At times there were 100 people in the town other times perhaps over 1,000. Only a select group of the absolute elite Vikings lived in Sliasthorp over extended periods.īased on the industrial design and the building style, Dobat reckons that a majority of the houses in the town were only used a few weeks a year. The town’s population figures fluctuated several times within the same year, depending on whether there was a need for craftsmen and soldiers in the area. The king wasn’t the only one travelling in and out of the Viking town. King Godfred and his men only lodged in Sliasthorp when they had business in the area. With its location by the Schlei bay, Viking ships could easily transport personnel, weapons and food to and from the town.Īs a consequence, the daily running of the town is likely to have been administered by the town chief, who lived in the lavish longhouse. He headed a superpower, which had just conquered and forcibly Christianised all of Northern Germany and which could potentially occupy Jutland too. 742-814), who ruled what we now know as Germany. This enabled the king to strike back in case Jutland was attacked by Charlemagne (c.
The town’s numerous pit-houses could accommodate all of King Godfred’s warriors. So when there was a need for troop reinforcements at the border to the Carolingian Empire in Germany, they could easily step in from Sliasthorp. The long Dannevirke fortification was located only a few hundred metres to the south. Strategically it was a clever choice of location:
At the start of the 9th century he arrived with his army to what was then a small settlement and turned it into a key strategic military location. The aggressive Viking king Godfred, the text says, decided to turn the town into a military power centre near the border of the early Danish kingdom. The first written sources for the history of Denmark – the Royal Frankish Annals from 804 – say that Sliasthorp played an important role in the Viking Age.
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