, but the unpleasant smell, apparently, was simply ignored. An open hearth was located on an earthen floor on a certain elevation in the center of the residential part of the house, and gave not only warmth, but also light. Although there were also fat lamps in the house, suspended from the roof beams. There were benches along the walls, where the inhabitants of the house sat, slept and worked, located near the fire. There were no pipes in such houses. Its role was played by a hole in the roof.
The typical Scandinavian farming family's working day began before sunrise. The head of the family, along with the eldest sons, went to the fields to plow or sow, while the women and children stayed at home and were engaged in caring for livestock, feeding poultry and grazing goats and sheep. A lot of efforts were devoted to animal husbandry. Therefore, in the summer, they tried to stock up on hay, which was considered the main food for livestock in the winter. The grass was specially grown, then mowed and stored in hay barns, regardless of the grain harvest. Moreover, for example, in Norway, where the harvest was not too high due to climatic conditions, it was entirely used to brew beer, which in its energy value was practically not inferior to milk.
Thor's hammer necklace, Uppland. National Museum, Copenhagen.
The house was a long, barn-like room, perhaps with several enclosures, in which the inhabitants of the house cooked and ate and received friends, and weaved, and dug arrows, and slept. The lighting was dim, and the walls and roof were smoky. Well, the owner of the farm, the head of the family, who worked hard, but also liked to demonstrate his wealth and generosity to his friends and neighbors, was in charge of all this by arranging feasts where meat, fish, millet cakes fried on spits were served, and vegetables in summer. and all this was served in huge quantities, including beer, honey and even wine made from berries and sour apples, which had time to ripen over the summer.
The second most important person in the house, and in many ways even the first, was the owner's wife, whose primacy and authority were not questioned. After all, caring for a huge, moreover, multifunctional farm required not only a lot of work, but also a lot of experience and considerable knowledge. You had to know how to treat minor ailments, ferment vegetables, bake bread, make wine and brew beer, cook food, and also spin and weave. The main symbol of her power was a bunch of keys from a house, outbuildings, sheds and cellars for stale and perishable food. There could be a key to the family bath or steam room among them, if only, of course, the household was wealthy enough to afford such a luxury. This bundle was a symbol of her power and to get the same was the cherished dream of every girl of that time! The hostess of the house milked the cows, churned butter, made cheeses and stuffed sausages.
Master's key. National Museum, Copenhagen.
And she was also required to observe how her daughters carry out their duties in the household: bake cakes, prepare food, mend clothes and linen. Men usually did not come from the field until noon. And then on narrow tables in the central hall they served the first meal of the day: usually it was porridge in wooden pots, flavored with butter, dried lamb and fresh fish - boiled or fried. After a short afternoon rest, the family members continued their duties until the evening. Then, at the end of the working day, they ate a second time. This meal was usually no more plentiful than the first, but more beer was now served.
One more key. National Museum, Copenhagen.
Interestingly, in Scandinavia at that time, women had a status that was simply unthinkable in most countries of the world. Arab merchants who visited Viking settlements in the 10th century were amazed at the degree of freedom that northern women had in family life, including the right to divorce. "A wife can divorce whenever she pleases," noted one of them. But for some reason this was not enough for the northerners: if the marriage ended in divorce, the husband had to compensate her for the wife's dowry.
By law, Scandinavian women could own land and often cultivated it alone, while their husbands went to trade, or even sailed across the sea to seek their fortune. In any case, the same runestones tell above about their economic sense. So, after the death of a certain Odindis from West Manland (Sweden), her husband put a checkmen with the following inscription: "The best housewife who is able to hold the whole farm in her hands will never arrive in Hassmur." It is not, as you can see, that Odindis was beautiful or virtuous. And we are not talking about her piety either. It is noted that she was a jack of all trades, who knew how to manage the household well.
Moreover, women were engaged not only in the economy, but also in handicrafts, in particular, weaving. What are the findings of archaeologists in the Viking cities?
As today, the women of the Viking Age worked hard to find a suitable life partner for themselves. The sagas contain numerous tales of women bragging to each other about having the best man. But it was like that everywhere. Even among the Arabs. Another thing is that the peoples of Scandinavia showed innovation in endowing women with equal rights with men, that is, in terms of gender, their society was quite a “society of equal opportunities”. A woman of the Viking Age could choose a husband for herself, and then not marry him, if she suddenly wanted to. And no one would have condemned her for that. However, the scope of these equal opportunities was still limited. For example, only men in the Viking Age could appear in court. That is, for a woman, if she filed a complaint with the court, men had to stand up - her father, brothers or sons.
Two paired "turtle hairpins", connected either by beads or by a chain, were one of the must-have adornments of a woman in the Viking Age. At first they were pretentious, silver or gilded, but later they began to simplify, perhaps because they began to wear a scarf over them and all their beauty became invisible. National Museum, Copenhagen.
The sagas include many tales of divorced women and widows who then remarry. At the same time, the Icelandic sagas describe a large number of divorce rules, which indicates a fairly developed legal system at that time.
A woman, for example, had the right to demand a divorce if it became known that her husband had settled in another country, but only if he had not gone to bed with her for three years. However, the most common reasons for divorce were sudden family poverty or husband violence. If a man hit his wife three times, then she could legally demand a divorce.
And this is how they were worn on clothes. A still from the film "And trees grow on the stones …"
Female infidelity was punished heavily, so men could bring mistresses to their houses, for example, brought from overseas as captives. However, the wife's power over new women in the family was undeniable.
Of course, falling in love with such a beauty was easy! Still from the film "And trees grow on the stones …"
We do not know if divorce was frequent during the Viking Age, but the right to divorce and inheritance prove that women had an independent judicial status. After divorce, infants and young children usually stayed with their mothers, while older children were split between their parents' families, depending on their wealth and status.
