Birka
Birka , on the island of Björkö in present-day Sweden, was an important Viking Age trading center which handled goods from Scandinavia as well as many parts of Continental Europe and the Orient. Björkö is located in Lake Mälaren, 30 kilometers west of contemporary Stockholm, in the municipality of Ekerö.
Birka was founded around AD 750 and it flourished for more than 200 years. It was abandoned c. AD 975, around the same time Sigtuna was founded as a Christian town some 35 km to the northeast. It has been estimated that the population in Viking Age Birka was between 500 and 1000 people.
The archaeological sites of Birka and Hovgården, on the neighbouring island of Adelsö, make up an archaeological complex which illustrates the elaborate trading networks of Viking Scandinavia and their influence on the subsequent history of Europe. Generally regarded as Sweden's oldest town, Birka has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. Many burial sites have been uncovered at Birka, leading to the finding of many objects including jewelry and many textile fragments. In recent years, objects from Birka have been in the public eye due to ongoing academic research connecting Birka to evidence of trade with the Middle East.
History
Birka was founded around 750 AD as a trading port by a king or merchants trying to control trade. It is one of the earliest urban settlements in Scandinavia. Birka was the Baltic link in the Dnieper Trade Route through Ladoga and Novgorod to the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate. Birka is the site of the first known Christian congregation in Sweden, founded in 831 by Saint Ansgar.As a trading center, Birka most likely offered furs, iron goods, and craft products, in exchange for various materials from much of Europe and Western Asia. Furs were obtained from the Sami people, the Finns, and people in Northwestern Russia, as well as from local trappers. Furs included bear, fox, marten, otter, beaver, and other species. Reindeer antlers and objects carved from reindeer antlers like combs were important items of trade. The trade of walrus tusks, amber, and honey is also documented.
Foreign goods found from the graves of Birka include glass and metalware, pottery from the Rhineland, clothing and textiles including Chinese silk, Byzantine embroidery with extremely fine gold thread, brocades with gold passementerie, and plaited cords of high quality. From the ninth century onwards coins minted at Haithabu in Northern Germany and elsewhere in Scandinavia start to appear. However, the vast majority of the coins found at Birka are silver dirhams from the Middle East while English and Carolingian coins are rare.
Written accounts
Sources from Birka are mainly archaeological remains. No texts survive from this area, though the written text Vita Ansgari by Rimbert describes the missionary work of Ansgar around 830 at Birka, and Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum by Adam of Bremen in 1075 describes the Archbishop Unni, who died at Birka in 936. Saint Ansgar's work was the first attempt to convert the people of Birka from the Norse religion to Christianity. It was unsuccessful.Both Rimbert and Adam were German clergymen writing in Latin. There are no known Norse sources mentioning the name of the settlement, or even the settlement itself, and the original Norse name of Birka is unknown. Birca is the Latinised form given in the written sources by Rimbert and Adam; and Birka is the contemporary, unhistorical Swedish form. The Latin name is probably derived from an Old Norse word "birk" which probably means a market place. Related to this was the Bjärköa law which regulated the life of market places in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Birka and similar spellings are very common in Scandinavian place names still today leading to speculation that all references to Birka, especially those by Adam of Bremen, were not about the same location.
Both publications are silent on Birka's size, layout, and appearance. Based on Rimbert's account, Birka was significant because it had a port and it was the location of the regional ting. Adam only mentions the port, but otherwise, Birka seems to have been significant to him because it was the start of Ansgar's Christian mission and because Archbishop Unni was buried there.
Vita Ansgari and Gesta are sometimes ambiguous, which has caused some controversy as to whether Birka and the Björkö settlement are the same location. Many other locations have been suggested through the years. However, Björkö is the only location that shows remains of a town of Birka's significance, which is why the vast majority of scholars regard Björkö as the location of Birka.
Birka was abandoned during the latter half of the 10th century. Based on the dating of the coins, the city seems to have died out around 960. Roughly around the same time, the nearby settlement of Sigtuna supplanted Birka as the main trading center in the Mälaren area. The reasons for Birka's decline are disputed. The Baltic island of Gotland was also in a better strategic position for Rus'-Byzantine trade and was gaining eminence as a mercantile stronghold. Historian Neil Kent has speculated that the area may have been the victim of an enemy assault.
The Varangian trade stations in Russia suffered a serious decline at roughly the same date.
Rimbert's description
In Vita Ansgari monk and later archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen Rimbert gives the first known description of Birka. The town was the center of Catholic missionary activities in the 9th century Sweden. Rimbert's interests were in the Christian faith, not so much in the Swedish geopolicy, so his descriptions of Birka remain approximate at best.Bridgehead of Christian missionaries
This is how it all started in 829:Meanwhile it happened that Swedish ambassadors had come to the Emperor Louis the Pious, and, amongst other matters which they had been ordered to bring to the attention of the emperor, they informed him that there were many belonging to their nation who desired to embrace the Christian religion, and that their king so far favoured this suggestion that he would permit God's priests to reside there, provided that they might be deemed worthy of such a favour and that the emperor would send them suitable preachers.
Ansgar then undertook the mission committed to him by the emperor, who desired that he should go to the Swedes and discover whether this people was prepared to accept the faith as their messengers had declared.
Ansgar was already experienced in the missionary work in Denmark, and set forth to Sweden. Rimbert describes the trip very generally:
It may suffice for me to say that while they were in the midst of their journey they fell into the hands of pirates. The merchants with whom they were travelling, defended themselves vigorously and for a time successfully, but eventually they were conquered and overcome by the pirates, who took from them their ships and all that they possessed, whilst they themselves barely escaped on. foot to land. —With great difficulty they accomplished their long journey on foot, traversing also the intervening seas, where it was possible, by ship, and eventually arrived at the Swedish port called Birka.
Rimbert does not say where Ansgar sailed off or where he landed. Noteworthy is just his note about several "seas" that they had to cross to get to Birka from the place they had landed to. Since Rimbert mentions them to have crossed the seas by ship "where it was possible" they clearly had the alternative of going around them as well, meaning that the seas were probably the numerous lakes in southern Sweden. When Ansgar again travelled to Birka from Germany about 852, it went easier:
Ansgar accomplished the journey on which he had set out, and after spending nearly twenty days in a ship, he arrived at Birka
This might mean that he sailed off from Hamburg or Bremen instead of some port in Baltic Sea, since the later account by Adam of Bremen gives the distance of Scania and Birka to be only five days at sea.
Kings
Several Swedish kings of the 9th century, Björn, Anund and Olof, are all mentioned in Vita to have spent time in Birka. None of them is however said to have had his residence there, as the Swedish king and his retinue periodically moved between the Husbys, parts of the network of royal estates called Uppsala öd.King Björn met Ansgar in Birka when he arrived there in 829. Later King Olof met him there as well during his last trip in 852.
Church
Ansgar's missionary work resulted in first churches to be built in Sweden. Talking about Herigar, the prefect of Birka:A little later he built a church on his own ancestral property and served God with the utmost devotion.
Herigar's church was not far from the place where tings were held:
On one occasion he himself was sitting in an assembly of people, a stage having been arranged for a council on an open plain. He then summoned his servants and told them to carry him to his church.
Another church was also built in Sweden, however location is left open:
This Gautbert, who at his consecration received the honoured name of the apostle Simeon, went to Sweden, and was honourably received by the king and the people; and he began, amidst general goodwill and approval, to build a church there
The exiled Swedish King Anund Uppsale confirms that either one of the churches was in Birka itself when he ponders if Birka should be plundered:
"There are there," he said, "many great and powerful gods, and in former time a church was built there, and there are many Christians there who worship Christ"