I was thinking about a time I visited the Copenhagen museum and saw ancient Viking swords. They were nothing spectacular. (Amazing, but not jewel encrusted or fancy or anything). Would this have been a weapon any Viking would have owned, or would a sword have only been available to the elite or given out to people during wartime?
Thank you! (And sorry for any inaccuracies with the word Viking and a lack of a time period)
Tl; dr: Not necessarily in every case, but generally speaking, the former (every "Viking") might have been closer to the reality - since those who went "Viking" tended to belong to the elite stratum of the society in Viking Age Scandinavia.
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I cited the regulation of checking of (to-be) conscripted farmers to the navy obligation in 13th century (western) Norwegian lawbook (Older Gulathing Law) before in: Would post-viking era Scandinavian armies and soldiers be organized and equipped any differently than other "western" medieval armies?
The following citation of the corresponding paragraph below is taken from the latest English translation of the lawbook (Older Gulating Law):
"Whenever inspection of weapons is to be held, the king's representative or the landed man should give notice in the autumn and carry out the inspection in the spring. All free men of major age must come to that inspection, otherwise each of them is liable to pay a fine of three aurar.
Now men have to show their weapons as prescribed by the law. A man should have a broad-axe or a sword, a spear and a shield spanned at worst by three iron claps, and the handle fastened with iron nails. Now there is a fine of three aurar for each of these folk weapons (if wanting) (Older Gulathing Law, Chap. 309. Simensen trans. 2021: 206)."
In short, it was not the king who called for the levy, but the conscripted farmer's side to maintain the armory for use, and a sword is listed as one of the possible (and probably available) candidates of weapons also for medieval Norwegian farmers.
Now it is time to turn our attention further back in time to the Viking Age - The definition of "Vikings" certainly have some room depending on scholars, but here we focus on the very classic one as raiders, roughly corresponding with Old Norse word vikingr.
As I also summarized some basic premises before in: During the "Viking Age", how common was it for Danes, Swedes and Norwegians to become vikingr? or Did Viking armies have a military rank structure? If so, what was it, and who was in charge or above who?, according to the current popular hypothesis, the majority of the "Vikings" (raiders) were probably drawn from the military retinue of the local elites who had a longship to be used also for raiding, and the latter was also expensive - in other words, the participation of the expedition almost inevitably means that the participant crews of the Viking ship were probably related to the (local) elite milieu in the society (and in turn probably better off than conscripted farmers in later times).
Thus, as long as the sword could be an option for the conscripted farmer, it would also have been more easily available for warrior crews of the longship.
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