Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part I - Professor Otto von Friesen, Uppsala, Emigration from Sweden in Ancient Times
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Temporary over*population is considered to have played a very minor part. I
shall not examine the causes of the Viking expeditions here, but only mention
that the idea that before the beginning of the Viking period Scandinavia had a
very large population, even so large that the country was no longer able to
maintain it under normal conditions, is based on rather weak evidence. The reasons
for this specially adduced are the high figures given by the terrified western
Europeans in their accounts of the Viking ships and warriors. Thus in 885 Paris
is said to have been besieged by 40,000 men and in 845,600 ships are supposed
to have sailed up the Elbe against the Emperor Ludwig. This implies, says the
Danish historian Johannes Steenstrup,* that the population that sent forth these
hordes was exceedingly numerous. And he is of the opinion that it has reached
the limit that the country could support with the means of subsistence at that
time. We know, however, that during the Viking period enormous stretches of
cultivable land were untouched and it is impossible to say, as other historians
have done, that the agricultural implements and methods were so primitive that
this land could not be used. With the immense forests that were then in exi*
stence they had an ample opportunity to use the primitive method of burn*beating,
which needed no animal manure — they simply burned the forest, sowed in the
ashes, and were then able to reap not one but several harvests, getting good
pasture into the bargain. When the open ground was no longer sufficient or
was exhausted they could thus get corn for the people and food for the cattle
from the woods.
At this stage of civilization disease and a high mortality strongly counteracted
the probably great prolificity. And these factors operated with increased force
in times of scarcity and want, when peoples’ power of resistance was suc*
cessively decreased by privations. There was in addition a method of regulating
a too great increase in the population, that later times would not employ, the
exposure of children. It was Christianity that put an end to this barbarous
custom. But even in the year 1000, when Christianity became the legal religion
in Iceland, they insisted, among other things, on the retention of this right.
It is thus at present rather doubtful whether a chronic over*population really
was the main reason for the Viking expeditions.
It has already been pointed out that the tribal migrations were at bottom
quite a different phenomenon from the usual Viking expeditions. The migrations
of the peoples were real emigrations, when the emigrants left their native country
in great bands with their wives and children and goods. If the desire for ad*
venture and thirst for spoil drove the young warriors of the Viking expeditions
from their homes, we may be certain that, however highly we may estimate the
martial spirit of enterprise in the old Scandinavians, it was not so great, nor was
their solicitude for their closest relatives, whose needs and future they had to
provide for, so small, that they would risk their life and prosperity in the un*
certain hope of victory and spoil. We must assume that only one thing could
• Normannerne I, p. 209.
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