Viking Era

Viking Era/ Way of Thinking

Vikings were Farmers/ FishermanWore normal clothing at the timeTowns of Vikings were not common due to them being farmers.Nearly all houses and workshops were made of timber. They were long and rectangular. The roofs were made of reeds or straw thatch. Other than at a blacksmith’s forge, there were no chimneys, only openings to allow smoke from the hearth to escape. The interior was only lit by oil lanterns.Bought Salt from merchants“People busied themselves with work such as cooking, drying, salting, smoking and pickling food, tanning leather, blacksmithing, or scouring and dyeing cloth.”

“The one that was buried with his spear, was above average, namely 177 cm high. The second - beheaded and tied on the feet - was only 171 cm high. The tomb is interpreted as a gentleman whose manservant had to follow him in death.”Property was owned even after death. Material things were important for all.

Raided many lands (includes Ireland, Greenland Normandy, England, Kiev, Ect...) Spreading their influence throughout the lands. They took land from the raided cities to buckle down and create their own farms.

“Several archaeological finds have revealed tweezers, combs, nail cleaners, ear cleaners and toothpicks from the Viking Age," says Louise Kæmpe Henriksen, a curator at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde.”“They were – according to their country’s customs in the habit of combing their hair every day, to bathe every Saturday, to change their clothes frequently and to draw attention to themselves by means of many such frivolous whims. In this way, they sieged the married women’s virtue and persuaded the daughters of even noble men to become their mistresses,” wrote Wallingford.”

The Vikings had a system of writing called runes (in Old Norse, "rune" meant "secret knowledge and wisdom"). Runes carved into stone, which lasts longer than wood or bone, were intended to mark boundaries, glorify an ancestor’s bravery in battle, or to record stories called sagas. Viking history was generally not written but passed down the generations by word of mouth in verse stories called sagas.