Introduction

This chapter emphasizes the book's focus — the Vikings and their activities inside Scandinavia. It highlights that the succeeding texts will look at some key aspects in Scandinavia's formation during the Viking Age: politics, social networks, conspicuous consumption, warrior mentality, social stratification, religion, farms, and power centers. The chapter provides the context that the Danish kings dominated politics in Scandinavia. It describes the two types of Viking Age friendships — the vertical relationship between chieftains and householders and the horizontal connections between chieftains and kings. The chapter then discusses the Scandinavian Viking Age society as a showy society, characterized by conspicuous consumption. It also points out that the coexistence of a warrior mentality and presumed peacefulness within Scandinavia did not create a contradiction — in other words, the majority of violence took place outside Scandinavia. The chapter also gives a glimpse of social stratification and Norse religion. Then it discusses farms as the basic building block of Scandinavian society during the Viking Age, both socially and economically. The production of food was also the focus of the entire society. Viking Age society lived hand-to-mouth, and there was no form of food storage that could be relied on in the event of a crisis. The chapter explains why the kings' and chieftains' farms were the power centers of society. It also introduces the two main types of Viking ships: the langskip, a warship, and the knarr, a merchant vessel.