An anepigraphic Viking coin with a surprising amount to say

Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark c. 958-986. AR ‘half-bracteate’ /penning, likely c.975-980 or later. The weight is only .34 grams; the module is correspondingly smaller, evoking Ottonian denars, in the lower 10+ millemeters, more than contemporaneous Anglo-Saxon pennies or French deniers, which run to 15 mm. and higher.

Obv. Abstract design, with curved and straight lines, pellets, annulets, and triangles to left and right, terminating in more annulets and pellets; comparable to earlier variants of the same design, as listed in Hauberg (esp. #2).

Rev. Cross, terminating in crosslets and annulets, complemented by more rounded lines, including an ‘S’ curve.

The dealer cites Hauberg (#6, variant), a reference to which I lack access. Fortunately, other and similar examples are listed on ACSearch and CoinArchives, all citing an early range of listings in Hauberg; 1-6, selectively inclusive. Between them, they suggest that this variant, along with a clear prototype, dated c. 975 /980 (Hauberg #2), was minted in Jelling. This in contrast to the still earlier, better known issue (c. 960s -970s), only more consistently attributed to Hedeby. The initial issue freely imitates Carolingian prototypes, already in a distinctively Viking style. https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=0

https://www.coinarchives.com/w/results.php?search=harald+bluetooth&s=0&upcoming=0&results=100

While Hedeby was a town on the border between Denmark and the German empire, repeatedly changing hands during Harald’s own reign and later, Jelling, in the middle of the Jutland peninsula, was already established as the Danish royal capital.

Map of Viking-Age Denmark, showing Hedeby (/Hathabu) and Jelling.


(By Briangotts - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6028459)
This map gives an idea of the more specific political borders under Harald, with vassal states and allies in yellow. One thing to notice is the level of political contact between Denmark and the eastern and southern Baltic coasts. This serves to amplify the better known, archaeologically demonstrated Viking presence in the same neighborhood, in the broader scope of trade, settlement, and cultural influence.

Over the entire course of the Viking Age, well into and even beyond the 11th century, the eastern Baltic was the gateway between Scandinavia and the system of riverine communication down to Viking /Kievan Rus’, with its two centers, Novgorod to the north, facing Sweden, and Kiev to the south, facing the Byzantine Empire. As such, serious study of the entire region, during this period –despite its century-long tradition of being reductionistically characterized as ‘Slavic’– is hollering for attention; banging loudly on its shield with the flat end of its collective sword. Every reference to the Viking Age that I’ve ever seen has neglected this intuitively crucial dimension of the entire period. ….Just look at the map: if Vikings were that active in France and the British Isles, in numerous, simultaneous capacities, not to mention Kievan Rus’, what were they doing in the modern Baltic countries –effectively in their back yard? A simple matter of connecting the obvious dots.

Meanwhile, Hedeby /Hathabu makes intuitive sense as the mint for the earliest issue associated with Harald, riffing on older but well-known Carolingian types (Hauberg #1; cf. the links to ACSearch and CoinArchives).

By contrast, Jelling immediately evokes the Jelling Stone, a monument set up by Harald himself. While the town gives its name to an entire Viking decorative style, across media (metal and stone –anyone?), Harald’s Jelling Stone is in the related but later Mammen style, c. 950 – 1025.


Here’s one side of it, with Mammen Style flourishes, and runes, for one thing praising Harald for having ‘made the Danes Christian.’ (...Well, for me, Kierkegaard counts for A Lot, all by himself.) Given that even this late in the 10th century, a royal monumental stone like this would have perpetuated Runic inscriptions, one can get a little more comfortable with the fact that these early Danish coins don’t even pretend to aspire to legends in anything resembling Latin.
(Cf. Gareth Williams' too brief, but correspondingly incisive remarks in Graham-Campbellet al., eds., Silver Economy in the Viking Age, p.189; op. cit, p.23, Fig.2.6, #3, for another rendering of the prototype listed in Hauberg2.)

Over the next handful of decades, thanks to AEthelred II’s massive ‘danegelds,’ all of Scandinavia was awash in pennies of AEthelred, successive types of which were enthusiastically imitated, at least as far afield as Sweden and Norse Dublin. Over the first half of the 11th century, the Scandinavian imitations range from full Latin legends to a level of blundered gobbledygook evoking Germanic imitations of 4th c. Roman bronze coins. The earlier ones, especially from Dublin, often involve the ‘outsourcing’ of English die-sinkers. –Sometimes from the mint of York (under Hiberno-Norse rule as recently as 954; cf. this thread: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-viking-grail-coin.390165/#post-8088017 (yep, just lately, I’ve been sort of hanging out in Viking Land).

By contrast, what makes this issue of Harald so great is that the die sinkers are really given free reign, where motifs are concerned. As if to say, Yep, (culturally, for one: ) I’m a Viking; Just Have some.

Meanwhile, Jonas Lau Markussen’s insanely great website on these 10th-11th-c. decorative styles incudes this, by way of essential characteristics of the Mammen Style.


Here, just to be difficult, is his treatment of the earlier Jelling Style. The website --and the newsletters you can sign up for, always in better English than you could expect from a typical American (...look how they vote)-- is higly recommended.
https://jonaslaumarkussen.com/jellingstyle/

Regarding the crosslet motif on the reverse, the inspiration is clearly Byzantine. One iconic (/ikonic?) example of what could happen was given some treatment in this post, regarding a later imitation (into the early 11th century) of a very common Byzantine miliaresion; the imitation from the extreme south of Kievan Rus’. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/post-a-coin-and-its-imitation.388490/page-3#post-7995533

…Which was bouncing directly off of @Tejas’s post:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ro...-constantine-vii-913-959.384165/#post-7793727

Thanks, @Tejas.

But here is where the plot thickens. Basil II recruited vast numbers of ‘Varangians’ for one of his major campaigns –early enough in his reign to coincide with the later phases of Harald’s issues– and, from hoard evidence, paid them largely in these miliaresions.* And Yes, the same miliaresions would have easily found their way to Denmark, providing a prototype within the chronological range of Harald’s issues with the same motif.

But, at least from here, any direct connection between Basil’s miliaresions and this issue is irreducibly speculative. The cross-crosslet motif shows up in Byzantine coins from considerably earlier in the 10th century. …Which might provide further context for this, part of a major gold hoard found on an island in the German Baltic, dating to Harald’s reign, and speculatively associated with his own court. Here, the crosslet motif is combined with a Thor’s hammer at the top, reflecting the ongoing religious pluralism across much of the Viking world, during the early phases of conversion to Christianity.


(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiddensee_treasure)

…In other words, apart from any discrete, ostensibly precise relationship between this type of Harald, and a specific Byzantine issue –however tempting to consider– the operant connections (with trade always a primary dynamic) were longstanding, and likely more gradual and essentially organic in nature.

Another fun thing about Harald are the ring-forts he built in Denmark, often attributed to his son and heir, Svein Forkbeard, father of Cnut. Among extant examples, this one is the star of the show: Trelloborg, with outlines of the typically Viking halls for the troops, but arranged in regular squares within the circular earthwork, evoking precedent going back to Roman forts.


Here are a couple of little poems I wrote in my early teens, freely, not to mention anachronistically bouncing off the Viking ethos. I’d just been turned on to the brilliant old Penguin translations of Icelandic sagas (c. 1960s-’70s), by Magnus Magnusson and Herman Palsson.

Sea-kings bold, in worthy ships and fine,
Fueled by valor, avarice, and wine;
Borne and blessed by Neptune, Thor and Mars,
Set sail, guided by the shining stars,
To sleep beneath an empty sky of brine.

And this very free adaptation of the death of Olaf Trygvasson /Olaf I of Norway, at the sea-battle of Svold /Svolder in the Baltic, in 1000. Riffing on Olaf’s Saga Helga in Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla. The operant villain, Svein Forkbeard, was the son and heir of Harald Bluetooth, and the father of Cnut. (Yes, other culprits were involved, conspicuously a pro-Danish Norwegian jarl (earl), and Olov Skottkonung, king of the Swedish.)

Dead is the archer and broke is the bow;
King Olaf stands glaring, alone at the prow.
He leaps, with his shield-arm over his head;
–’You shan’t take me living; you shan’t take me dead!’--
And feet-first he plummets to slow-rolling sea,
Whose surface is littered with cold, limp debris:
The shield stares mutely at Svein Forkbeard’s knaves,
And slowly is buried by the gentle green waves.

*I like the vagaries of the Byzantine term, ‘Varangian.’ From the early 10th century, following the establishment of the Varangian Guard (not unlike the Praetorian Guard in the Roman Empire, into the 3rd century CE), it referred to ethnic Scandinavians. By relaxed demographic standards; whether from Rus’, Sweden, or further afield. Eventually, the Varangian Guard included Anglo-Danes, in exile following the Norman Conquest. When the Franks of the Fourth Crusade got past the walls of Constantinople in 1204, they were met, in part, by a Varangian Guard, composed largely of English expats.)
...Please, do Anything you Want from the 10th c. C.E.!

 

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If you go to Venice (Italy, not Florida, I've been to both and enjoyed both) you will see in front of the Arsenal four marble statues of lions taken from Greece by the Venetians in the 17th c. The statue far left was originally in Piraeus and dates back from the 4th c. BC and, if you look carefully, you will see a much erased runic inscription of the 11th c. It is one of the mysteries of Venice...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piraeus_Lion

 

V.DVCKS, That's a fascinating coin & excellent writeup ! The Byzantine enkolpion pictured below, from the same period as your Nordic penning, has a starkly different style. Your coin makes use of curvilinear elements & the enkolpion uses harsh linear geometry.

Byzantine bronze enkolpion pendant, 10th cen. +/- 1 cen., 4.33 in. long.

 

@GinoLR, Wow, those lions have seen a lot!!! I really like how the runes are almost legible. Obvious fodder for more than one dissertation.

 

@Al Kowsky, Gawsh, Thanks. ...I could use some practice receiving that kind of compliment. (--Hint? Never....)
The Byzantine patterning almost looks more similar to Celtic than Viking. ...Granted, in Ireland, the Norse even influenced Irish work. Quite an accomplishment, considering the formidable quality of Irish work.