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134 The Viking Age in Denmark

cemetcry at Lejre on Sjaelland a dccapitatcd and ticd man was lying in a grave over anothcr małe person cąuipped with grave goods.⁴⁹ On the contemporary Stengade cemetery, on the island of Langeland, a chamber grave held a man with a silver-ornamented spear.⁵⁰ Partly on top of him was a sccond man, handcuffed and decapitated. From the archaeological literaturę comes the famous Norwegian ship burial at Oseberg where an elder female slavc accompanied the queen.⁵¹ Also well-known is the Arabie account, from Russia, describing, most probably, Scandinavians sacrificing a young girl at the death of her master.⁵²

Unfortunately, the slave question has not been given enough attention, though slavc labour is often thought to have constituted an important part of the work force. In terms of burials we must allow for normal double graves, and possibly for suttee too. In the latter case, however, we may also deal with a kind of slave burial, namely of a woman, perhaps even richly fumished, not considcred a member of her husband’s family, and therefore with no rights of inheritancc, although with a possible claim.

We chose to identify ‘slave burials’ as graves where a person with very few or no grave goods is lying on top of another with possible richer furnishings. In addition, slaves may have been buried in separate graves, as horses were sometimes, and such cases inevitably evade classification.

In pre-Viking Age Denmark, slave burials are apparently known from the rich Bornholm data.⁵³ From the ninth century a couple of instances are known from Sjaelland, where burials were lying on top of each other, the person underneath being in at least one case a woman with grave goods.⁵⁴ Morę examples come from the tenth-century cemetery at Lejre,⁵⁵ a slave also having a female master, and others are known from the Sjaelland and Skane localities. On the other hand, it is significant that no slaves are known from the numerous well-documented tenth-century gravcs of west Denmark.⁵⁶ The picture of the graveyard of the Trelleborg fortress in western Sjaelland is somewhat unclear. It comprises among other things ‘mass graves\ but in at least one case, and probably two or morę, we seem to have true burials with slaves.⁵⁷ This brings us back to the name Trelleborg, perhaps ^łSlave stronghold’ which is difficult to interpret but perhaps refers to the application of slave labour at the site.⁵⁸ Another possibility is that the garrison was madę up of freed slaves and other ‘marginaL persons in the society. This might, for instance, be in accordance with the absence of the high female status in the graves compared with the carriage body gravcs, found at Fyrkat,⁵⁹ though of course it may just be a chronological problem. The grave goods are very poor but do comprise wcapons with silver inlays and scales, otherwise belonging to the upper social cchelons. This, however, could still be in accordance with the slave hypothesis. We have mentioned the possibility of freed slaves serving in the army of the Jelling kings, and we know for certain that persons ofthis status raiscd runestones over prominent officials.⁶⁰

Apparently traditional Viking, and pre-Viking, societies knew of slaves in some numbers. This accords not only with the Sagas, basically dealing with the old-fashioned Norwegian and Icelandic countrics, but also with the ninth-century description ofslave gangs at Hedeby .⁶¹ In the same societies slavcs were sometimes sacrificed at the burial of their master. In addition, slaves were apparently killed in connection with pagan rites.⁶² In the west Danish Jelling State we know that slaves were not treated in this way. The only evidence we have for the Danish State society in the Viking Age is of freed slaves, although slavery did exist as a social status in Denmark for another two hundred years.⁶³ In the pre-state societies the slave may have been an important status object and a domestic help, but he required constant feeding, often in times of need, as well as surveillance, and his economic importance, except for special tasks, was limited in Denmark. It may have been morę profitable for the lords to excmpt taxes from a class of copy-holders, who, however, might stem from freemen. The coming of a market and the urban economy also favoured a flow of goods and labour, which was not possible in the previous society founded rather on kinship relations and some slave work. As an object of trade the slave was morę important, especially when sold to the Arabs (cf. Chapter 7 D), who used slave work to a large extent for agricultural and industrial activities.⁶⁴

The coming of Christianity put restrictions on the trade in slaves, especially Christian slaves, but the Church itself used slaves for labour. The only sphere where a European impact may be seen in the tenth century is in the lack of sacrifices in west Danish burials; but these, to judge from the symbols used, are both pagan and Christian graves. In other words, the questions of slavery are economic and social rather than ideological.

We havc traced a number of economic and social institutions, and their geographical settings, and have delineated the flow of goods and scrvices. However, we have dealt very little with the links to the wider European environment, except in terms of some historical events. Only thus can we fully understand the propertics of the Danish institutions and estimate to what extent economic success or failure were a result of local or foreign circumstances.