CHAPTER EIGHT ( 4 )

LEJRE AND ROSKILDE

Tom Christensen

T

he role played by Lejre and Roskilde in the transition from a pagan tribal society to
the Christian state has been greatly debated, primarily on the basis of medieval
sagas, chronicles and monastic sources. With variations, these texts relate how the
Danes’ first royal house, the Skjoldungas, had their seat at Lejre on Sjælland, while the
later Viking Age kings established their base at Roskilde, around 10 km east of Lejre
at the head of the Roskilde fjord (Skovgaard-Petersen 1977 : 23 ff.). Over the past fifty
years there have been intermittent excavations at Lejre, which can provide the basis for
an evaluation of this site working from material remains. Excavations in Roskilde have
also produced new topographical insights.

LEJRE

The Lejre complex covers almost 1 square km and spans a chronological range from
the fifth/sixth century until the fourteenth. East of Lejre is an area characterised by three
monumental burial mounds and the remains of a ship setting at least 80 m long.
Observations made in the eighteenth century indicate that there were once at least
five impressive monuments of the latter type. One of the mounds, Grydehøj, contained
what appears to have been a chieftain’s cremation burial from the sixth/seventh
century, with extensive animal sacrifices. Parts of a tenth-century cemetery with
forty-nine inhumations have also been excavated around the ship setting. The finds
here do not differ markedly from those at other contemporary cemeteries (Andersen
1995 ).
The built area stretches over 500 m along the western bank of the Lejre River,
established on some of the small hills characteristic of the landscape in this region. The
eldest is a recently discovered settlement at Fredshøj (ROM j.nr. 615 / 84 ) from the sixth/
seventh century, currently ( 2004 ) under excavation (Christensen 2004 ). Two important
elements are worth mentioning here: a large hall building, and a heap of burnt stones
16 m in diameter and 0. 75 m high. At the periphery of this heap were found pits packed
with bones and charcoal. In terms of metal finds, the site is not noticeably different from
its contemporaries among large settlements. However, the ceramic material should be
noted. The domestic wares are of high quality and unusually richly decorated with