The Viking Age

A Certificate of Participation is awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/learning activities for the duration of the course.

This tutor-led, cohort-based online course is 7-weeks in duration and is made up of 5 teaching units.

Unit 1 - The Dawn of the Viking Age

Who were the Vikings? Why did they risk life and limb to travel trade, raid, and settle in far flung places? The first week will explore what lead to the early Viking raids and subsequent journeys through Europe to Africa, North America, and the Middle East.

What was everyday life like in the Viking homelands? What were the belief systems that underpinned the Viking world? Who held power and how did encounters with others impact life ‘back home’? We will also examine how archaeology shines light on how Viking Age society was structured in Scandinavia in terms of class, gender, and religion.

Learning objectives:

- To provide an overview of the Viking Age including its chronological duration and geographical expanse.
- To gain awareness of the material evidence which indicates gender and social strata in Viking society.

Unit 2 - Viking-Age ships and seafaring (Guest Lecturer: Dr. Morten Ravn, Roskilde Viking Ship Museum)

This week will probe how the maritime technology of the Vikings defined their success in war and peace. The boat and ship finds of the Viking Age demonstrate that many different types and sizes of watercrafts were built. At the beginning of the Viking Age we see the transformation of the Iron Age rowing vessel into a proper sailing ship, and later also a specialisation in terms of design. The ship was a symbol of status and power and had an important role in the cosmology of the era. But even more important, the ship was the precondition for the Scandinavians to expand their maritime activities, resulting in a growing economy consisting of complex trading networks, piracy, conquests and bold voyages into the unknown.

We will also examine how the process of reconstructing Viking ships has revealed how raw materials utilised for building the ships were carefully selected, and to achieve the desired qualities and properties in the raw materials, woodland management was conducted. Many different crafts were involved in building a ship and the craftsmanship conducted is truly astonishing.

Learning objectives:

- To gain a basic understanding of clinker vessels; an overview of the main Viking ship forms and functions;
- To gain an appreciation of the importance of contemporary Viking ship reconstructions.

Unit 3 - Slaves and silver: raiding and trading in the Viking Age

Norse merchants stimulated the development of long-distance, regional and local trade and exchange networks. How were the Vikings able to bring so much silver to the North? This week we will look at how hoards, and changes in towns shine a light on the raiding and trading of the Vikings.

Learning objectives:

- To provide an understanding of the variety of functions performed by hoards and of the changing nature of emporia in the Viking era.

Unit 4 - Ladby: a Danish ship grave from the Viking Age (Guest Lecturer: Dr. Anne C. Sørensen, Roskilde Viking Ship Museum)

This week explores ship burials an iconic feature of the Viking era by focusing on the case-study of Ladby. Why was the ship burial located here? What does its rich collection of grave goods tell us about the person who was buried in it? Why was it desecrated?

The ship-grave from Ladby is one of a few known big Scandinavian ship-graves from the 9th – 10th centuries.  Around 900 AD a small war-ship was placed in a trench on the highest point in a burial-ground from the Late Iron Age and the Viking Age. The ship was used as the last resting place for an important person indicated by the splendour of the grave equipment. The skeletons of 11 horses and 3-4 dogs and more than 600 fragments of riding gear, tableware, a gaming board, weapons, artwork, gold adorned textile and objects probably connected to power and a high social status. The ship-grave from Ladby displays a wide geographical framework, which is demonstrated both by the form of the grave and by the provenance of several objects among the grave goods.

Learning objectives:

- To provide an understanding of how Viking Age grave goods can be analysed and interpreted.

Unit 5 - The dusk of the Viking Age and its long shadow

This week we will probe the tail end of the Viking Age exploring the birth of the Scandinavian kingdoms, the impacts of Christianity on Viking society, and the legacy of the Normans.

Viking heritage consists of museums, designated sites, theme parks, reconstructions, fairs, routes and events. We will also examines how notions of authenticity and commodification are constructed through the staging of types of Viking heritage.

Learning objectives:

- To provide an overview of the key shifts which changed Scandinavian society at the end of what is regarded as the Viking Age
- To gain an understanding of how Viking –Era archaeological remains are transformed into heritage and how questions of authenticity and commodification impact that journey.