Did the Carolingians Really Embargo Trade with the Vikings?
When we think of early Viking raids, we imagine raw violence crashing against the shores of a wealthy and unsuspecting Europe. But in reality, the first Viking attacks unfolded against growing economic hostility — a slow, deliberate tightening of trade access by the Carolingian Empire. The evidence shows a clear progression, not through one sweeping decree, but through decades of increasingly restrictive policies that pushed outsiders to the margins of Frankish economic life.
The first signs of tension appear in the Capitulary of Herstal (779), issued under Charlemagne. Rather than targeting foreign trade directly, this document focused on internal matters: regulating tithes, upholding moral behavior, and standardizing justice. There is no mention of restricting trade with pagans or foreigners. However, around the same time, the lesser-known Capitulary of Nijmegen (c. 779–782) introduced the requirement that foreign merchants obtain warrants and submit to tolls (telonea) at royal markets. These measures suggest early attempts to supervise and constrain foreign access to the Carolingian economy.
By the time of the Capitulary of Frankfurt (794), imperial concern with economic control had sharpened. New rules governed coinage purity, weights, and merchant protections. Jewish merchants, critical intermediaries in international trade, received special attention and measures, indicating that long-distance commerce was increasingly centralized under royal oversight. Yet even here, there was no explicit embargo; the Carolingians sought control, not exclusion.
That changed in the early ninth century. The Capitulary of Diedenhofen (805) ordered that foreign merchants could only enter the empire through specific ports, where royal officials could inspect and tax them. This effectively erected economic checkpoints at the empire’s frontiers. While trade was not outlawed, it became significantly harder for outsiders, including Scandinavian traders, to move goods inland or operate freely along the Rhine and Seine.
The trend continued under Louis the Pious. The Capitulary of Aachen (817) reaffirmed and expanded earlier restrictions, imposing severe penalties on anyone caught selling arms or horses to pagans. The military logic behind these measures is obvious, but they also constricted Norse access to the tools and goods they needed to integrate peacefully into Carolingian markets.
Historians like Michael McCormick (Origins of the European Economy) have shown that the Carolingians did not seek to eliminate trade, but rather to control it tightly to consolidate royal authority. By regulating ports, markets, coinage, and merchant activity, the Carolingian court aimed to channel commerce through official avenues that reinforced imperial power. Archaeological evidence from sites like Dorestad and Quentovic reveals that foreign trade persisted well into the ninth century under centralized and supervised conditions. Christian Cooijmans (Monuments of Piracy) has further argued that the mounting restrictions, combined with local enforcement and the growing perception of outsiders as threats, made peaceful trade difficult for early Viking groups.
Yet even as the Carolingians sought to restrict and control access to their markets, circumstances eventually forced a more pragmatic approach. By the mid-ninth century, Frankish rulers were granting formal charters to Viking groups to establish regulated markets of their own. One notable example is the Viking settlement granted a trading charter on the island of Betia, near Nantes, around 850. Rather than expelling Norse traders entirely, the Carolingians shifted toward selectively legalizing their presence — a striking reversal that underscores the complexity of early medieval economic policies.
Rather than a sudden embargo, the Carolingian world erected a slow, uneven wall of economic hostility. And when the doors to legitimate commerce began to close, it may have seemed natural for some Scandinavian merchants to take by force what was no longer available by negotiation.
If you found this glimpse into the Carolingian world interesting, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Why do you think efforts to control trade so often lead to conflict? Were the Vikings simply responding to a closed door, or would they have raided anyway?
Share your thoughts in the comments — I'm always eager to hear your take on how history unfolds.
Works Cited
Capitulary of Herstal (779), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. 1, ed. Alfred Boretius (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 53–58. Link
Capitulary of Nijmegen (c. 779–782), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. 1, ed. Alfred Boretius (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 86–88. Link
Capitulary of Frankfurt (794), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. 1, ed. Alfred Boretius (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 100–111. Link
Capitulary of Diedenhofen (805), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. 1, ed. Alfred Boretius (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 127–129. Link
Capitulary of Aachen (817), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. 1, ed. Alfred Boretius (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 253–265. Link
McCormick, Michael. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Cooijmans, Christian. Monuments of Piracy: Understanding the Viking World through its Raiding Practices. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
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