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102 The Viking Age in Denmark

to the relatively substantial ratio of horses, which arc rare in towns. This is in accordance with thc idea that the fortresses received supplies from a wider province. In terms of craft activities, thc diversification is also higher than in the rural scttlemcnts, but we lack the differentiation of, say, Hedeby. As the unequal distribution of the sexes on the cemetery shows, military dutics have played an important role too, and via the fortresses the king might have exercised power, when required, in a rather thorough and direct way.

Other defensive systems of the Viking Age, apart from thc town walls and fortresses, comprisc a number of sea-blockades, especially in „ inlets, and at least one major cross-country wali system, the famous Danevirke at Hedeby, which protected the country from the south and, like other strongholds, was a potential frontier at which tolls might be collected (Fig. 21).

The main wali of Danevirke (and the northern wali), as far as their initial phase is conccrned, are constructed in the first half of the eighth century; dendrochronology focuses on a datę about 730.⁸⁷ The same datę perhaps also applies to the wali across the Svansen peninsula to the east, making up the major part of the Southern shore of the Sli inlet. The western extension of the main wali may be later, but hardly much later. In about 800 the Kovirke wali was constructed, which also protected Hedeby (PI. VIII). This rampart shows few traces of repair, and its entire length was constructed at the same time; but probably it was not effective for defence after about 900. The early main w^rall may also have been in a poor condition at the time when the Kovirke wali was constructed. A third phase, of which we havc relatively little dating when it comes to details, belongs to the tenth century. This phase comprises a renewal of the main wali, perhaps its western extension too, the town ramparts around Hedeby plus the connection walls between the two. The latter are dated dendrochronologically to about 955 and 968.

As w^re have noted above, Jylland was threatencd at the beginning of the ninth century and indeed suffered from Frankish attacks. The Kovirke, belonging to this period, is most probably the wali of King Godfred of 808, constructed by his army and, according to the Frankish Annals, with only one gate perhaps, among other things, for toll purposes. The political events leading to the construction ot the first main wali, however, are obscurc, but cross-country wali systems in Denmark go back to the beginning of the first millennium A.D., as 01mer’s Dykę in Southern Jylland shows.^KH

The written sources speak of a renewed Southern attack in 934, followed by a breakthrough of Danevirkc in 974, and a Danish military movement in 983, overrunning a German border fort. The third phase of Danevirke is most probably connected with these offensives, and it may have been initiated under thc impression of the 934 attack. The construction is contemporary with the building of the

Trelleborg fortresses, and together these fortifications all protect the core of the west Danish State, regułating traffic towards and away from this, probably including the collecting of tolls. The later Danevirkes, the last from 1945, are of little interest in this context.

In terms of its physical features, the early wali system comprises a ditch, four to fivc metres widc and one and a half metres decp, with a rounded bottom and a wali ten metres broad and two metres high and cquipped w^rith a wooden palisadę front. The enginecr designed the Kovirke wali to be about two metres high, but narrower, only six or seven metres. The ditch is V-shaped and morę prominent, being four metres broad and originally almost three metres deep. The Kovirke also has a wooden front, very homogeneously exccuted. The third phase comprises a smaller, rounded ditch, but a stronger earthen wali, up to twenty metres broad and four or five metres high, probably surmounted by a palisadę.

A number of roads and bridges also of this period are probably connected with the royal power. The tenth century was an especially crucial period in w^rhich the Jelling dynasty expanded the road system and, in order to secure easy and rapid transportation, built bridges (which, furthermore, may have yielded tolls). It is hardly a coin-cidence that an almost one-kilometre-long, two-lane bridge was constructed at Ravninge in about 980 (according to dendro-chronological datings) ten kilometres to the south of Jelling.⁸⁹ The bridge would have carried a load of five tons and was part of the main north-south-going road system through Jylland. Other bridges have also come to light from the period, but they are smaller. Together these constituted a great step forward from the cobbled fords of the Iron Age.

On Samsd in the Southern Kattegat Sca, a plank-lined channel, going one kilometre east-west through the island and dating from the Viking Age, perhaps the tenth century, has been found.⁹⁰ This is probably the most surprising construction of its kind, connected with the control of the central Danish waters, including the northern end of the Storę Baelt and the bay of Arhus. It allows for ships to move fast in the direction either of Jylland (through the channel) or of Sjaelland from the protected Stavnsf]ord inlet. In addition, it constitutes a finał cxample of the mobilisation of resources possible in the Viking Age, referring to the organisation of the countryside. It is to these social and political structures that we now turn, with the aid of the burials in conjunction with these findings, and also to individuals.