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Beforc turning to the archacological data we must try to bring together all the available information on the institutions of the towns, and other centres, in order to form systematic geographical patterns linking up the various types of centres and relating each centre to its rural hinterland.

B. Geographical patterns andfunctions of towns

Town centres are, normally, geographical focal points of a population and production area; they have a surrounding territory which they serve in various ways and which servcs and supplies them. Between the towns is often noted an intemal ranking, especially in larger and well built-up zones, which participate in the same economic system and employ a developed division of labour and control. On each level of complexity any centre has an unrivalled so-called catchment area, rninimising the problems of (land) transportation, whether food, goods, serviccs or control are involved.

A number of models are available for centres and their catchmcnt arcas. In those dcrived from human geography the low-rank centres sit in the corners of hexagons, whose mid-point is occupied by a high-rank centre, itself in a corner of a larger hexagon, and so on, until the highest centres are incorporated too.²⁵ At the very lowest level are petty centres surrounded by six standard units. The hcxagon is used instead of the morę natural circle in the homogeneous space, covered by the model, sińce circles cannot be ‘packed’. A prerequisite for the application of these models is that the centre on a higher levcl fulfils both the obligations of the lower-lcvel centres and those that make it a higher-ranking centre. Another condition, finally, is that the highest centres gather all types of services and control. In Viking Age Denmark this point does not hołd true, because the important royal political control is exercised from a variety of smaller and larger sites. Throughout most of the Middle Ages the king and his followers, as well as the central administration, were travelling at regular intervals to carry out their tasks and, literally, to eat up some ofthe taxes. A true Capital (Copenhagen) was not set up until the close of the Middle Ages. An early royal centre, or rather, farmstead, like Jelling, did not lie in, or near, a town; on the contrary as we shall sec later, it was situated in between the major towns. The impression of dccen-tralisation is also strengthened by the fact that some of the main ‘thingś’, and from time to time evcn a few of the bishops, were seated outside the towns. For the Viking Age proper, the large fortresses built by kings, such as Trelleborg, Aggersborg and Fyrkat were also set up in the countryside, and not near the towns.

Although the models describcd above cannot be used for the formation of the Danish State, as they might be used for the