Haithabu

Would you like to live in a house like this? The walls are made of wooden posts and wattle daubed with clay. The roof is thatched, and the floor is rammed earth. There is only one room in the house. People cook over an open hearth, which is also the only source of heat.

Smoke escapes through openings in the roof. There is no running water, shower or toilet in the house. Wooden boards separate the beds from the rest of the room. People sleep on straw and cover themselves with the hides of sheep or other animals. It is barely any warmer inside than outside.

Most of us would probably find it too cold and uncomfortable. But about a thousand years ago, people lived in houses like these. They called their settlement Haithabu. It was near the present-day city of Schleswig in Schleswig-Holstein. At the time, Haithabu was an important trading town.

The people who lived in Haithabu are called Vikings. The term refers to the peoples who settled in what are now Denmark, Norway and Sweden about 1,000 years ago. Most of them lived peaceful lives as farmers, fishermen, craftspeople and traders.

But eventually some of them left their homeland in search of fame, fortune and adventure in distant lands. They were mainly young men who took what they wanted by force. Before long, people throughout Europe feared the warriors from the north, known as Vikings, Normans or Varangians.

They were daring seafarers who braved the dangers of the sea in long, narrow boats. They ruled the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. They travelled far inland along the rivers. They reached Iceland and a large island that they named "Greenland" because of its green coastline. They ventured out into the Atlantic and sailed into the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Some stayed in foreign lands and founded new settlements. From Greenland, Vikings even reached North America. They named their settlement there "Vinland". This happened about 500 years before Christopher Columbus ventured across the Atlantic Ocean.

Between 800 and 1100 AD, the Vikings spread fear and terror across Europe. It began with a raid on the famous monastery of Lindisfarne, which stood on an island off the northeast coast of England. In 793, Viking ships suddenly approached the island.

They came straight from what is now Norway, across the North Sea. The monastery was looted and burned down, and people and animals were brutally slaughtered. Lindisfarne Monastery was not the only one to be raided. In the centuries that followed, the Vikings used their swift ships to launch numerous raids along the coasts and rivers of Europe.

In the 9th century, among other places, they raided and looted the cities of Hamburg and Paris, Dublin and Seville, Cologne, Bonn and Mainz.

But not all the peoples of the North were seafarers and conquerors. Long before the Viking Age, the Danes settled in Jutland, on the Danish islands and in southern Sweden. The Saxons lived south of the Danes’ territory.

A settlement was established in the south of the Danish kingdom and called "heithabyr". The word means "heath settlement". Later, the place was called "Haithabu", or "Heddeby" in Danish.

Even back then, people living farther north and around the Baltic Sea traded with people in the south and west. As a result, this place grew into a small town of about 1,000 people, including many merchants and craftsmen.

At the time, Haithabu’s harbour was the largest in Northern Europe. Merchant and warships could dock at the wooden landing stages. These stages also served as the town’s marketplaces. Goods traded included soapstone from Norway, iron bars from Sweden, glass and pottery from the Rhine, millstones from the Eifel, wooden barrels from the Upper Rhine, amber and wood tar from the countries around the Baltic Sea, as well as fish.

By the end of the 11th century, the early town of Haithabu had fallen into decline. The water of the Baltic Sea and the Schlei rose, flooding the harbor and shoreline. People moved away, and the wooden buildings rotted. Only remnants of a semicircular rampart that once surrounded Haithabu survived. Today, you can learn a great deal about life in the town of Haithabu and the Viking Age at a museum. A small settlement has been reconstructed a little way from the museum. The buildings in Haithabu probably looked like the houses in this settlement 1,000 years ago.

Haithabu prospered because of its ideal location. To the east and west of the town, Danes and Saxons were separated by a natural boundary. To the east, the Schlei, an inlet of the Baltic Sea, reaches far inland. To the west flow the rivers Eider and Treene.

The land there was very marshy and therefore could not be crossed. Haithabu was built at the westernmost point of the Schlei. Goods could be brought here by ship via the Baltic Sea and the Schlei. They were then transferred to ox carts.

The overland route was only about 16 km; then the transport continued by ship along the Treene and Eider rivers to the North Sea. 

But because relations between peoples were not always peaceful even back then, the Danes built a defensive rampart against their southern neighbours. It is known as the Danevirke. It began at Haithabu on the Schlei and ran as far as the Treene, roughly to where Hollingstedt is today.

The defensive wall was 30 km long, about 5 m high and 20 to 30 m wide. It was reinforced with stone walls and palisades. There was only one gate, the Wieglesdor, through which an ox road ran. Remains of the wall can still be seen in various places today.

The open fire was the focal point of a Viking house. It provided heat and light, and people could cook in pots suspended over the flames. Lamps burning tallow or blubber also provided a little extra light. Fixed benches along the side walls were used for sitting and sleeping. People covered themselves with animal skins or wool blankets. The only furniture was probably wooden chests, stools and wall shelves.

A household also had pots made of clay or soapstone. Their bases were often rounded, so they could stand on uneven ground. A grain mill was essential.

Some houses had an oven made of a framework of branches thickly coated with clay. The oven was heated to about 400 degrees. The embers were then removed and the bread dough placed inside.

The oven was closed with a wooden door and the cracks were sealed. After about 30 to 40 minutes, the bread was baked. People drew water from wells outside their homes.

The people of Haithabu ate grains such as barley, rye, and millet, as well as wild fruits such as sloes, wild cherries, berries, hazelnuts, beechnuts, and mushrooms. Fish from the rivers and the Schlei were also an important food source.

People mostly drank water; beer was rare, and wine even rarer. They kept pigs and cattle as domestic animals. Meat and milk, however, were only occasionally on the menu, because there was only enough fodder for a few domestic animals, which were also much smaller than farm animals today.

While our cattle weigh 500 to 600 kg, cattle in Viking times weighed only about 200 kg. They were even smaller than the Galloway cattle that graze near the Haithabu settlement today. The cows also produced only about 500 liters of milk a year; today, 5,000 to 10,000 liters per cow is normal.

People owned only a few items of clothing. Women mostly wore long dresses with sleeves, while men wore tight-fitting trousers, knee-length shirts and cloaks. Clothes were made from wool or linen. Yarn was spun using a hand spindle, and a loom was used for weaving.

In 1857, a large stone was found near the village of Busdorf, close to Haithabu. It is 1.73 m high and belonged to a mound beneath which lay an oak coffin containing a skeleton. The person had been buried about 1,000 years earlier. Five lines of strange symbols were found on the stone.

It was discovered that these symbols belonged to a writing system from the Viking Age. This script first used 24 symbols, later only 16. They are vertical strokes and slanting symbols; there are no horizontal or rounded lines. This made the symbols easier to carve into stone, bone or wood. These symbols are called runes.

Today, we no longer know how many people at the time could read and write this script. It was probably originally reserved for priests.

The runes are hard to decipher because some can represent several sounds. The Busdorf Stone is also known as the Skarthi Stone. The inscription means: “King Sven erected this stone for Skarthi, his retainer, who had traveled west but met his death at Haithabu.”

The main means of transport in the Viking Age were boats and ships. The people of Haithabu probably first used dugout canoes to travel around the harbour and on the Schlei, and later mainly rowboats. The Vikings travelled longer distances in longships or merchant ships.

Longships were warships. Their high sides protected the crew. Depending on its size, a longship was powered by between 13 and about 60 rowers. The crew could also raise a sail. Remains of a longship about 3 m wide and 28 to 30 m long have been found in Haithabu.

In a race across the Atlantic in 1893, a replica Viking ship was much faster than a replica of the “Santa Maria,” the ship Christopher Columbus used to discover America.

During the Viking Age, broader ships with greater cargo capacity were used to transport goods. Their design made them better suited to conditions on the open sea than longships.

There were oars on board, but the ship was powered mainly by a large sail. The remains of one such “knarr” were found in the harbor of Haithabu. The ship was once 5.70 m wide and 24 to 26 m long. It had a draft of 1.50 m and could carry at least 40 tons. This meant it could transport up to 200 times as much cargo as an ox cart.