Everyone knows, or thinks they know, something about the Vikings, the roving nomadic Nordic warriors of the Middle Ages, but actual facts are sometimes hard to come by, especially since not all Vikings were alike.
Some new research has put a point to that last fact, indicating significant differences between Vikings from Denmark and Norway in that period, focusing especially on issues of violence.
Long story short: Watch out for Norwegians at home and on the warpath. “Violence was much more widespread in Norwegian society in the Viking Age than in Denmark,” according to work shared among the University of Oslo, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of South Florida. They noted that “It was very noticeable to the people who lived here. The risk of dying from violence was simply much greater in Norway than in Denmark.”
Examination of Viking Age skeletons in the two countries found that remains uncovered in Norway were far more likely to show evidence of cuts and blows than the Danish ones; more than a third of the Norwegian skeletons indicated death by violence, compared to 6% in Denmark.
Also, they found, swords and weapons were much more common among grave goods found in Norway. Researchers consider some of the difference might be related to societal organization, with Norway’s Vikings focused on family and clan, while in Denmark more emphasis was placed on the interests of society as a whole.
For those whose towns and cities along other coasts were raided by Vikings, however, it is likely that the Vikings’ country of origin made much difference.
