CHAPTER TEN

COINAGE AND

MONETARY ECONOMIES

Svein H. Gullbekk

W

hen Scandinavians travelling outwards initiated the Viking Age in the eighth
century, theirs was a society without coinage, towns or states. Three centuries
later, in the mid-eleventh century, Viking society was familiar with coinage and towns,
and possessed emerging states within a framework of Christianity. Without docu-
mentary evidence of any significance, the archaeological and numismatic evidence
represents the building blocks for research on coinage and the monetary history of the
Viking Age. Coins have been found in greater numbers, with a wider geographical
distribution and continuity than any other objects in the Viking world. Viking coinage
is first and foremost perceived as silver pennies issued in the names of such renowned
Viking kings as Eirik Bloodaxe in York and Dublin ( 948 and 952 – 4 ), and Sven Fork-
beard (c. 985 – 1014 ), Olof Skötkonung (c. 995 – 1022 ), Olaf Tryggvason ( 995 – 1000 ),
Olaf Haraldsson (the Saint) ( 1015 – 28 ), Cnut the Great ( 1016 – 35 , king of England
1018 – 35 ), Harthacnut ( 1035 – 42 , king of England 1040 – 2 ), Magnus the Good ( 1042 –
7 ), Sven Estridsen ( 1047 – 74 ) and Harald Hardrade ( 1047 – 66 ) at different Scandinavian
mints. All of these kings played key roles in the introduction and development of coinage
within the Viking world, as was also the case for anonymous Nordic coinages of the
ninth and tenth centuries in Haithabu and Ribe and the Scandinavian imitations of
Anglo-Saxon pennies from c. 990 to the 1020 s in Lund and Sigtuna (Figure 10. 1 – 10. 4 ).
Money and its use in the Viking world have been commented upon by anthro-
pologists, archaeologists, ethnologists, historians and numismatists, and where there are
many experts there are different opinions. Viking society has been described as one of
gift-giving and as a status-oriented economy; in this view the coins found were brought
to Scandinavia and immediately deposited in the ground. If coins were used it was rather
in social contexts as part of a gift economy, or a redistributive economy, or that they
were mainly melted down and used for the production of jewellery. Other scholars
believe that the many coins found only represent a tiny fraction of what was once in use,
and that money was widely distributed, and used for small-scale transactions, in some
places on a daily basis. The use of coins in the Viking world has thus been connected
with raiding and looting, tribute and taxation, ritual deposit, gift-giving and long-
distance, regional and local trade.
Much research has been undertaken into the study of coinage in the Viking Age, less