Foreign Origins of Vikings Arms and Armor
Foreign made weapons and armor played a special role in Norse society. They were either attained through trade (an extension of gift giving in Norse society) or plunder. Therefore, their possession and display by any individual would signify their station in the social hierarchy and any political allegiances they had. One example of weapons being exchanged between the Franks and the Vikings occurred in 795 when Charlemagne exchanged weapons with the Norse king King Offa.
Scandinavian affinity towards foreign arms and armor during the Viking Age was also a practical decision. Norse weapon designs were obsolete and iron found within Scandinavia was of poor quality. Frankish swords like the ULFBERHT had a higher carbon content making them more durable and their design was much more maneuverable compared to Scandinavian produced swords. However, smaller weapons like daggers, knives, and arrowheads could be manufactured in Scandinavia, yet the best swords and spearheads were undoubtedly imported.
Many of the most important Viking weapons were highly ornate—decorated lavishly with gold and silver. Weapons adorned as such served large religious and social functions. These precious metals were not produced in Scandinavia and they too would have been imported. Once in Scandinavia, the precious metals would have been inlayed in the pommels and blades of weapons creating geometric patterns, depictions of animals, and later Christian symbols.
The Vikings also used foreign armor. According to Heimskringla one hundred Vikings were adorned “in coats of ring-mail, and in foreign helmets” at the Battle of Nesjar.
During the mid-9th century, there was an influx of these high quality weapons into Scandinavia, and Frankish arms became the standard for all Vikings. As Ahmad ibn Fadlan observed in his writing Journey to Russia, every Viking carried a “sword of the Frankish type." The Franks attempted to quell the use of weapons and armor produced in Francia being used by the Vikings. The Franks feared that they would eventually be facing equally armed opponents. Chapter 10 of the Capitulare Bononiense, made it illegal for any leader of a church to sell weapons or armor to non-Frankish individuals. Laws like this were enacted throughout Francia. Ultimately in 864 Charles the Bald made the practice punishable by death.
Some scholars have proposed that theses laws were so effective at stemming the flow of Frankish weapons, that it initiated the practice of raiding for which the Vikings are now famous.
Read more about this topic: Viking Age Arms And Armour
Famous quotes containing the words foreign, origins, arms and/or armor:
“Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful tone is silenced.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“It does not come to a man that to be separated from a woman is to be dislocated from his very self. A man has but one centre, and that is himself. A woman has two. Though the second may never be seen by her, may live in the arms of another, may do all for that other that man can do for woman,—still, still, though he be half the globe asunder from her, still he is to her the half of her existence.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)