How Salt May Have Motivated the Vikings’ Westward Raids

Introduction To How Salt May Have Motivated the Vikings’ Westward Raids

From economic causes to social and political ones, historians and archeologists worldwide have put a great deal of energy into exploring the question of what may have caused the so-called Viking Age. One theory centers on the idea that the Vikings had to leave in search of specific resources, such as enslaved people, wine, and salt, to remain competitive in a shifting economic landscape at home. No one argues that acquiring portable wealth–defined as easily transportable goods of value–was the end goal of those who left Scandinavia to rove in the early Viking Age. What is less clear is what kinds of portable wealth they valued the most and how much certain kinds of portable wealth might have motivated them to take the risk of sailing to faraway places to acquire them.

The Salt Hypothesis proposes that the Vikings’ early westward expansion–defined as the first thirty or so years of Viking activity in Western France a…