16 EMIGRATION FROM SWEDEN 



Temporary over^population is considered to have played a very minor part. I 

 shall not examine the causes of the Viking expeditions here, but only mention 

 that the idea that before the beginning of the Viking period Scandinavia had a 

 very large population, even so large that the country was no longer able to 

 maintain it under normal conditions, is based on rather weak evidence. The reasons 

 for this specially adduced are the high figures given by the terrified western 

 Europeans in their accounts of the Viking ships and warriors. Thus in 885 Paris 

 is said to have been besieged by 40,000 men and in 845,600 ships are supposed 

 to have sailed up the Elbe against the Emperor Ludwig. This implies, says the 

 Danish historian Johannes Steenstrup,* that the population that sent forth these 

 hordes was exceedingly numerous. And he is of the opinion that it has reached 

 the limit that the country could support with the means of subsistence at that 

 time. We know, however, that during the Viking period enormous stretches of 

 cultivable land were untouched and it is impossible to say, as other historians 

 have done, that the agricultural implements and methods were so primitive that 

 this land could not be used. With the immense forests that were then in exi« 

 stence they had an ample opportunity to use the primitive method of burn^beating, 

 which needed no animal manure — they simply burned the forest, sowed in the 

 ashes, and were then able to reap not one but several harvests, getting good 

 pasture into the bargain. When the open ground was no longer sufficient or 

 was exhausted they could thus get corn for the people and food for the cattle 

 from the woods. 



At this stage of civilization disease and a high mortality strongly counteracted 

 the probably great prolificity. And these factors operated with increased force 

 in times of scarcity and want, when peoples' power of resistance was suc« 

 cessively decreased by privations. There was in addition a method of regulating 

 a too great increase in the population, that later times would not employ, the 

 exposure of children. It was Christianity that put an end to this barbarous 

 custom. But even in the year 1000, when Christianity became the legal religion 

 in Iceland, they insisted, among other things, on the retention of this right. 



It is thus at present rather doubtful whether a chronic over^population really 

 was the main reason for the Viking expeditions. 



It has already been pointed out that the tribal migrations were at bottom 

 quite a different phenomenon from the usual Viking expeditions. The migrations 

 of the peoples were real emigrations, when the emigrants left their native country 

 in great bands with their wives and children and goods. If the desire for ad* 

 venture and thirst for spoil drove the young warriors of the Viking expeditions 

 from their homes, we may be certain that, however highly we may estimate the 

 martial spirit of enterprise in the old Scandinavians, it was not so great, nor was 

 their solicitude for their closest relatives, whose needs and future they had to 

 provide for, so small, that they would risk their life and prosperity in the un» 

 certain hope of victory and spoil. We must assume that only one thing could 



* Noimannerne 1, p. 209. 



