Lo! the Spear-Danes’ glory through splendid achievements

The folk-kings’ former fame we have heard of,

How princes displayed then their prowess-in-battle.

Oft Scyld the Scefing from scathers in numbers

From many a people their mead-benches tore.

Since first he found him friendless and wretched,

The earl had had terror: comfort he got for it,

Waxed ’neath the welkin, world-honor gained,

Till all his neighbors o’er sea were compelled to

Bow to his bidding and bring him their tribute:

An excellent atheling!

And later on...

Then the offspring of Healfdene offered to Beowulf

A golden standard, as reward for the victory,

A banner embossed, burnie and helmet;

Many men saw then a song-famous weapon

Borne ’fore the hero. Beowulf drank of

The cup in the building; that treasure-bestowing

He needed not blush for in battle-men’s presence.

Ne’er heard I that many men on the ale-bench

In friendlier fashion to their fellows presented

Four bright jewels with gold-work embellished.

’Round the roof of the helmet a head-guarder outside

Braided with wires, with bosses was furnished,

That swords-for-the-battle fight-hardened might fail

Boldly to harm him, when the hero proceeded

Forth against foemen. The defender of earls then

Commanded that eight steeds with bridles

Gold-plated, gleaming, be guided to hallward,

Inside the building; on one of them stood then

An art-broidered saddle embellished with jewels;

’Twas the sovereign’s seat, when the son of King Healfdene

Was pleased to take part in the play of the edges;

The famous one’s valor ne’er failed at the front when

Slain ones were bowing. And to Beowulf granted

The prince of the Ingwins, power over both,

O’er war-steeds and weapons; bade him well to enjoy them.

In so manly a manner the mighty-famed chieftain,

Hoard-ward of heroes, with horses and jewels

War-storms requited, that none e’er condemneth

Who willeth to tell truth with full justice.

These two passages come down to us from Beowulf that most famous Anglo-Saxon epic. While it is not directly a text concerned with Norsemen of the Viking Age, the stories in it are traced to earlier in Scandinavian history and they form a bedrock of our ideas of Germanic "heroic culture". While the idea of a common Germanic heritage and culture is under fire from historians, justifiably so, there are still certain commonalities that can be drawn between Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian contexts. The connections between Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Scandinavia are well documented, especially in the case of East Anglia, one of the proposed sites of Beowulf's composition. Indeed the Scandinavian antecedents of material culture found in the Sutton Hoo burial is particularly well documented. Archaeology is however somewhat limited in telling us about ideas on kingship and success. We can look at grave goods, deposits, and other artifacts left behind and these sources have much to tell us, but it is difficult to reconstruct an ideology around kingship and the relationship between a king and his retainers from purely archaeological sources.

There are of course other sources that can be used to talk about "Germanic Heroic culture" such as the Icelandic Sagas. However the Icelandic Sagas are further removed from the Viking context than might be imagined. Compiled and edited together several centuries after conversion to Christianity in Iceland and often dealing with stories about Norway and Denmark. More often than not they reflect contemporary attitudes and reflect contemporary biases (such as attempting to glorify a particular family) rather than providing us with an unbiased view at pre-Christian Norse society.

Given the absence of indigenous works from the Norse themselves about their ideas on kingship, appealing to an Anglo-Saxon context is reasonable, and given the placement of Beowulf in the broader Germanic world, it reflects many pre-Christian figures such as Weland the Smith (whether this is due to the circumstances of its composition or is a deliberate stylistic approach is unknown admittedly). Other sources also reflect this focus on the central role of a patron/king and their ability to distribute wealth to their followers. This often gets shorthanded to "ring giver" or some other kenning which emphasizes the role of the king as source of wealth for his household.

So what does Beowulf tell us about kingship, and is this reflected in other sources and scholarship on the time period?

We can see two common themes from the text I linked, and numerous other references throughout the entire text that would be far too laborious to put in their entirety, that success in war and gift giving are two of the central pillars that hold together a king's rule. The distributive model of wealth, flowing from the king to his retainers who in turn give loyalty and service is a common theme in Beowulf and other sources such as the Old English elegies (like "Deor" or "The Wanderer". The expectation that loyal service would be rewarded with handsome gifts is deeply ingrained into this world view and is seen in a variety of sources. Generosity is a particularly extolled virtue among these societies.

While much of the material that I am dealing with is ultimately Anglo-Saxon in origin, the comparisons to Scandinavian contexts are well developed in secondary literature.

Anders Winroth and Peter Heather would both also point to other avenues of wealth accumulation as a way of accumulating goods to be distributed besides just war. It is important to keep in mind that this sort of redistribution did not always take the form of weapons, horses, gold, silver, and so on. These relationships could also be sustained by housing and taking in the children of retainers and bringing them up in the royal house access to luxury goods such as wine and other exotic trade goods were also a part of this distributive model. Peter Heather and Malcolm Todd would both emphasize the role of goods from the broader Roman, and later Medieval world, as a key part of the distributive patterns of these kings. Later on in the viking world, Roman goods obviously dried up, in some places Islamic silver took its place, and certainly the spoils of raids, and perhaps more importantly the tribute paid by other rulers to buy peace, were also a part of this model.

Anders Winroth even attributes the success of conversion to Christianity in Scandinavia to the success of rulers who converted to Christianity and the larger households they were able to support due to their connections to the broader European world.

This role of kingship was somewhat circular. Kings had to support a household in order to attain victory/spoils/tribute, but in order to attain victory/spoils/tribute a king needed to have a household that could win battles, or at least threaten other communities into giving tribute. This would also feed into other aspects of rule, luxury trade goods would also be a part of this lifestyle and would be expected by the retainers and followers of a powerful lord or king. It is also important to note that it was perfectly possible to change allegiance to a lord who was able to deliver the goods to his followers and retainers if your own lord was failing to hold up his end of the bargain.

This was also a rather self sustained community. While wealth was being distributed to the followers and retainers of powerful lords and kings, this would not really be coming down to the broader population who was still making their living on farming or other agricultural activity such as livestock raising. Later on in the viking age trade opportunities would expand, and close, as time went on, but we should not imagine lords and their followers flush with money blowing it all on buying goods from the bulk of the population. A possible interesting exception to this would be the Varangian guardsmen in Constantinople, but that's a bit of a digression.

We should also disabuse ourselves of the idea that all gold and silver was taking the form of coinage or other currency. Islamic silver may have been flowing into Scandinavia in the form of coins but these were often recycled into other usages, such as being used in the creation of weapons, jewelry, and armor as decoration and ostentatious display items. This would change in the later viking age though once Scandinavian polities started incorporating places such as England into their realms.

In the early viking age though, and as a holdover of earlier practices, wealth accumulation as a lord or king was often a circular process where generosity was extolled and expected by followers and was the key to continued power through the distribution of gifts, whether material objects or more ephemeral goods such as housing and kinship. We should imagine then that wealth accumulation was often a self enforcing process. More wealth meant a larger household which translated to greater opportunities for expanding wealth.