Viking Era

Units of measure and relative value in the Viking Age

Viking harbor with longboats in Bork, Denmark. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Before trying to quantify some sort of dollar value for items during the Viking era, let’s look at some relative values. My approach will be to find a way of comparing the prices of items during the Viking Age in relation to each other. Value of cows or sheep today will be added into those relative values. That will provide some sort of rough methodology for gaining some sort of understanding of prices.

Notice the vagueness of my description and the number of qualifiers? This is a very rough process and could easily be wrong. However, I will give it a shot and I will show my work so you can assess my methodology and revise it as you wish.

Here is what I’ve found for indications of relative prices and exchange rates.

Iceland in 1200

The Viking Answer Lady provides a variety of information for Units of Measurement from Viking Age Law and Literature. There are not a lot of exchange rates that I will use, but will pick up a few.

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Viking Era

More background on brutality of Viking Era and revised assessment of Viking massacre sites – part 5

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Life was violent in the middle ages. The Vikings were not the only vicious and brutal people around.

In Vikings: Raiders, Traders, and Masters of the Sea, author Rodney Castleden provides a tally of raids by raider. Text also mentions two sites long considered to be the location of a Viking massacre.  Further study has led to reassessments of the sites in recent years which provide more context.

Who conducted raids in Ireland around 800 AD?

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Viking Era

What is the market value of sheep?

“Sheep” by lostajy is licensed under CC BY 2.0

What is the going price for sheep? We can use that information to develop some very rough approximations of prices during the Viking age.

My conclusion at the end of this post:

  • $150 – looks to be about the best estimate for a productive ewe
  • $200 – price for a productive ewe, rounded off to a single significant digit and giving more weight to the more analytically focused articles found.

Follow along as this city boy sorts out prices for sheep. I learned a lot along the way.

11/1/17 (article written in 2002) – Countryside Daily – Raising Sheep: Buying and Caring for Your First Flock – This was the most helpful of a number of articles I read. It is focused on someone who wants to start raising sheep on a small acreage or someone wanting to become a part-time farmer. The focus on a small flock makes for a good comparison to ancient days when farmers would not be running hundreds of animals that would be raising what could be tended to by a family.

Article gives background on how to get started, including where to get animals and what to look for when starting a herd.

Here are some rough estimates of prices as of 2002:

  • $200 – $250 – a younger ewe (female) in the ideal age of two years up to four years.
  • Higher than $200-250 range – a bred ewe, (for us city boys that means female which has a higher price because you will quickly have yield from the ewe, specifically a new lamb)
  • Less than the $200 – $250 range – an older ewe, aged five years and higher – lower price because there are less productive years left
  • $75-$150 – lambs
  • $100-$150 – ram (lots of options exist, including borrowing ram for a friendly neighbor, renting a ram, buying one and selling them after the breeding season)

Here is some technical breakout, which of course is new info for me:

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Viking Era

Size of Viking raiding parties

Not a good omen for whoever is on land ahead of them. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

How many warriors did the Vikings put ashore during raids? The size of the raids grew over time, starting small with fast-strike harassing plunders and growing to the point where the arrival of Vikings constituted a major invasion.

Here are a few guesses, from writers who have some basis for making such guesses.

In The Vikings course from Great Courses, Prof. Kenneth Harl makes the statement that the typical raiding party in early or mid 9th century may have been 10 or 20 ships. At 50 or 60 warriors per ship, this would be somewhere in the range of 500 up to 1,200 warriors.

By the end of the 9th century, the raiders could gather in forces of 100 or 120 ships. He thinks they may have been able to put 5,000 or even 10,000 men ashore. That would mean the longships carried somewhere between 50 and 80 warriors each.

Here is my recap of his guess on size of raids:

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comparison data, Other eras

What was the price of gold in 1522 in relation to today’s dollar?

Gold Florin (Fiorino d’oro) coin issued circa 1256 in Florence, Italy. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Previous post explored a comment by Eric Metaxas in his book, Martin Luther, The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, that the first printing of Luther’s translation of the New Testament cost half a gulden for an unbound copy and a gulden for a bound copy.

In that post I calculated that the implied value of a bound New Testament, hot of the press from the first printing, cost something in the range of about $900 in terms of today’s currency.

I’d like to work through what that implies about the value of gold back then.

What is a Gulden?

It is a gold coin used in Germany. A few minutes of research does not quite explain its weight or purity. The most helpful thing I found is an article from Money Museum which describes a number of Medieval Currencies:

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Other eras

Price tag for the first New Testament printed in vernacular expressed in terms of the cost of a butchered hog

Bible includes the Old and New testament. The 1522 edition included only the New Testament. “Luther Bible” by todd.vision is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I found an interesting way to convert the price of a New Testament bible in 1522 to current dollars.

How does this sound for a price of a New Testament? About $900 for the first and second printing, and around $2,700 for the third printing.

If that grabs your interest, let me explain how I got to that answer.

Prior to Martin Luther translating the New Testament from Latin to German, the only bibles around were in Latin, hand transcribed before the Guttenberg press revolutionized printing, and only available to priests and monks. Even at that, monks had to go to the library to read the likely only copy in the monastery.

Luther translating the bible into German, combined with the merely 70-year-old Guttenberg press technology, meant that the bible was literally opened up to the people.

Prices for the first three printings

Eric Metaxas provides us the key to price those first few printings of the brand new text.

He explains on page 270 of his book, Martin Luther, The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, that the first printing of the book cost half a gulden for an unbound copy and a gulden for a bound copy.

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Viking Era

Guess on volume of trade in Gotland during Viking Age

“Viking gold coin” by arnybo is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The Viking, by Tre Tryckare, copyright 1967, has some fun speculation on the volume of annual trade in a major Viking trading town in Sweden.

The large island of Gotland, off the eastern shore of Sweden, is about 1,229 square miles in size. It was a major trading center during the Viking age. Page 51 of the book says that of the 200,000 silver coins found in Scandinavia from the Viking Age, about half were on the island of Gotland. This includes, according to the text:

  • 40,000 – Arabic
  • 38,000 – German
  • 21,000 – Anglo-Saxon

The text has some fun speculation on the possible amount of trade. Two critical assumptions, which are listed so you can revised them as you wish:

Out of 1,000 silver coins received in trade, an unknown number were buried for storage and 1 of those has been found. This wild guess assumes that there was 1,000 coins of income for each 1 coin found,

One Anglo-Saxon coin had purchasing power of 10 or 20 schillings. At the then exchange rates of 1967, this would be roughly comparable to somewhere around $3.00.

Before decimalization of British currency, there were 20 schillings to a pound. Today (10/17/17) one pound converts to US$1.32.

Here is the string of guesses:

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Viking Era

Buried hoards of gold and silver

These coins are part of the Cuerdale hoard, a group of about 7,000 coins, some cut in pieces as was typical, found in 1840 by workers in Cuerdale, Lancashire. This is largest silver hoard in Viking Age, with estimated burial date of 905 A.D. “The Cuerdale hoard” by akhenatenator is in the public domain (CC0 1.0)

One of the fascinating things to consider about the Viking and Roman ages is what economies looked like without a banking system or even a rudimentary financial system.

Ponder just a few of the implications.

Merely having coins allowed for trade that was more complex than barter.

There was no way to transfer money over distances. To move wealth required carrying precious metals or tradable goods. Returning from a successful trade mission or raiding expedition meant you carried your wealth with you.

There was no way to store wealth in any sort of financial intermediary. No banks. No Credit Unions. No money market accounts. No Schwab or Vanguard to hold your stocks. No stocks at all. Not even bearer bonds. No government securities for safety.

No, instead if you had wealth you needed to hold silver or gold. Putting it under the mattress or anywhere in the house or even in the area of the farm buildings made your wealth subject to theft by whatever marauder or king’s representative that meandered through. Instead you would bury your wealth.

Minting of silver and gold coins shows the foundational purpose of money:

  • medium of exchange,
  • store of value, and
  • unit of account.

The Viking age shows all three quite well.

That is where the large number of hoards of buried treasures come into play.

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Viking Era

Viking sword found in 2017

Viking age swords found in Norway, on display at the Bergen Museum. “Viking Swords” by arnybo is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

On 9/5/17, Secrets of the Ice reported Breaking News: A Viking Sword Found at High Altitude. Many other news sites reported this as well, but the articles I read point back to this article and appear to be mostly a rewrite. (I’m slowly catching on to the idea that is what most news reports are – a rewrite of someone else’s report.)

From the report and pictures, the sword appears to be in wonderful condition. It was found at 5,380 feet above sea level in a spot which would be frozen and under snow about six months a year. Article says there would be low humidity in the summer. That provides the environment allowing this sword to be so well preserved.

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Viking Era

Guesses on how much loot the Vikings hauled out of Europe – #3

People on shore and the nearby village are about to have a really bad day. Typical armament for a Viking warrior. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Here are a few more guesses on the volume of precious metals flowing into the Viking lands.

Overall impact on economy from having all those coins available

In The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings , on page 211 Lars Brownworth says the massive flow of silver coins helped the Scandinavian areas move into a coin based economy from a barter economy. Just have a large supply of coins would have made trading easier and thus would have boosted the economy just by having those coins available.

More guesses on the loot flowing into Viking lands

On page 33 of The Vikings, from the British Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art, the text provides one data point on the total tribute paid to Viking raiders from all Frankish sources. The published comments report 685 pounds of gold and 43,042 pounds of silver in total.

Let’s work with that quantity.

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