ABSTRACT
Customs and tolls are normally not the main focuses when discussing Nordic elites. One of the activities, however, even for the outgoing “Vikings” of the North, was the exchange or trade of goods between distant regions. The more the elites were able to draw foreign merchants to them, the more their prestige grew—by the possibility of distribution of uncommon goods and by the mere presence of foreign men. On the basis of these principles, the elites developed strategies to maintain a secure ground for trade and to profit from it, the prerequisites for custom and toll. The interrelationship between the elites and the traders in northern Europe changed from a personal connection to a more pecuniary custom and later to the pure charging of tolls based on a southern European model. Due to the same development and the centralization of Northern kingships, the elites lost their direct influence on trade and had to find another approach to make profits out of trade.
