20 Hammel-Kiesow
(Wolin) and on to Novgorod.19 The most westerly region of the western Slavic
realm, Wagria, where Old Lübeck was situated, seems to have been the inter-
mediate zone; attainable both by land and by sea.
The distribution of coins reveals two economic regions.20 The first was a
continuous area formed by southern Sweden and its south Baltic neighbors,
but also comprising Denmark and Poland. This area supported an intensive
trade and market exchange that required small ‘coins’ (below penny size)
for local trade. This is indicated by the high fragmentation rate of discovered
coins, as well as by the numerous probing marks created in order to verify sil-
ver content. The second economic area comprised Gotland, the Baltic States,
and Russia. In Russia, a great number of discovered hoards have been domi-
nated by Frisian coins that undoubtedly came there by direct exchange. It
appears that this second area continued the traditions of Viking period trade.
Eleventh century rune stones from the Malar area prove close trading relations
with Novgorod. In the late eleventh century, St. Olaf ’s Church was erected in
Novgorod, and the western trade seems certain to have taken place by means
of the so-called Frisian Guild in Sigtuna (ca. 1070). This guild probably did not
consist of Frisians, but rather Swedish merchants specializing in the trade with
Friesland.21 The western Baltic Region, including Poland, on the other hand,
seems to have developed another, ‘more modern’, structure aimed at market
exchange.
According to one highly plausible theory, the number of hoards in a region
is directly proportional to the power of the ruler in a respective region to set
exchange controls. On one end of the scale, a large number of hoards contain-
ing a supra-regional mix of coins would indicate missing coinage. At the other
end of the scale, a near complete lack of hoards containing only regional coins
of a single type indicates an area of strictly monitored coinage.22 The origin of
coinage in Denmark, Sweden and in the Principality of Novgorod around the
turn of the millennium was the earliest indicator for the advance of a western/
central European coin-based economy. However, the princes of Svear and
Novgorod abandoned coinage again approximately half a century later. In this
19 Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae Pontificum ed. Werner
Trillmich and Rudolf Buchner, Quellen des 9. und 11. Jahrhunderts zur Geschichte der
Hamburger Kirche und des Reiches Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des
Mittelalters, Bd. xi (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 51978), ii, c. 22.
20 Radtke, “Schleswig,” 382–384.
21 Regarding Novgorod Blomkvist, Discovery, 396; regarding Sigtuna Radtke, “Schleswig,” 391.
22 K. Johnsson, “Coin circulation and the pattern of hoarding in the Viking Age and Middle
Ages,” xii. Internationaler Numismatischer Kongress Berlin 1997, 911–916, 916.