Women’s Dresses of the Viking Age

Abstract

Women's Dresses of the Viking Age

An examination of working-up traces on Viking Age metal artefacts, their materials, and their artistic execution, shows that they may be divided into four groups.

The first group consists of artefacts made of tin or lead without any working-up of the pattern. The metal of the second group is primarily copper alloy, but may be silver or gold. Artefacts of this group are often stereotype, and the quality of the working-up is mostly average, but may be excellent or poor, even sloppy. The artefacts in the third group are sword hilts, sockets for spear points, and riding equipment, all made from iron and decorated with metals in stereotype patterns, but with a high degree of technical virtuosity. Finally, the fourth group consists of artefacts in partially gilded silver with niello inlay. They show a high degree of artistic performance and similarly high craftsmanship.

Farmers of the lowest ranks (the landless hired bands) owned the artefacts of the first group (fig. 1), while the artefacts of the second group belonged to the well-to-do farmers (fig. 2). The artefacts of the third group were possessions of the nobility (fig. 3), while the king owned artefacts of the fourth group (fig. 4).

The poem Rigsthula was composed during the Viking Period, although it was not put into writing until sometime after the end of this period. It describes a society divided into the three classes of thralls, farmers, and nobility. There is a correlation between the information in the Rigsthula and the above-referred examination results, even if the latter does not tell anything about the thralls. The groups in which metal artefacts are divided seem to reflect the tripartition of the society described in the poem.

When fragments of dress textiles are found in the ground, this is because metal salts formed by deterioration of metals have preserved them. The thralls probably did not own metal artefacts, as these were property. This is why we can say nothing about their costume. However, some farmers, and of course the nobility, could afford metal ornaments. This is why their costumes are sometimes preserved in graves.

When we are nowadays referring to the woman's dress of the Viking Period, one type of dress is inferred: a shift made of flax worn as the innermost dress, on top of that a woolly gown with straps, usually kept in place by a pair of tortoise-shaped brooches, and finally a cape. Contemporary depictions of women (fig. 5) are used to show the appearance of this costume. However, as none of the depictions show women wearing tortoise- shaped brooches, we may conclude that these women are not wearing strapped gowns. Several Viking Age women's graves without brooches demonstrate that not all women wore brooches of this kind.

Until now, women's graves containing tortoise-shaped brooches have been considered graves of the rich. The deceased were believed to belong to the highest layers of society. However, if we consider the large number of tortoise-shaped brooches found (approximately 4000), and their flaws and often poor execution, we may conclude that this cannot be true. The relation between wealth and ornaments must be examined closer.

Many metal brooches are worn, but only on the front, not on the bac k. We may interpret this as wearing through polishing. Many such artefacts also show repairs that are often rivetted on without concern to the original patterns. Artefacts made of copper alloy often display alterations of appearance in the form of gilding, blanching, and soldered-on parts in silver. Alterations that must have had the purpose of making the objects look more valuable. Further, the working-up of such artefacts is very rarely of first class execution. Thus, the owners hardly belonged to the highest layers of society, but more likely, to a level that had to accept flaws in the equipment. The wish to make them look more valuable may be explained as sheer snobbishness. It is therefore most likely that such artefacts belonged to the well-to-do farmers.

The strapped gown is known in two varieties: an even type (fig. 6) being the common type, and an uncommon one, which is only known from three finds (fig. 7). The type is similar to the common one, but has a gauffrered part on the front between the two brooches. The poor peasant women possibly had another and cheaper type of dress without tortoise-shaped brooches. The dress of the female thralls is unknown.

Women of the nobility had a quite different type of dress without brooches. A silver pendant from Aska in Sweden (fig. 8) shows a woman from the front. She had no tortoise shaped brooches, but a single brooch in front of the throat. Another example of this brooch-less dress is given by a woodcarving on the Oseberg sledge (fig. 9). A more diversified picture of the female dress of the Viking Period thus emerges. Not only does this new interpretation present several different dresses; it also shows a class society and suggests a new way of looking at the archaeological material from this period.

Bjarne Lønborg