Weights during the Viking Age would have been used to measure out hacksilver payments, or amongst raiders to divide up plunder. This weight represents many facets of this time period culminating into one artifact. The weight itself was embellished with a coin, though mostly it would have been used to measure the weight of hacksilver, or scrap silver, which the Norse often used in trade as currency. Later in the Viking Age, the hoards and grave burials of Norse people would become saturated with Dihrems from the Muslim world, Frankish coins, and some coins from Mercia and Wessex. This particular coin used to embellish this weight is from the coinage of Ethelred I (847 – 871), who was the king of Wessex just before the legendary Alfred the Great who was responsible for defending the kingdom from Norse raids and also for in some cases treating with Norse to preserve peace for the Wessaxons1.
It would seem that this piece, found in modern day England, would have been used by Norse settlers to measure out foreign silver currencies that they could then trade abroad and back home, as this piece being of lower grade silver than their own would have served them little purpose in their own markets2.

Comment on this page