Live Science recently had a report about the discovery of a coin in Hungary that had been minted in the name of the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada ( born c.1015, reigned 1046 -66 ).
King Harald Hardrada - King Harald III - is best known in the British Isles for his death at the battle of Stamford Bridge during his invasion in 1066 ….and indeed is often seen, accurately or not, as the “last Viking”
The cultural and economic links which might explain the presence of the coin are various. King Harald’s wife’s sister was married to King Andrew I of Hungary whilst there were trading links across Central Europe or along the Volga route to Byzantium, or maybe it travelled with someone on the First Crusade at the end of the century. In such matters it was the value and weight of the silver that mattered, not who had issued the coin.
It has been said before that the life of King Harald reads like a novel with his travels to Byzantium and involvement in its politics whilst serving in the Varangian Guard, and his return to Norway as first of all co-ruler and then as sole King. As such he was an ambitious and assertive ruler who sought to acquire both the Danish and English thrones.
Wikipedia has a lengthy biography of the king at
Harald Hardrada. The physical description of him is interesting in that it does make him appear as a man of flesh and blood, not just a name as a stock-in-trade Viking.
That
Wikipedia biography is detailed, and once one starts opening up the links there is a diverting time to be had reading and pursuing other lives and topics. As a a group of articles they are very good, informative, detailed and well researched. Amongst these is
Berserker. This is explains the concept and reality of fighting as a berserker, that is unarmoured and relying upon natural or acquired superhuman strength, which King Harald is said to have done, ultimately unsuccessfully, at Stamford Bridge. It opens up for the reader the world of this type of elite Viking warrior. There are also good linked accounts of his contemporaries, including his wife Elisiv of Kiev, his second son and ultimate successor Olaf III of Norway and about his possible sister-in-law, the mother of Edgar the Aetheling and his sisters at Agatha (wife of Edward the Exile)
The history of King Harald Hardrada is not just that of Norway and of England but of the Northern world and of contemporary Byzantium. His travels and his marriage in the lands of Kyivian or Kievian Rus gives a certain topicality to the narrative.
Once again we have an indicator through the finding of one small coin of the economic and political links that bound the continent together in all its diversity in the eleventh century. Such a single tangible link with the past can be a means to open up our understanding of lives, of politics and military campaigns, of economics and trade in a seemingly distant era, and to give it immediacy.