ABSTRACT
When Scandinavians travelling outwards initiated the Viking Age in the eighth century, theirs was a society without coinage, towns or states. Three centuries later, in the mid-eleventh century, Viking society was familiar with coinage and towns, and possessed emerging states within a framework of Christianity. Without documentary evidence of any significance, the archaeological and numismatic evidence represents the building blocks for research on coinage and the monetary history of the Viking Age. Coins have been found in greater numbers, with a wider geographical distribution and continuity than any other objects in the Viking world. Viking coinage is first and foremost perceived as silver pennies issued in the names of such renowned Viking kings as Eirik Bloodaxe in York and Dublin (948 and 952–4), and Sven Fork-beard (c. 985–1014), Olof Skötkonung (c. 995–1022), Olaf Tryggvason (995–1000), Olaf Haraldsson (the Saint) (1015–28), Cnut the Great (1016–35, king of England 1018–35), Harthacnut (1035–42, king of England 1040–2), Magnus the Good (1042– 7), Sven Estridsen (1047–74) and Harald Hardrade (1047–66) at different Scandinavian mints. All of these kings played key roles in the introduction and development of coinage within the Viking world, as was also the case for anonymous Nordic coinages of the ninth and tenth centuries in Haithabu and Ribe and the Scandinavian imitations of Anglo-Saxon pennies from c. 990 to the 1020s in Lund and Sigtuna (Figure 10.1–10.4).
