Viking ring fortress

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Trelleborg (disambiguation).
Aerial view of the Viking ring fortress of Trelleborg, near Slagelse in Denmark. This was the first discovered Viking ring fortress, and the geometry is clearly visible.

A Viking ring fortress, Trelleborg-type fortress, or trelleborg (pl. trelleborgs), is a type of

Harold Bluetooth of Denmark
, with an estimated near contemporary time of construction c. 980. Their exact historical context is subject to debate.

Etymology

This specific type of fortification was named after the first discovered example: Trelleborg near Slagelse, excavated in the years 1936-1941. Traditionally, the name trelleborg has been translated and explained as ″a fortress built by slaves″, since the Old Norse word for slave was thrall (The modern word is træl in Danish and träl in Swedish) and borg means fortress or city. The word trel (pl. trelle) is also a plausible explanation and relates to the wooden staves, covering both sides of the protective circular walls.[1]

History

At the end of the 10th century Harold Bluetooth vied with tribal

Ejderen from the North Sea coastline into Hedeby and the Baltic Sea. Harald also had to contend with Norse people exercising coastal raids.[3]

The entire complex of fortifications, bridges and roads, including

Cnut the Great, son of Sweyn.[5]

The fortresses share similar traits with numerous other locations, in continental Europe and in England, and the scholarly engagement to differentiate between different types is lively. However, in this respect the Viking ring fortresses are somewhat an exception - notwithstanding the polemics engendered by the discovery of two Swedish

Skåne; it is difficult to be more precise.[6]

Fortifications of a similar shape and date have been found around other old towns in Scandinavia, as in

Friesland, built in the outskirts of the Carolingian Empire, but these are mainly discussed in context with the origin of the Viking ring fortress and not considered as such per se.[10]

The precise purpose of the fortresses, however, is unknown. Some historians argue that they functioned as military barracks or training grounds by Sweyn Forkbeard. However, it is more likely that they were intended as defensive strongholds along strategic trade points and/or administrative outposts of the budding state.[11] Søren Sindbæk has offered the hypothesis that the fortresses allowed local populations to seek shelter within the fortress walls against an enemy while waiting for assistance from friendly forces from afar; this means that the fortresses helped Harold Bluetooth to control vast territory and send his army to a particular part of his territory without worrying that the undefended parts would be conquered or plundered.[12] Others have debated whether the fortresses were defensive structures, military strongholds, or primarily served as barracks, as well as the economic, religious, and symbolic significance of the fortresses.[13]

Satellite image showing the ring outline of Borgring on the landscape, which at the time was obscured by farmland (it has subsequently been partially re-established)

The fortresses were soon abandoned and was never mentioned in the literary sources, effectively creating the enigma now known as trelleborge (Danish plural of 'trelleborg'). Nonnebakken was enveloped by the near contemporary municipal bishopric of Odense, while the rest receded into the landscape. The modern discovery of these sites began in the 1930s, with the excavation of Trelleborg in Denmark. Since then, a total of five sites have been officially accepted as Viking ring fortresses.

During the royally funded research project Kongens Borge (The Kings Castles), in 2010, Denmark applied for the admission of Trelleborg, Fyrkat and Aggersborg as The Trelleborg Fortresses as a UNESCO

World Heritage cultural property,[14] It is rumoured, that Denmark and Sweden, perhaps around that time, applied for admission of the Viking ring fortresses, but the records available at the World Heritage Centre cannot confirm any Swedish ring fortresses was ever mentioned.[15] The five trelleborge presently known became the Viking-Age Ring Fortresses World Heritage Site in 2023.[16]

List of Viking ring fortresses

Map of Viking ring fortresses
Suspected

Fortification typology

Aerial view of the Viking ring fortress of Aggersborg. The similarity in design with Trelleborg near Slagelse, is clearly evident.

The trelleborgs had similar design,[17] "perfectly circular with gates opening to the four corners of the earth, and a courtyard divided into four areas which held large houses set in a square pattern",[18] and differ clearly from other fortifications in that region, essentially because of the geometrical plan - though excepting the Frankish forts at Walcheren. A short exposé over early Viking camps in Scandinavia, by Arjen Heijnis, has turned the picture around, marking out these earlier camps "fundamentally different from later defensive structures (ie. the early castles)."[19]

Another characteristic of the ring fortresses of Trelleborg type is their internal features, consisting of axial roads running between the four gates, a ring road running around the inner side of the rampart and the aforementioned four “squares” with blocks of buildings. One of the aims of the excavation in 2015 was to undertake a specific search for these blocks of buildings, […] But as in the earlier excavations, it did not prove possible to locate the blocks of buildings and the axial roads in 2015 (figure 11). […] the collective archaeological findings at the present state of knowledge suggest that these structures never existed in the fortress. This conclusion receives further support from the fact that blocks of buildings and axial roads have not, as yet, been found at the newly excavated Borgring fortress either, and they are also missing from the fortresses in Scania […]

Runge 2018, p. 49

The fortresses are sometimes partially encircled by advanced ramparts, though not always circular.[citation needed] It has been said the trelleborgs were measured with the Roman foot and that the pointed bottom of the moats is a Roman trait.[citation needed]

Dating by dendrochronology has found the wood used for the construction of Trelleborg to have been felled in the autumn of 980 and thus being used for building presumably in the spring of 981. The findings indicate a short construction time with no signs of maintenance, leading to the interpretation of only a short use of the buildings, maybe five years but hardly more than twenty. Fyrkat may be a little older, Aggersborg somewhat younger. 2014 brought a corresponding date to Borgring (end of 10th century),[20] and, in 2019, following the geo-radar survey and subsequent excavation, Nonnebakken also was dated to c. 980.[21] In the 2021 application to UNESCO, all five Danish trelleborgs appear with dates between 970 and 980.[22] Some say the material found at Nonnebakken, Borgring and the Scandian forts is not suffient for a precise dating,[citation needed] but still the layout of the trelleborgs in their local setting - at Trelleborg, Fyrkat, Aggersborg, Nonnebakken under Odense, Borgring and the forts at Trelleborg and Borgeby in Sweden - are so similar that it is probable that they were also functionally associated.[23]

At the turn of the century much debate had passed under the bridge,[24] with much emphasis on adding or not adding an archaeological site to the list of trelleborgs; Nonnebakken was accepted as late as 2017,[25] though at that time the archaeologist Mads Runge had to conclude there was no sign of any buildings inside the rampart.[26] This knowledge status changed the following year, when geo-radar technology was applied.[27]

Name Inner
diameter		 Rampart
width		 Number of
houses		 Length of
houses		 Position Year of discovery Year of construction
Aggersborg 240 m 11 m 48 32.0 m 56°59′44″N 9°15′18″E / 56.99556°N 9.25500°E / 56.99556; 9.25500 (Aggersborg) 975–980
Borgeby 150 m 15 m 55°45′05″N 13°02′12″E / 55.75139°N 13.03667°E / 55.75139; 13.03667 (Borgeby) 1997
Borgring 122 m 10–11 m 55°28′11″N 12°7′19″E / 55.46972°N 12.12194°E / 55.46972; 12.12194 (Borgring) 2014 (1875)
Fyrkat 120 m 13 m 16 28.5 m 56°37′24″N 9°46′14″E / 56.62333°N 9.77056°E / 56.62333; 9.77056 (Fyrkat) 1950 980
Nonnebakken 120 m 55°23′32″N 10°23′17″E / 55.39222°N 10.38806°E / 55.39222; 10.38806 (Nonnebakken) 1953 980–1000
Trelleborg 136 m 19 m 16 (30) 29.4 m 55°23′39″N 11°15′55″E / 55.39417°N 11.26528°E / 55.39417; 11.26528 (Slagelse) 1936 981
Trelleborgen 112 m 55°22′34″N 13°08′51″E / 55.3762°N 13.1476°E / 55.3762; 13.1476 (Trelleborg, Sweden) 1988 c. 800

Gallery

  • Aerial image of Fyrkat
  • Recreation of a typical building at Fyrkat
  • Recreation of the fortress walls at Trelleborg

See also

External links

  • "Enigmatic Viking Fortress discovered in Denmark". Danish Castle Center. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  • "Borgring". Fund og Fortidsminder (in Danish). Agency for Culture and Palaces (Denmark). Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  • "Trelleborgen" (in Swedish). Trelleborg Municipality. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
  • The second circular fort "Trelleborg" found in Sweden Archived June 16, 2004, at the Wayback Machine

Sources

Supplement

References

  1. ISBN 978-87-993972-0-4
    . Retrieved 7 September 2014.
  2. ^ Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, pp.109 (Table 8),114-117
  3. ^ Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, p. 114
  4. ^ Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, 118 (Figure 118)
  5. ^ cf. Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, pp. 112–114
  6. ^ cf. Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, p. 225 ; Runge 2018, p. 49
  7. ^ "The Vikings' Aros - The Ramparts". The Viking Museum (in Danish). Moesgård Museum. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  8. ^ Weidhagen-Hallerdt 2009
  9. ^ Stylegar, Frans-Arne H. (29 March 2005). "En trelleborg i Rygge?". Arkeologi i nord (in Danish). Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  10. ^ Olesen 2000, pp. 105–107 ; cf. Ten Harkel 2019, p. 242,251-253,256-258
  11. ^ Brown, Goodchild & Sindbæk 2014 ; Dobat 2009
  12. ^ Sindbæk 2020
  13. ^ Price 2015, p. 350
  14. ^ Baggrund (in Danish), Kongens Borge [2008-2011] / Internet Archive, 2010 ; Archived 2010-09-24 at the Wayback Machine.
    "WHC-11/34.COM/8A", 34th session of the World Heritage Committee, Brasília, Brazil 25 July - 3 August 2010, UNESCO, pages 6 & 10
  15. ^ Cf. the nordic serial application Viking Monuments, pages 7,8,18,22, in "WHC-11/35.COM/8A", 35th session of the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO, Paris 19-29 June 2011, UNESCO
  16. ^ Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, retrieved 24 January 2024 – via whc.unesco.org
  17. ^ cf. Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, p.58 (Table 3)
  18. ^ Forte, Oram & Pederson 2005, p. 180
  19. ^ Heijnis 2018, p.35, discussion & tabularized overview pp.41-42
  20. ^ Christensen etal. (2018), pp. 61–62, 68
  21. ^ Runge & Neubauer (2018)
  22. ^ Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen - Nomination of Viking-Age Ring Fortresses, p.69 (Table 6)
  23. ^ Runge 2018, p. 49
  24. ^ a couple of overview articles in Danish highlight this, for example Stilling 1981 and Olesen 2000
  25. ^ Runge 2018, p. 57
  26. ^ Runge 2018, pp. 45–46, 49, 56
  27. ^ Runge & Neubauer (2018)
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