sacrosanct protection (Skre 2006 ). This has provoked a long-standing debate on the
relationship between economy and politics. Through recent decades, exchange was often
subsumed as an aspect of political evolution. It has been argued that peaceful trade
presupposes an institutionalised political (i.e. royal) authority in order to organise and
protect trading sites (Hodges 1982 : 184 ; Ambrosiani and Clarke 1991 : 89 ), or to
guarantee the safety and legal protection of individual foreigners (Sawyer 1978 ; Lund
1987 ), or both (Hedeager 1993 ).
Trading sites were certainly a concern of rulers and a target of political ambitions in
early Viking Age Scandinavia. Written sources speak of kings in Ribe, Birka and
Hedeby. But was edict and patronage enough to secure the trading network at this
stage? The looting of Dorestad, Paris, London and many other sites demonstrates that
no ruler in the early Viking Age could guarantee market peace without a large share
of consensus; the lack of substantial fortifications in eighth–ninth-century emporia
suggests that they knew this to be the case. According to ship finds, it was only in
the tenth century that specialised cargo-vessels appeared in Scandinavian waters
(Crumlin-Pedersen 1999 ). Before that, trading ships each brought an armed crew for
protection.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the necessary protection for trade was often
provided by the interdependence of groups and communities, rather than by coercive
power. Individual safety and legal rights could be maintained by incorporating strangers
in households and conducting transactions there (Roslund 1994 , 2001 ). The essential
relation of trust was facilitated, among other things, by symbolic communication
through artefact style (Gustin 2004 ). Potential tensions in the exchange situation were
accommodated for by establishing shared cultural norms and routine procedures for
exchange (Sindbæk 2005 ). The basic conditions for trade and exchange were provided
by township communities, by the félag or guilds of traders, and most importantly by
accepting common law.
The constitution of trading communities was important in another sense too. The
large trading sites are the only locations in the Viking world where great numbers of
foreigners would live together on a regular basis, as we see from the distribution of items
presumably brought as personal utensils (e.g. Brather 1996 ; Callmer 1998 ). Exchanges
occurred not only in bulk cargoes between these sites, but on a personal level within
them. As such, these motley communities must have been essential vehicles of cultural
transmission and innovation.
BIBLIOGRAPHYAmbrosiani, B. ( 2002 ) ‘Osten und Westen im Ostseehandel zur Wikingerzeit’, in K. Brandt,
M. Müller-Wille and C. Radtke (eds) Haithabu und die frühe Stadtentwicklung im nördlichen
Europa, Neumünster: K. Wachholtz.
Ambrosiani, B. and Clarke, H. ( 1991 ) Towns in the Viking Age, London and New York: Leicester
University Press.
Arbman, H. ( 1937 ) Schweden und das karolingische Reich, Stockholm: KVHAA.
Bäck, M. ( 1997 ) ‘No island is a society: regional and interregional interaction in central Sweden
during the Viking Age’, in H. Andersson, P. Carelli and L. Ersgård (eds) Visions of the Past.
Trends and Traditions in Swedish Medieval Archaeology (Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology
19 ), Stockholm: Raä.
–– chapter 9 : Local and long-distance exchange––