In the past few years, various discoveries have been made which lead to an important conclusion: during the second half of the 9th century, Vikings camped in Wieringen. The Viking treasures of Westerklief provide us with the first concrete evidence that Vikings actually came here to settle, and not just to plunder, murder and burn, as classic school illustrations would have us believe. Up until now, only Viking swords had been found, dredged up out of gravel pits along large rivers. They probably fell in the water during the attacks on Dorestad, Tiel, and the surrounding area. In any case, they are not evidence of ongoing Viking presence in the lowlands.

Preserved documents give us indications that first Walcheren (in 841) and then Dorestad (in 850), along with the coastal areas lying behind these two cities, were given by Kaiser Lothar as a fiefdom to two Danish war heroes, Harald and Rorik. For  several years thereafter, the Danish Vikings attacked the Frisian coastal areas, and the Frankish kingdom was severly weakened by years of civil war over the inheritance of Louis the Pious. Lothar hoped to win Harald and Rorik over to his side in his struggle for the leadership of the entire Frankish kingdom.

From 840 until 885 (when Rorik's successor Godfried was murdered) the Vikings were the absolute leaders of almost all of Frisia. Thereafter, their influence waned, probably because the Danish colonies in southeast England were a more appealing settlement area than the ravaged Frisian region. Up until the beginning of the 11th century, however, the Vikings continued to regularly "visit" the lowlands. It is exactly to this time period that both Viking treasures have been dated: the first to about 850, the second to about 875.

It is not clear where Rorik, the most important leader, had his headquarters. It isn't even known if he personally oversaw the region, or if he delegated this to his subordinates. In any case, we have a number of unique documents that tell us which areas the Vikings occupied. After the Vikings appeared to have left for good, it was very important for the churches and monasteries to reclaim their lost lands as quickly as possible. For this reason, detailed lists of property were drawn up. Two of these lists have survived and allow us to identify the areas taken over by Rorik and his Vikings. The older list is the property list of St. Martin's Church in Utrecht, which was written sometime between 940 and 948, and was given to the German Kaiser Otto. All of North Holland seems to have been subject to the Viking takeover, for the property list names property in Kennemerland, de Gooi-/Vechtstreek, Medemblik, Texel and Wieringen. These places were all population centres in North Holland at the time. The second list is the so called Codex Eberhardi (Everhard) of the Monastery at Fulda, drawn up between 1150 and 1158, but based on early 9th century original lists that must have been at the monastery.
All in all, these two documents contain extremely detailed information about Wieringen, apparently an important area in those days.

Let's return to our original question: just how special is the discovery of the silver treasures of Westerklief? Before we answer this question, let's get a broader perspective. In the 1970s, quite some time before the discoveries in Wieringen were made, scholars from the IPP (Institute for Pre- and Protohistory, at the University of Amsterdam) were asking themselves if it wasn't strange that, although chronicles spoke of  lengthy settlement by Danish Vikings through large parts of the Netherlands, not a single piece of convincing evidence supporting this had yet been found. They resolved to do an inventory of all the finds in the Netherlands that might be attributable to Vikings, and to compare them to similar finds in the English Danelaw (the area in England which is commonly known to have been a Danish colony from the 9th to 11th century). The conclusions were surprising: in the Danelaw, only a few dozen indisputable Viking finds were on hand, even though during this time thousands of Vikings and their families must have lived there. So, it wasn't unusual after all that so few finds had been found in the Netherlands. Here, there had been perhaps, at most, only a few hundred Vikings, and only for abouty 40 years. From this viewpoint, the Westerklief finds are especially unique. As stated on the previous pages, there is little doubt about the Danish Viking origin of the silver treasures. The fact that large amounts of silver were buried leads us to suspect that there was an important centre here.

However, many questions still remain unanswered. What were the Vikings doing in Wieringen, and why did they choose Westerklief? The choice of Wieringen is understandable (see the pages on history). But wasn't the east side of Wieringen, where the banks of the Vlie were located, a more logical choice for settlement? In the area of Westerklief, there was only the Ulke Deep, not much more than a creek - not exactly a direct trade route. Hopefully, in the near future, when further archaeological research has been done, we will be able to answer these questions.
 
 

Last updated: 19-3-2002