Viking Science

Faraday Cage

The Vikings were suspicious and mystical when it came to written language and didn't widely use it despite having a system of runes. However they did trade with (and raided) the Caliphates and the Byzantine Empire, both learned civilizations. Could cultural transmission have resulted in some sort of education boom in the Norse world? I've got this idea in my head of a university town in a viking port starting with some astronomers or doctors from the Caliphate taken as slaves in a raid. At first the knowledge would be passed among Norse wise-men verbally, but eventually writing could catch on and be more socially accepted.

Does this sound like a plausible and/or interesting TL concept?
 

Valdemar II

Banned
The Vikings were suspicious and mystical when it came to written language and didn't widely use it despite having a system of runes. However they did trade with (and raided) the Caliphates and the Byzantine Empire, both learned civilizations. Could cultural transmission have resulted in some sort of education boom in the Norse world? I've got this idea in my head of a university town in a viking port starting with some astronomers or doctors from the Caliphate taken as slaves in a raid. At first the knowledge would be passed among Norse wise-men verbally, but eventually writing could catch on and be more socially accepted.

Does this sound like a plausible and/or interesting TL concept?

The limit use of writing hadn't anything to do with superstition, but because of the lack of material to write on. The Runes shape is a result of them being alphabeth you carved into wood, if you want a greater use of writing by the viking, you need to give them access to a better medium to write on. Technological there's nothing in the way of them producing paper, they just need to be introduced to it. To all luck South Europe and the Middle East produced paper at the time, and there's several written account of official Arabic visit to Hedeby, beside that their gentic evidence of Arabs staying there (the genetic test of a man in a Hedeby grave showed his paternal grandfather was Arabic). You just need a Arabic or Spanish mechant to introduce papermills and show the advantage of it.
 

Susano

Banned
For that matter, about every writing system out there, including the Latin one we use, at least initially had some mystic side-meaning. The Nords and their runes were hardly unique in that.
 
If paper became a common trading commodity of the Norse, it would be interesting to see a particularly powerful king or Jarl commission someone to codify the Polytheistic Norse religion. Leading to a defining ideology that would revolutionize Norse culture, and prevent some chance of conversions to Christianity. Although in that case, parchment, made from calfskin, goatskin, or sheepskin could have done just as well for that.

Thing is, the Muslims only began to manufacture paper in 794 CE, when they began building paper-mills in Baghdad. And the technology only slowly made it westward, although the Andalusi must have made use of exported paper before they began making it themselves by the Eleventh Century. I suppose some Swedish merchants travelling to Baghdad, or those trading with the Muslims via the Volga-Caspian Sea Route could perhaps purchase the materials, for other reasons than writing documents at first.
 
Last edited:
The Vikings were suspicious and mystical when it came to written language and didn't widely use it despite having a system of runes. However they did trade with (and raided) the Caliphates and the Byzantine Empire, both learned civilizations. Could cultural transmission have resulted in some sort of education boom in the Norse world? I've got this idea in my head of a university town in a viking port starting with some astronomers or doctors from the Caliphate taken as slaves in a raid. At first the knowledge would be passed among Norse wise-men verbally, but eventually writing could catch on and be more socially accepted.

Does this sound like a plausible and/or interesting TL concept?
False, as others have pointed out. There was a note found relatively recently in an archeological dig in ?Sweden? that essentially said "Olaf, come home now, your dinner's getting cold" in runes (scratched on a shingle, IIRC, but it's been a while).

Sure, the majority of Norse/Scandinavians (NOT Vikings, 'viking' is a job description not an ethnicity - peeve #47) were probably illiterate, and thought writing was a bit ... unwordly, but the same could be said about most mediaeval peasants.
 
What would the Norse use to make paper? They couldn't make paper out of wood pulp until a few hundred years ago I thought.
 

Susano

Banned
What would the Norse use to make paper? They couldn't make paper out of wood pulp until a few hundred years ago I thought.

The same the rest of medieval Europe used: Parchment from animal hide. Expensive, but much better useable than wood for obvious reasons. And despite the expensives it was enough to retain at least some literacy and scientific community in medieval Europe.
 
The same the rest of medieval Europe used: Parchment from animal hide. Expensive, but much better useable than wood for obvious reasons. And despite the expensives it was enough to retain at least some literacy and scientific community in medieval Europe.
Hmm, why not hemp? Is it not available in the Baltic? Linen too, though to a lesser extent.
 

Susano

Banned
So Textiles? Have you ever tried to write on textiles? Parchment has pretty similar characteristics to paper, you can write on it. Textiles... less so, unless you paint to write. In which case you can just stick with wood, I think. In any case, medieval Europe surely had reasons for using what they used ;)
 

Valdemar II

Banned
So Textiles? Have you ever tried to write on textiles? Parchment has pretty similar characteristics to paper, you can write on it. Textiles... less so, unless you paint to write. In which case you can just stick with wood, I think. In any case, medieval Europe surely had reasons for using what they used ;)

Arabic, Iranian and South European paper was made of hemp, beside that any soft fiber rich plant pulp can be made into paper.
 
Arabic, Iranian and South European paper was made of hemp, beside that any soft fiber rich plant pulp can be made into paper.
The most common were hemp, linen and flax which is why I suggested it. Also wiki says the Church fought paper because they were afraid of Muslim cultural supremacy? If wiki is not lying to me, then that could be a big reason why parchment over paper was used for so long. I really hope wiki is lying to me because that the stupidest thing I have learned today.
 
Could the possibility of a homegrown Norse cultural revolution occur if King Godfred of Denmark was to successfully vassalize the Saxons, or form a coalition against the Frankish Caroligian Empire?
 
The most common were hemp, linen and flax which is why I suggested it. Also wiki says the Church fought paper because they were afraid of Muslim cultural supremacy? If wiki is not lying to me, then that could be a big reason why parchment over paper was used for so long. I really hope wiki is lying to me because that the stupidest thing I have learned today.

Very likely it is. We have evidence that parchment was used for 'originals' in medieval scriptoria whereas paper, far less durable, was fine for copies, but if an official document was issued on paper, that was remarked on. Obviously, anything as fragile as paper could well be thought unsuitable for ecclesiastical use.

Edit: How about birchbark for starters? Thinly split wooden slats also work. If you're looking for writing materials, you can find a lot.
 
Edit: How about birchbark for starters? Thinly split wooden slats also work. If you're looking for writing materials, you can find a lot.

Quite possibly used as unearthed in Novgorod. Problem is the lack of evidence of the use due to the conservation in nature or rather lack of it. You need a constantly wet environment of the right pH value to conserve for centuries.

Recently a piece of wood was found at Trelleborg with the runes of A and K engraved.

@Faraday Cage: judging the absence of finds is not a basis for claiming a lack of writing.
 
They found a huge stack of pieces of wood and bone engraved with runes in Bergen back in the 50s or so, I think. Among them were thin sticks engraved on one side. Maybe the Norse could tie such sticks together and use them as a medium for writing, like the Chinese used to do before the invention of paper?
 
Years ago I played around with a "Surviving Vinland" timeline where birchbark was their main writing material. I even designed rounded runes for it.
 
Years ago I played around with a "Surviving Vinland" timeline where birchbark was their main writing material. I even designed rounded runes for it.

Are there birch trees in Newfoundland? I assume the Americas have different species of trees than Europe. Though finding suitable bark from other types of trees might be possible.
 

Philip

Donor
Are there birch trees in Newfoundland? I assume the Americas have different species of trees than Europe. Though finding suitable bark from other types of trees might be possible.

There is the paper birch. I don't know if it is in Newfoundland, but it is in most of Canada and northern US.
 
Are there birch trees in Newfoundland? I assume the Americas have different species of trees than Europe. Though finding suitable bark from other types of trees might be possible.

Paper Birch grows in Newfoundland (and in much of Canada), but maybe Silver Birch could be used in Europe.
 
There is the paper birch. I don't know if it is in Newfoundland, but it is in most of Canada and northern US.

Hmm. If wikipedia is to be trusted (yeah, I know) then the Natives would be using it to write on. That must have started after contact with Europeans though? I distinctly recall that North America didn't have writing pre-Columbus.
 
Top