THE CRAFTSPEOPLEIn Viking Age society it is difficult to recognise when a craft became so complicated,
economically important or exclusive that it required professional specialists. To identify
these specialists is problematic as there is no real evidence for a guild system, or similar,
that can help us. This society, with very few towns, looked completely different com-
pared to the late medieval one, where numbers of craftspeople lived permanently in a
number of towns.
One of the most prominent finds related to crafts is the Mästermyr chest found on the
island of Gotland. This chest contained a complete set of tools for a craftsperson. One
of the most interesting features in the find is the variety of the objects. They show that
the person who owned the objects was not only a blacksmith, but also a carpenter, and
someone who could melt bronze and deal with precious metals. This chest is evidence
that at least some craftspeople had a wide range of skills. The true specialists were
probably quite few.
Some people in the Viking Age can in some degree be identified with crafts since they
were buried with tools. For example, a number of male graves with smithing tools have
been interpreted as smiths’ graves. A problem is that some of these graves contain not
only a number of smiths’ or carpenters’ tools, but they are also high-status burials with
much of everything: weapons, horse equipment, vessels and cooking utensils, a large
number of sacrificed animals etc. These persons can be identified with many things:
warfare, hunting, lordship etc. To say that these high-status persons were more crafts-
people than others is difficult and not very likely. These graves have primarily been
found in Norway and Sweden. There are no certain ways to identify the specialists
among the craftspeople and determine their rank in society.
THE CRAFTSScandinavian craftspeople were capable of dealing with almost all materials available:
wood, textiles, bone, antler and metals. Perhaps the most important limitation lay
within the treatment of stone. In the Christian hemisphere, the Roman tradition of
building stone constructions with mortar had been upheld, primarily for the building of
churches. Building with mortar and the cutting of ashlar did not reach Scandinavia until
some time after Christianisation. In Denmark the first stone church was erected in 1026 ,
probably by a British master (Liebgott 1989 : 119 ).
Stoneworking is not likely to have been a very prominent craft in most parts of
Scandinavia. The exception is probably in those parts where quarrying was important.
Most well known is the quarrying of soapstone in Norway and on the Swedish west
coast. This soft type of rock could be shaped into vessels. Parts of these have been found
in many places in Scandinavia. Another craft that seems to increase during the Viking
Age is the production of whetstones and querns made primarily of slate and sandstone.
Production areas of these materials have been found in Norway, central Sweden and the
island of Öland, Sweden. By the end of the Viking Age the number of raised runestones
increased dramatically. Many of the runestone carvers were amateurs, but from the
evidence that comes from the carvers’ signatures, it is apparent that some of them
became specialists in the art of chiselling ornaments and runes. Curiously this was a
–– chapter 13 : Handicrafts––