Viking history - part 5 - The traders.

The history of my ancestors are back with a new astonishing feat.
Although the Vikings were fearless raiders, plunderers and conquerers. They also were great tradesmen and their ships of trade could be found from the shores of England all the way to the Kalifat of Bagdad.
They traded with fure, wool, amber, ivory walrus tusks, fish and many other goods that was common in the north and highly appreciated in the south of Europe and the middel east.
In return they brought back things like silk, spices, pottery, fruits and more.

A reconstruction of Kaupang, the first capitol in Norway in he 800th century and an important trading platform

The vikings founded a lot of citys all across Europe because of their trading network and some of them are large, important citys up to this day. Two of the most famous are probably Dublin and York.
Here the vikings could be safe from other vikings as well as they had a place to stay during the winter months when the storms at sea were to hard to ride.

We can divide the vikings in to three groups in the viking era. The Norwegians, the Danish and the Swedes even though the Scandinavian peninsula with Denmark included were ruled by a lot of small kingdoms in the start of the period the people in the different areas seemed to travel in different directions when it came to trade.
While the Norwegian often went to England and the south of Europe the Swedes seems to like the Russian part better and therefor used the rivers in east Europe as gateways for their trade.

Here you can see the trade routs and attack routs, that also functioned as trade routs. Sorry for not finding a map in English.

As we see out of this map the vikings were at the center of the kalifat of Bagdad and even further south on the continent.
It is even speculated that the vikings may have ran into the top of the Chinese empire, but this has yet to be properly confirmed.
From findings we can be sure that the whole of Europe had visitation from the vikings both from trades and raids.
And we can just imagining what kind of terror it was to see a viking sail in the horizon before you knew if it was come for trading or plunder.

Besides trading with different kind of goods the vikings also traded with slaves. These slaves could bee taken from the British island and sold either back home in Scandinavia or in the middel east, where the light skin were appreciated amongst the leaders in the Arabic world.
And the trade of slaves also went the other way where people from the middel east were sold in the north.
But, the vikings also traded them self to other great leaders in the Arabic world and we now for sure that the Kalif in the Byzantium empire had hired Vikings as his personal bodyguard.

In the map above you also can see large colored spots and this is where the Vikings made their own settlements and introduced their own viking law with a viking king on the throne.
The green is Norwegian kingdoms, the read are Swedish and the blue are the Danes. But e have to remember in that in the Viking era it was no bounders between the vikings so they all in one way or the other collaborate to get their means fulfilled.
And that is one of the reasons they could put their mark on Europe in such a huge prevalence.

Hope you enjoyed the part 5 of the viking history, to read part 4 click here.

Until next time, stay safe, warm and dry
Kindest regards
@Gyldenhorn