'The way from the Varangians to the Greeks'
The migrations and tribal movements south of the Baltic coast during the fourth to sixth centuries disrupted traditional routes between Scandinavia and central and southern Europe, or at least made them dangerous to use. The Oder and Vistula routes to the Danubian countries and to the Balkans and ultimately to Byzantium were no longer the safe highways they had been during the first century AD. In the mid-six century, communications between Scandinavia and Byzantium along these routes broke down or were at least greatly reduced. It was some time before the Scandinavians became aware of the new situation and could begin to make arrangements with the new Slav tribes and kingdoms, but numerous archaeological finds show that this had been accomplished by the eighth century. Trade formed the basis of these new relations. The stage was set by about 700 when the new ethnic groups had established themselves in their territories south of the Baltic. The economic boom in these areas and the emergence of a class structure within the Slave tribes were also important factors.
Markets and industrial centers would often grow up next to the forts of the tribal leaders and nobility, from the second half of the eighth century onwards. In the kingdom of the Obodrites the trading port of Reric was of great importance. Its exact location is not entirely clear, but most of the evidence points to its being at Mecklenburg and situated in the immediate vicinity of the royal fort. Already at the beginning of the ninth century there were traders here. This settlement was attacked by the Danish king Godfred in 808 and the merchants were abducted and forced to settle in Hedeby. Soon afterwards the Obodrite king was treacherously assassinated by Godfred's men in his own trading settlement of Reric.
There is no mention in our main source, the Frankish annals, of the nationality or number of these merchants. It is not unlikely that there were Saxons, Franks and Frisians among them, as Mecklenburg and its hinterland was the Baltic town closest to the Frankish kingdom. This does not exclude the possibility of Reric having become the main Frankish access point to the Baltic after the conquest of the Saxons by Charlemagne, assisted by the Obodrites, around 800. Relations between the Frankish emperor and the Obodrite leaders were very close in the decades around 800, due to the common Saxo-Danish enemy. The numerous finds of hoards with Arab coins are evidence of the importance of the trading settlement at Mecklenburg-Reric even at this early date.
Oldenburg (known as Starigard by the Slavs, and Brandehuse by the Scandinavians) was another trading centre in the territory of the Obodrites. In the eleventh century it was acknowledged as a civitas maritima. Excavations in Oldenburg itself and its Wagrian hinterland have brought to light a large number of goods of Scandinavian origin.
The trading centre of the Wilti was situated on the lower Peene near present-day Menzlin. Excavations here have revealed occupation levels with numerous imported artefacts as well as a cemetery containing some burials in boat-shaped stone settings. This burial type is alien to the Slav tradition and indicates the presence of Danes or Swedes who found their last resting place here. Their graves form an integral part of the cemetery, so one must assume that the Scandinavians were accepted as inhabitants of the town. But clearly they were in a minority: the predominant material remains are indigenous and Slav. Both in the settlement and in the cemetery, moreover, the evidence is purely of traders and craftsmen – there are no weapons. Weapons have, however, been found at a nearby settlement of the same date, located some 100 meters away on the river Peene. It is clear that this was the military and political centre, and that the port had grown up in its vicinity.
In recent years extensive excavations have. Taken place in Rügen, especially at Arkona and Ralswiek. At Arkona there is already evidence of connections with Scandinavia and north-west Europe in the ninth century. Among the finds was a merchant’s hoard consisting of knives, axes, arrowheads, metal ornaments for drinking cups and a gilded bronze plaque bearing the sun motif, a symbol which probably originated in either Scandinavia or Ireland. The fort at Arkona was the Rugians religious centre. Many trading and market activities were associated with the harvest ceremony. The Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus gives a lively description of this festival, albeit later than the ninth century:
Once a year, after the harvest, all the people of the island gathered in front of the temple of the idol and, having sacrificed an animal, partook of a ceremonial meal dedicated to their religion. It was the custom that the priest, distinguished by his beard and long hair, should on the previous day carefully sweep the temple, which only he may enter, whit a broom. He took care not to breathe out inside the temple and each time he had to take a breath or breathe out he ran outside so as not to defile the idol whit mortal breath. On the following day when the people were gathered outside he examined the cup which he had removed from the idol with care. If there was less liquid that before he took it as an omen of a bad harvest the following year, in which case he ordered that the present harvest be stored in the temple. If all the liquid was still there he would prophesy times of plenty in the fields. In accordance whit the prophecy he would admonish the people to be either more careful or more generous during the coming year. After he had emptied the old liquid on the ground in front of the idol’s feet he refilled the cup. When he had honored the idol by pretending to drink to it, he prayed in solemn language, both on behalf of himself and the country, for wealth and victory for the inhabitants. When he finished his speech he emptied the cup in great gulps and replaced it in the safe-keeping of the idol. An offering was also made of an almost man-size round cake made of honey. The priest placed the cake between himself and the people and then asked them if they could see him. If they replied that they could, he expressed the wish that next year he would be completely hidden by it.
Every man and woman had to pay a coin to the idol every year for the maintenance of the cult. The idol was also granted a third of all captured booty, since it had been gained with its help. The god also had 300 specially selected horses and their riders in his service and any treasure they obtained, be it in war or though robbery, was placed at the disposal of the priest. He then had various cult objects and temple ornaments made from the proceeds. He kept then in locked rooms which contained not only a great deal of money but also a number of purple robes decayed by age…
Apart from all this the idol also owned a white horse and it was regarded as sacrilege to pull hairs out of its mane or tail. To ensure that the sacred horse did not lose its prestige through frequent use only the priest had the right to groom and mount it. The Rugians believed that Svantevit, for this is the idol’s name, wages war on the enemies of his sanctuaries on this horse. Sometimes, although it had been in its stable all night, the horse was found covered I sweat and dirt as if it had traveled a long way; this was regarded as specially significant. The horse was also used for prophecies.
Reconstruction of the town gate of Arkona. The wooden door occupied a gap in the earth rampart. It was surmounted by a tower, making any attack on the gate itself extremely hazardous. The top of the tower, for which no evidence exists, is not reconstructed.
Excavation results and the analysis of the animal bones show that feasts such as that described above were already held in Arkona at a much earlier date. There is also evidence of intermittent visit by traders from ninth century onwards. But the settlement there seems never to have been permanently occupied.
That at Ralswiek, in the center of the island of Rugen, however, certainly was a permanent settlement. It was founded in the eighth century, and was on the sea route to the mouth of the Oder and the countries of the eastern Baltic. At that time all navigation hugged the coast. At Ralswiek a settlement consisting on an island like hill between the bay of Jasmund and a lake which today has silted up. Anchorages for ships were constructed on the lake ward side by digging channels from the lake to individual house-plots and by building jetties of piles and planks, some of which supported buildings. Seventeen of these berths have been identified to date.
The farmsteads consisted of one main house and other smaller buildings, some of which served as workshops for producing antler and bone artifacts, iron, wood, amber and, in some places, glass and silver goods. In the different settlement layers were numerous imports from Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, including Norwegian soapstone, annular brooches from Gotland, and disc brooches from Sweden. But the most spectacular find was a silver hoard consisting of 2270 Arab coins, mostly from central Asia or Arabia (the largest number of pre-850 Arab coins so far discovered in the Baltic), and a bracelet of Perm type. They were in a woven basket in a house dated to the mid-ninth century. Probably belonging to a merchant permanently resident at Ralswiek, the hoard seems to have come from Bulgar on the Volga by way of Staraja Ladoga and the, southern Baltic route.
From Ralswiek, too, three sea-going ships dated to the period 900-1100 are known. The best preserved is 14m long, 3.4m wide and could carry about 9 tons of cargo - that is, roughly the same as ship no. 3 from Skuldelev in Denmark, which is dated to the early eleventh century.
So far over four hundred tumuli have been identifed at Ralswiek, of which nearly two hundred have been excavated. Certain differences in grave-goods indicate that even in Ralswiek foreign merchants, probably Scandinavians, lived alongside the native Slav merchants and craftsmen. Ralswiek was in the vicinity of the old tribal centre and the fort of the ruler of the Rügen Slavs at Rugard near Bergen.
Raiswiek, on the island of Rugen, Here, at the end of the eighth century, between an inlet (A) and a now dried-up creek (B), a settlement of about twenty houses (C) was established. Each house had its own jetty (D). Three boats were found slightly to the south (E). On the higher ground nearby were over 400 burial mounds and graves (F), of which more than 150 have been excavated.
We have seen that there were also trading centers at the mouth of the Oder, at Menzlin, and (from the latter half of the ninth century) at Wolin and Szczecin. During the tenth century Wolin became pre-eminent and in the eleventh was known as a metropolis throughout northern Europe. Adam of Bremen gives the following description of it: 'It is truly the greatest of all towns in Europe; Slavs and other tribes, Greeks and Barbarians live there; even strangers from Saxony have been granted equal terms of residence . . . For the town is filled with goods from all the northern countries and nothing desirable or rare is lacking . . .' Archaeological evidence from Menzlin and Ralswiek confirms that foreign merchants were permitted to reside and trade alongside the native merchants and craftsmen. Excavations over many years have elucidated the main development of the settlement to Wolin.
Menzlin, an important Slav trading settlement at the mouth of the Oder (A). Here the town (D) was situated where dry subsoil (B) met wet (C). The burial mounds (E) are on higher ground behind.
Another trading settlement which had colonies of foreign merchants or craftsmen grew up at the old salt centre of Kolobrzeg. At the mouth of the Vistula, on the borderlands between the Slavs and Baltic tribes the Prussian trading settlement of Trusa - known to us from the writings of the English king Alfred the Great –flourished in the ninth century. It must have been of some considerable importance as Wulfstan, a farmer and warrior merchant from northern Norway, sailed directly there from Hedeby without calling at any Slav, Danish or Swedish ports on the way: Similar settlements were situated on the lower Niemen and Dvina. An important trade route to the upper Dnjeper and on to Byzantium followed the Dvina.
Important trading settlements grew up along the route from the Baltic to Byzantium and on to the land of the Bulgars and central Asia. On Lake Ladoga stood Staraja Ladoga, a joint Finno-Ugrian Slav settlement, probably visited by western Slav, Scandinavian and Frisian merchants as early as the eighth century. Soviet scholars even hold that Frisian craftsmen lived here. From Staraja Ladoga one went on to the upper Volga and central Asia. Bulgar, situated at the confluence of the Kama and Volga rivers, was the capital of the kingdom of the Volga-Bulgarians and a meeting place for merchants from the Arab and the Baltic countries. Here goods from the Baltic and the Arab world were exchanged; it was rare for either party to venture further. An Arab geographer, Mohammed Mugaddosi, writing about 985, says: 'Sable, deer skin, ermine, steppe fox, fox, beaver skins, colorful pheasants, goat skins, wax, arrows, birch bark, coins, fish bones, fish teeth, castorum, amber, shagreen, honey, hazelnuts, hawks, swords, armor, maple wood, Slav slaves, small livestock and cattle: all these things come from Bulgar.' Already sixty years earlier, about 921/922, the Arab geographer ibn Hauqal had witnessed in person the trading in Bulgar. He traveled in a caravan of 5,000 men and 3,000 horses, donkeys and camels which covered the 1,250 miles from Chorezm on the Oxus (now the Amu-Darya) to Bulgar in under two months. In Bulgar he met Rus' merchants who were selling furs 'from the Scandinavian countries of Gog and Magog'. From another of ibn Hauqal's books we know that some of the merchants from Chorezm even continued beyond Bulgar and the Volga route as far as Scandinavia.
Other Arab merchants reached central and northern Europe from Islamic Spain. One of these was Ibrahim ibn Jacub who described a journey of around 965 which touched at Hedeby, Mecklenburg, Magdeburg, Prague and other places. His account includes a description of the Polish kingdom and the land of the Obodrites:
To the west the land of Nakon [the king of the Obodrites] borders Saxony and some of the Danes. His land has so many horses that they are exported. They [the Obodrites] have complete sets of arms, that is coats of armor, helmets and swords… The fort [i.e. Nakon’s fort] is called Wiligrad which means the big fort…
As for the land of Mescheqqo [the Polish king] it is the largest of their lands and it is rich in grain, meat honey and fish. Taxes are paid to him m coined money and this is used to keep his soldiers, each man receiving a set sum every month. He has 3,000 men-at-arms and 100 of them are the equivalent of 10,000 others. He provides the soldiers with cloches, steeds, weapons and all that they need. . .
On the basis of these various snippets of information, Arab geographers made the first maps of eastern and northern Europe, noting down important towns and routes and above all river and sea communications. Only one collection of such maps survives, that made in broad the twelfth century at the court of Emperor Frederick II in Sicily by the Arab geographer Al Idrisi.
The northern trading settlements struck Arab merchants, used to the richness and variety of Arab bazaars, as poorly equipped and lacking in refinements. Ibrahim ibn Jacub wrote as follows of Hedeby: 'Schleswig is a very large town situated at the farthest limit of the ocean . . . The town bas a dearth both of merchandise and the blessings of nature. . . Fish, of which there is an abundance, is the staple food of the inhabitants . . . Never have I heard less pleasing song than that of Schleswig; it is a kind of growling emitted from the throat like the barking of a dog . . .' Yet for all their northern desolation and lack of social amenities, these south Baltic trading towns were for the Scandinavians the gateway to another world – western Europe, the Danube, Byzantium, central Asia and the Arab countries. And just as the southern merchants passed through them on the way north, so the northerners did, before setting forth on one of the great trade routes to the south and east.
Political control over these trade routes varied. Sometimes they existed in a power vacuum, and were independent communities under their own merchant warriors, who extorted tribute from the surrounding area. Some were so well established that foreign traders not only lived in them for long periods, but died and were buried. We have a very vivid and detailed description by the Arab chronicler ibn Fadlan of the funeral of a merchant of the Scandinavian Rus'. The dead man's ship is dragged ashore and propped up with stakes. Horses, a dog and a hen are sacrificed. Much of the ritual is directed by an old woman called the Angel of Death. On the ship's deck a tent is pitched. The body is laid in it and a slave-girl volunteers to die with him:
Then some men came who had shields and sticks, and they handed her a beaker of liquor; she sang over it and drank it up. The interpreter told me: Now with this she is bidding farewell to all her friends. Next, another beaker was handed " to her; she took It, and made her singing long drawn out; but " the old woman hurried her, to make her drink It up and go into the tent where her master was. I was watching her, and she looked quite dazed; she tried to go into the tent, but stuck her head between it and the ship’s side. Then the old woman took her by the hand and led her into the tent, and the old woman herself went inside with her. The men then began to beat their shields whit sticks, so that no sound of her shierieking should be heard, for fear other girls should become frightened and not want to seek to die whit their master. Then six man went into the tent, and all made love with her.
After this they laid her beside her dead master; two held her legs and two her hands, and the woman called the Angel of Death wound a cord with knotted ends round her neck, passing the ends out on either side and handing them to the two men to pull. Then she stepped forward with a broad-bladed dagger, and began to drive it in and pluck it out again between the girl's ribs, while the two men choked her with the cord, and so she died.
After this, whoever was the closest kinsman of the dead man came forward. He cook a wooden stick and set light to it; then he walked backwards, with his back to the ship and his face to the people, holding the stick in one hand and with the other hand laid on his backside; he was naked. By this means, the wood they had put just under the ship was set on tire, immediately after they had laid the slave-girl they had killed beside her master. Then the people came forward with wood and timber; each brought a stick with its tip on fire and threw it on the wood lying under the ship, so chat the flames cook hold, first on the wood, and then on the ship, and then on the tent and the man and the woman and everything inside the ship. There upon a strong, fierce wind arose, so that the flames grew stronger and the tire blazed even more. . . not much time passed before the ship and the timber and the slave-girl and her master had all turned into ashes and so into dust.
After this, on the spot where the ship had first Iain when they dragged it up from the river, they built something that looked like a round mound. In the middle of it they set up a big post of birch wood, on which they wrote the name of this man and the name of the king of the Rus'; then they went on their way.
Similar scenes were no doubt enacted in Gnezdowo-Smolensk, Staraja Ladoga, Beloezero, Novgorod, Truso, Swielubie, Menzlin and Birka, where Frisians, Finns and Slavs lived and were buried among the Swedes. The trading settlements on the coast and along the Continental trade routes were intertribal centers. It was here that people of different tribal and ethnic origin met and that cultural traits were exchanged. But within the tribal areas, where a strong political and social structure already existed, the development of these centers depended upon stable conditions in the host country. Here the trading settlements were in the first instance dependencies of their respective hinterlands. Hedeby remained a Danish town despite its multinational population; in the same way Reric-Mecklenburg was Obodrite, Wolin a town of the Wolin Slavs; Truso, Prussian; Staraja Ladoga, Slav and Finno-Ugrian; and Novgorod an international mercantile centre of the Ilmen Slavs.