HST 584 Lecture : Week 9 - The Vikings
13 Dec 2011
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Document Summary
The term refers to anyone who lived in that period. Kingdom included all of modern denmark , and part of northern germany, and a bit of south sweden. Sweden is the location we know least about, they were not a united kingdom. Norway was divided into clans or tribes, wasn"t a united kingdom until about 900. The area was hard to farm the further north you went. The other main activity was fishing, or seal and walrus hunting. Most trading was a small business, there wasn"t any large scale trading. Freyr was the god of wealth, health and fertility. Did not have a good understanding of the afterlife. Dead warriors went to valhalla, taken there by the valkyries. Not much indication about afterlife for normal people. Began to realize that the places they traveled to were full of riches. They figured they could just steal rather than trade.
