character almost up to the time when its inhabitants started raiding the coasts of these
kingdoms and of Ireland, and penetrating into the Slavonic areas in the Baltic.
This basically rural character was maintained throughout the period and also in the
following centuries in spite of urban communities being established in increasing
numbers through the Viking Age. At any time during the Middle Ages less than 10 per
cent of the Scandinavian population lived in towns. In the late Viking Age the figure
was around 1 – 2 per cent. In the early Viking Age, in the ninth century, a total of only
around 3 , 000 – 4 , 000 lived in the four towns of this time: Birka in the land of the
Swedes, Ribe, Kaupang and Hedeby in what was then the Danish kingdom. Far the
largest of these was Hedeby, which had more inhabitants than the other three counted
together. These four towns will be the main focus in the following, but the urban
development in the later Viking Age – the eleventh century – will also be touched
upon.
The modest size and number of towns should not lead one to underestimate their
importance. Towns played an important role in the transformation of the Scandinavian
tribal communities of the pre-Viking Age period to the three kingdoms of the late
Viking Age. They were also the main arenas for the development of legislation and
economic practices in the expanding trade of the period. Craft production underwent
major changes in the Viking Age and the establishment of towns was the main
condition for this development.
An urban community is composed of people whose main occupation is non-agrarian.
Basically they do not produce their own food; they depend on achieving it from the
surrounding rural society (Reynolds 1977 : ix–x; Clarke and Ambrosiani 1995 : 3 ;
Pallister 2000 : 5 ). The typical activities of towns in the Viking Age were craft produc-
tion and trade. But these were not purely urban activities, in the sense that they took
place exclusively in towns. Trade and craft also existed in rural societies before the
Viking Age and continued to do so after towns were established (Callmer 1994 ). It is
the dense and permanent settlements inhabited mainly by people who perform these
activities that are the hallmark of the Viking Age town. In the late Viking Age, when
kings and Church started settling in the towns, bringing with them their courts and
clerks, towns also became administrative centres for kingdoms and dioceses, and for the
areas immediately surrounding each town.
TWO WAVES OF URBANISATIONThe first town to emerge was Birka, the town of the Swedes, established in the mid- or
second half of the 700 s. Birka was located on a small island, near the middle of Lake
Mälaren, the main transport route of that region. Thereafter, three towns were founded
in rapid succession within the realm of the Danish king. The first was Ribe, founded in
the 790 s. The site had been a seasonal marketplace since the first decade of that century,
but permanent settlement did not start until the last decade. Like the two other towns of
the Danish kingdom it lay in a cultural, political and economic border zone. This south-
western part of the kingdom lay closest to south-eastern England and the north-western
Carolingian Empire, where towns and trade flourished at the time. The Frisians in par-
ticular were active in the seaborne trade and Ribe was a part of their trade network.
Kaupang was established c. 800 in the north-western corner of the Danish realm, in
Vestfold in present-day Norway, on the border with the Northmen (Skre 2007 a). A few
–– Dagfinn Skre––