VIKING LEGACY

A Cornerstone of World Civilization

Indisputably the most popular form of government in the modern world is democracy, with its freedom of speech, of religion, expression, and organization – most especially individual liberty. Research over several decades has documented the fact that the most advanced forms of social freedom to date have developed in the Scandinavian countries of the northern hemisphere. Women’s equality in Scandinavia is also far advanced in comparison with various other societies around the world. One piece of evidence of this fact is foreign immigration into Scandinavia for the purpose of benefiting from the social and political rights Scandinavians have enjoyed since the 19th century. In light of this, one might inquire whether democracy is a product of the last few centuries in Scandinavia, or whether it has other, deeper roots. 

When it comes to forms of democracy, the dominant conception in modern media and education, be it television or other forms, is that democracy is a cultural inheritance that arose in Greek antiquity, beginning around 500 B.C. There is no doubt that classical democracy, as a concept and a form of government, was an advanced product of Greek antiquity. But Athenian democracy ended around 400 B.C., and was primarily taken up as an intellectual challenge by European elites after the 16th Century A.D.. Is it possible to demonstrate other – and deeper – roots for modern democratic development in the world, roots underestimated until now? Might the answer be found in the history of the Scandinavian lands, where democracy has achieved its highest development in our times? 

Vikings and democracy: an impossibility? 

If we look back over Scandinavian history, we note that the Scandinavian countries share a common past in the Viking Age (itself a relatively modern concept) 1,000 years ago.  

We would also point out that for many years the Viking Age has enjoyed – and continues to enjoy – a very central position in international historical conceptions, in books, magazines, television, and other electronic media. 

Every year new literature on this period appears – a sure sign of the central place it holds in world culture. Nevertheless, most people associate the Vikings with warfare, violence, aggression, and ruthless brutality – not at all with democracy. Compared with other civilizations of world history, the Vikings have been stereotyped as primitive and barbaric. In one extreme case, the opinion was expressed that the Vikings could be compared to the German Waffen SS. The author of that statement thought that Scandinavians have much to apologize for. Such opinions are an expression, more than anything else, of historical ignorance. 

What was the Vikings’ contribution to world history? 
The Vikings were brutal warriors, but certainly no more so than warriors from outside their Scandinavian homeland. The worst modern societies display a barbarism that eclipses the Vikings raids of a thousand years ago. This is a good reason for examining more closely the specific culture of the Vikings. What was their distinctive contribution to world history, beyond the same kind of violence that has characterized most societies throughout history? In order to do that, we need to focus on the way the Scandinavians organized their culture. And here we discover a couple of remarkable facts: 

-An important explanatory factor: Scandinavia escaped Roman rule  
While the Romans were occupying country after country in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and Europe with extreme brutality, Scandinavia remained outside Rome’s sphere of oppression as well as its linguistic and cultural dominance. Latin stifled many of the languages and cultural expressions of the conquered peoples. The year A.D. 9 marks a milestone in this regard. It may well be that Norway was fortunate to be located outside the military and cultural orbit of Rome. If Norway had lain within the area of Roman hegemony, the soul of the Norse system – the Thing – would have been obliterated from the European map, destroying a fundamental foundation for democracy. But that did not happen – which is why you hold this book in your hand.  

-After the Greeks – the new European democratic forms: the Things  
Over hundreds of years, Scandinavians independently developed their own systems of government, language, culture, technology, and religion, based on assumptions of their own. Scandinavia was by no means isolated from wider European influences, but it did escape foreign rule. One of the most distinctive elements was their method of organizing their society – through the ting (Thing), the assembly of the free men and some women (widows of farmers or merchants). 

Historical studies of the Viking Age reveal that women in Scandinavia held a relatively high status, especially before the introduction of Christianity with its belief in the inferiority of women and disdain for any self-reliant role for the female sex in society. While visiting the thriving town of Hedeby in 950, an Arab merchant named A-Tartushi was suiteably impressed by the Viking women he came across. He was astonished by their degree of independence and that they from childhood were encouraged to be self-reliant and resourceful. And that they could sue for divorce and had the right to claim back their dowry. The introduction of the Church around the 11th century reduced the influence of women in society. However, over several centuries pagan Scandinavian society had established women’s rights as historical mentalites which could not be easily pushed away by the Church. Also, honor killings of women were not customary in Scandinavian culture such as that which still prevails in some Islamic countries and moslem communities in Europe. This relatively free stature of women also had an influence on the Things. 

The oldest physical traces of these democratically-oriented fora are found in Norway in the courtyard sites, 27 locations in all, scattered from south to north mainly along the coastline from Rogaland to Hålogaland. The oldest of these is estimated by archaeologists to date from before the Christian era. Based on Rimbert’s unique chronicle of St. Ansgar (ca. 850), we may assume that these correspond to the physical assembly arenas in Sweden described as “fields.” 

-Scandinavia also escaped the “new” Romans – the Frankish empire  

When Charlemagne’s empire appeared on the scene, beginning in the 760s, he conquered ever larger regions of Europe. At the same time he inaugurated a Christian regime with sword in hand. But for around 200 years, Scandinavia remained outside the power of the Frankish emperors, continuously developing its own religion, culture, and language on its own terms – in contrast to the Saxons, who were forcibly deprived of their own Thing-system and their heathen religion. When the Scandinavians in their turn entered voluntarily into the community of European nations in the 12th and 13th centuries by way of the Catholic Church, it was with a cultural self-confidence based on a tradition of self-reliance extending back before the birth of Christ, something we may observe in the cultural assurance of the saga writers. 

How can we know? 
We still possess few sources through which we may study the Scandinavians’ thoughts and their development of their own culture in detail. But the Old Norse saga writings of the 13th century, especially the kings’ sagas, brought about a European information revolution for the historical understanding of the Scandinavians. In these works we encounter the political, cultural, and religious ideas of the Scandinavians in their own Old Norse language.  

Meanwhile, literacy came late to Scandinavian historians – about 1,500 years after the Greeks. The Norse source material came into being in a way entirely unique in world history. While most civilizations have been, through the ages, strongly hierarchical, and have had to defer to the demands of the officers of emperors, kings, and popes, who determined from above how the record ought to be shaped, the Norse sources, primarily from Iceland, emerged “from the bottom up.” They arose in a society without a king or military power, through a pluralistic folk memory process within local communities, among freeholding farmers. The authors were not foreign, imperial or ecclesiastical bureaucrats, but educated people who were integrally involved in the community and the rural families of which they wrote. Again, Norse society profited from never having been subject to the centralizing demands of the Roman Empire. Instead it was founded on a relatively egalitarian social order. For far too long, these Norse sources have been ignored because the majority of historians world-wide seem to lack insight into the nature of oral cultures. The sticking point was that the sources had often been transcribed up to 350 years after the actual events. Today we understand better that up until the 13th century, Scandinavian history was preserved substantially through the living oral mnemonic techniques which are utilized in pre-literate cultures. 

What the Sagas tell us 
This book takes the view that saga literature provides crucial resources for understanding Viking society and thought. Through the sagas we have access to valuable information about their political system, the Thing-system. We are thus able to study its role, its functions, and its development – and we discover that the conventional view that European democracy arose from Athens is a dubious one – because the political system of the Vikings has been excluded from the whole world of public knowledge.  

Thus, if we regard the political system of the Vikings from a global perspective, we realize that the development of the most enduring democratic forms of government in the world originates in Scandinavia – a region which continues to possess the world’s most developed and stable democracies, combined with a unique level of individual freedom. This comprehensive state of liberty is unique in the history of the world. For hundreds of years Iceland and Norway were laboratories of freedom for democratic culture – two societies in a reciprocal dynamic, as described in the sagas. It remains a historical fact that in spite of their extreme wealth, impressive technology, armies, literature, jewellery, and beautiful arts, none of the great world empires, whether in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, or the Americas, were ever able to develop such democratic forms as were founded and continued early on in Scandinavia. Thus we may postulate that the greatest legacy of the Vikings is the development of democratic forms of government. This is the theme of this book. 

*** 

The Viking legacy may be examined especially through the medieval kings’ sagas, which mainly focus on political developments in Norway. Through Norwegian history we may most nearly and comprehensively approach the mainstream society of the Viking Age, along with the political dynamics described by the sagas. In this way we are enabled to understand that the heart of The Viking Legacy is one of the most important elements in the cultural heritage of the world – the rugged journey to individual freedom. Through the saga depictions of Norwegian political struggles, this book will describe in detail how democratic elements developed from the 9th to the 11th centuries – in constant tension with authoritarian kings and impulses. Just as ancient Greece is the key to understanding the origins of democracy in the world, Norway and Iceland are the key to appreciating the further development of democracy in history.  

Torgrim Titlestad, April 2018