Question about Viking Hierarchy

by bingbongbizzle

In the TV show Vikings, the King and two earls go to war as equals. How does this work, what was the hierarchy in Viking society, what was the difference between a King, Earl and Jarl. Also, how united and organised were the Vikings? The Swedes, Danes and Norwegians seem to be separate peoples, were these the only groupings of 'Vikings', are these accurate categorisations?

EyeStache
  1. Never take anything from that show as being remotely accurate
  2. Kings and Earls (konungar and jarlar) were really the only two major 'noble' titles available in early medieval Scandinavia; a jarl was subordinate to the konung, and there could be any number of konungar in a particular country. It wasn't until the unification of those countries under Gormr gamli (Denmark), Harald hárfagri (Norway), and Eiríkr inn sigrsæli (Sweden) that there was a single king over a single country. And even then, there were still rebellious jarlar across Scandinavia.
  3. I'm not sure what you're asking here; Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes were how people identified their ethnicity or national origin (insofar as either could be said to exist conceptually in the 6th-11th centuries) and víkingr was a profession you went into; basically a pirate.