Book contents
- Towns and Commerce in Viking-Age Scandinavia
- Additional material
- Towns and Commerce in Viking-Age Scandinavia
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Plates
- Figures
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Viking-Age Town
- 3 The Viking World
- 4 Cult, Jurisdiction and Markets
- 5 Local Society and Viking-Age Towns
- 6 An Urbanisation Based on Harbours
- 7 Jurisdiction and Taxes
- 8 Free Trade within Narrow Boundaries
- 9 Special Economic Zones of Their Time
- 10 Development after the Inception Phase
- 11 Discussion: Hedeby’s Abandonment and the Foundation of Slesvig
- 12 Summary and Conclusions
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
2 - The Viking-Age Town
Context and Academic Debate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2024
- Towns and Commerce in Viking-Age Scandinavia
- Additional material
- Towns and Commerce in Viking-Age Scandinavia
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Plates
- Figures
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Viking-Age Town
- 3 The Viking World
- 4 Cult, Jurisdiction and Markets
- 5 Local Society and Viking-Age Towns
- 6 An Urbanisation Based on Harbours
- 7 Jurisdiction and Taxes
- 8 Free Trade within Narrow Boundaries
- 9 Special Economic Zones of Their Time
- 10 Development after the Inception Phase
- 11 Discussion: Hedeby’s Abandonment and the Foundation of Slesvig
- 12 Summary and Conclusions
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
One of the primary proto-urban centres of the early medieval world in Northern Europe was without a doubt Hedeby. Hedeby was situated on the border between Scandinavia and Continental Europe, connecting the North Sea with the Baltic Sea by a portage. Its success as a trading hub is inseparably connected to the destruction of the emporium Reric – situated in an area controlled by the West Slavic Obotrites – by the Danish king Godfred in 808 (Tummuscheit 2003). In order to control and tax the ongoing trade, Reric’s merchants were relocated to Hedeby. However, while in the contemporary historical sources Reric was addressed as an emporium, Hedeby was rather referred to as a portus (Kalmring 2010a: 42–7).
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- Information
- Towns and Commerce in Viking-Age Scandinavia , pp. 7 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024