Silver, Butter, Cloth

Abstract

This book advances current debate about the nature and complexity of Viking economic systems. It explores how silver and other commodities were used in monetary and social economies across the Scandinavian world of the Viking Age (c.AD 800–1100) before and alongside the wide-scale introduction of coinage. Through a multidisciplinary approach that unites archaeological, numismatic, and metallurgical analyses, it examines the uses and sources of silver in both monetary and social transactions, addressing topics such as silver fragmentation, hoarding, and coin production and reuse. It also goes beyond silver, giving the first detailed consideration of the monetary role of butter, cloth, and gold in the Viking economy. Indeed, the book is instrumental in developing methodologies to identify such commodity-monies in the archaeological record. The use of silver and other commodities within Viking economies is a dynamic field of study, fuelled by important recent discoveries across the Viking world. The fourteen contributions to this book, by a truly international group of scholars, draw on newly available archaeological data from eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the North Atlantic, and the British Isles and Ireland, to present the latest, original research. Together, they deepen understanding of Viking monetary and social economies and advance new definitions of ‘economy’, ‘currency’, and ‘value’ in the ninth to eleventh centuries.