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78 The Yiking Age in Denmark

problems of transportation, especially over land where roads and the inccption of bridges in the Viking Age are important elements. Finally, if the Urnehoved thing in south Jylland (at later Abenra) was already functioning in the tenth century, the border between this and the Viborg and the Odense things also ran through Jelling.

In terms of agriculture and basie subsistence materials, Jelling may have used two different resource environments simultaneously; to the west the open pastures of mid and west Jylland, and to the east the forested and rich clay-lands. However, no Viking Age remains, apart from the ones connected with the mounds, runestones and early churches, are as yet known in Jelling. Were a sufficient area arch-aeologically investigated, we might expect one or morę large magnate farms, as at Vorbasse, to appear, perhaps covering the entire present-day village.

In the decades around 1 (XX) we must include Roskilde and Lund in our analysis, of which the last, along with Arhus, has a royal settlement, to judge from the runestones, and was therefore of special importance. The same may be attributed to Hedeby/Slesvig. Using the hexagon models, we see Hedeby, Arhus and Lund surrounded by the minor centres Ribe, Viborg, Odense and Roskilde.

For the close of the Viking Age and the start of the Middle Ages, we must use the information from Adam ofBremen collected in about 1070, as well as the data on the rnints, which give us morę levels of centres, instead of the two we detect for the period around 1000 (Fig. 20). To set up a scalę we tentatively give one point for each of the following functions: bishop’s seat, royal mint of King Knud or Hardeknud or of other kings before about 1070, the period of Adam,²⁹ a major ‘thing’ and the attribute ‘civitas’ (by Adam) which is taken to include some craft, market and trade activity. In this way Viborg, Odense and Lund have four points, Arhus, Ribe and Roskilde threc points, Alborg and Ringsted two points, ‘Wendila’, 0rbaek, Toftum, Slagelse, Thumatorp, Borgcby, Gori and Dalby one point, and Helsingborg zero.³⁰ The Iow level is represented by the sites having zero or one point, while the higher lcvels comprise the towns with respectively three and four points. Of the two-point locations, Alborg, a ‘civitas\ may join the high group and Ringsted the Iow one.

To judge by their place-name endings, Alborg and Helsingborg have fortresses (Viborg was originally ‘Vi-bjerg’ not ‘-borg’), but we cannot include this aspect because of our imperfect knowledge of the rest of the sites. The highest centres, defined especially with respect to the regional situation, are thus Viborg, Odense and Lund, surrounded, in hexagons, by Alborg, Arhus, Ribe and Roskilde, while the rest of the sites make up still smaller hexagons around the two-, three-and four-point localities.

If we stress the cxternal aspects of these sites (only leaving out the ‘things’) including harbours on the open sea or on inlcts, the highest

Table

	Bishop	Mint	Lands thing	‘Civitas’	Harbour
					(open sea
					and inlets)
Hedcby/Slesvig	X	X		X	X
Ribe	X	X		X
Arhus	X	X		X	X
V i borg	X	X	X	X
0rbaek		X
Alborg		X		X	X
‘Wendila’	X			(?)
Odense	X	X	X	X
Toftum		X
Slagelse		X
Ringsted		X	X
Roskilde	X	X		X	X
I lelsingborg					X
Borgeby		X
Lund	X	X	X	X
Dalby	X
Thurnathorp		X
Gori		X			•*

centres become Hedeby/Slesvig, Arhus and Roskilde, while Ribe, Viborg, Alborg, Odense and Lund are next. This only underlines the spaced-out character of urban activities in Denmark and the lack of truć centralisation. The major centres in the eleventh century are, basically, functioning as local ‘service-stations’ for a province, while the links to other centres are less prominent. On the other hand, at least two elear local levels emerge. The first comprises centres with four points, if we base our study on the already cited indices: bishop, mint, major thing, the 'civitas’ attribute and harbour. These include Hedeby/Slesvig, Arhus, Viborg, Odense, Roskilde and Lund. A Iow level of one point is madę up of sites like 0rbaek, ‘Wendila’, Toftum, Slagelse, Helsingborg, Borgeby, Thumatorp, Dalby and Gori. Only one locality, Ringsted, has two points, and two, Ribe and Alborg, have three.

By the rnid-eleventh century the entire country is thus served by major and minor town centres, taking on various activities, while the supremę political power is exercised by a travelling king, supported by vassals and royal farmsteads all over the area. Tojudge by the extcnt of the mints, the east may, at the end of the Viking Age, have been valuably regulated by the kings, and it may be no coincidence that Adam of Bremen, in about 1070, places the royal centrę at Roskilde.³¹ Incidentaiły, we notę that the distribution of good harbours on the sea and inlets, being mainly western, do not correspond to the mints. This would indicate that the coins of King Knud, for example, were not