Interior Textiles in the Viking Age

When Viking Age houses are reconstructed, the focus is often on the hearth and arrangements for tables, benches and sleeping places. This is all of great importance in understanding how people organized their lives, nevertheless, we often forget that various forms of textiles are natural and necessary parts of almost all the functions of the house. When examining Viking Age houses, it is essential to understand the functionality of textiles in bedding, linens, tablecloths, blankets, pillows, wall hangings, and cleaning rags. Moreover, textiles played a significant role as media for collective storytelling and in the ongoing negotiation of social status. Most of the preserved textiles from the Viking Age have been found in graves. However, analyses show that burial textiles included not only clothing but also bedding, pillows, and wrappings for objects. A burial chamber can be viewed as a room for the deceased, furnished with objects that reflect social practices and customs. The interior of the burial chamber therefore offers the best available archaeological source for household textiles. By adopting a holistic approach that combines different methods and sources, and by treating textiles based on the contexts in which they appear, the Viking Age interior textiles become visible, highlighting their use, needs, and value.

The chapters in this volume present different categories of interior textiles and their contexts, how they have been used, their spatiality and the relationships they have with other materials. The textiles are also considered in relation to the three-dimensional space a house constitutes. How was the room furnished and how was it perceived by the people who moved within it? This is a kind of spatial archaeology that is often lost when interpreting houses based on postholes and hearths.