I’m a big fan of the Crusader Kings games and the historical role-play is my favorite part of it. I find it easy to imagine myself on a visit to the christianized and feudalized cities, castles, and bishoprics of Western Europe. But, I have trouble imagining what it would be like to visit the settlements, both big and small, of Europe’s pagan tribal peoples, circa 867CE. I’m familiar with iron age oppidums, but I’m sure that different cultures from different regions, the better part of a millennium later would build the same thing.

Do we know what these settlements looked like? How big could they get? Was there a big difference in size between rural and “urban” areas? How were these settlements connected, with roads, trails, or would I have drag my donkey through kilometers of back country before reaching human settlement? Were the settlements of the west slavs and north germanic peoples similar?