Viking Life

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Viking Life

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Viking Life

• When we use the term Viking many people think
  of savage men attacking and killing innocent
  people
• Although there is some truth in this view, there
  is also evidence to show that they were highly
  skilled craftspeople and farmers who often led
  peaceful lives in well ordered communities

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Jarlshof- Viking farm

• Violent storms ripped open a cliff at Sumburgh at
  the end of the 19th century to reveal a large
  settlement
• Before 800AD a family had uprooted from Norway to
  make a new life

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Jarlshof- Viking farm

• The dig revealed the other side of Viking
  life-peaceful
• They found paintings of people working the land,
  fishing and dress wear, cooking utensils

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The Viking city of Jorvik (york)

• The captured the city in 866 and turned it into a
  great trading centre
• Excavations suggest there may have been more than
  2000 houses

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Viking houses

• Most people lived on farms. Their houses were
  built of wood, stone or blocks of turf, with
  thatched or turf roofs.
• Jorvik (modern York) was an important town in
  Viking Britain. Its houses were built of wood or
  wattle, crowded close together along narrow
  streets.
• The houses would have been quite dark and smoky,
  as there was no chimney smoke had to escape
  through the roof

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Food and drink

• All the food had to be stored in the home
• Meat and fish were either dried or salted and
  then stored in wooden barrels
• This could be taken on long sea voyages

• Beer and mead were drunk from cattle horns
• The horns could not sit on a table without
  spilling what was inside, so whatever was in them
  had to be drunk in one or passed to a neighbour

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Men, women and children

• Men worked on farms, or as craftsmen or traders.
  They handled boats for fishing or travelling.
  Sometimes a man had to fight to protect his
  family or to support his king or local chieftain.

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Men, women and children

• Women did all the household jobs. They also
  helped on the farm, milked the cows and made
  cheese. They spun, wove and sewed all the
  family's clothes, if there was any extra this
  could be sold for something that was needed like
  a new plough.
• Children did not go to school. They helped their
  parents at work, and learned about history,
  religion and the law from stories. They became
  adults at the age of 15 or 16.

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Food and feasting

• Weddings, funerals and religious festivals were
  celebrated with a big feast for many guests. Some
  feasts lasted over a week!

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Viking Society

• Most Viking countries were ruled by kings.
• Divided into 3 classes
• At the top were the jarls the chieftains and
  military leaders
• Then the bondis, the freemen who owned land
• Lastly the thralls or slaves, they had a hard
  life

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Viking Society
A thing or assembly was a gathering of local
freemen. They met together regularly in the open
air to make and discuss laws and to decide
punishments for criminals.
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Viking Society

• Many Viking families got caught up in violent
  blood feuds. Any argument might end in a fight.
  If someone was killed, the dead man's family saw
  it as their right to take revenge. Blood-feuds
  sometimes ended by one side paying 'blood-money'
  as compensation.