A statue of Viking horn blowers beside the clock tower of Copenhagen's City Hall

How the Vikings made Europe pay

By Paul Sussman, CNN.com writer

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CNN) -- As Denmark votes on whether to join the single currency, some Danes no doubt cast a rueful eye to a time when their country was setting Europe's economic agenda rather than simply following a line laid down by others.

A thousand years before the euro, in the days when a common market was somewhere you went to buy slaves, and "free movement of people" implied reaching your destination with head still attached to shoulders, Danish Vikings were one of the most powerful groups on the continent.

	QUOTE
"In the 9th century the Danes imposed a tax on the population of Ireland, with those who didn't pay having their noses slit open as punishment (hence the origin of the English phrase "Paying through the nose")."

With names like Bjorn Iron Rib and Ljoter the Unwashed, they sallied forth in longships to plunder the rest of Europe, in much the same way as -- according to the more vociferous Danish euro-sceptics -- the rest of Europe is now seeking to plunder Denmark.

There is, of course, little obvious similarity between the activities of a Dark Age Norse raiding party and the modern European Union. Whereas the latter conducts its business through a democratic network of committees and forums, the Norsemen tended to go for a more direct approach -- violence.

The fact remains, however, that while the main financial focus of today's Europe is the single currency, 1,000 years ago it was the tribute paid by terrified populations to pay off the Danes and their fellow marauders from Norway and Sweden.

Terror of the Danes

For roughly 200 years, between the 9th and 11th centuries A.D., there were few parts of Europe that escaped contact with the dreaded Vikings.

	QUOTE
"With names like Bjorn Iron Rib and Ljoter the Unwashed, they sallied forth in longships to plunder the rest of Europe, in much the same way as -- according to the more vociferous Danish euro-sceptics -- the rest of Europe is now seeking to plunder Denmark."

While the Swedes pushed south and east, founding modern-day Novgorod and Kiev and penetrating as far as the Black Sea and Constantinople, and the Norwegians headed west, settling Iceland and Greenland and founding a short-lived colony in what is now North America, the Danes concentrated on plundering Britain, Ireland, France, Holland and Spain.

Towns and villages were attacked, monasteries looted, civilians killed or, if they were lucky, taken away and sold into slavery. "A furare normannorum libera nos, Domine" ("From the rage of the Norsemen keep us, Oh Lord") ran a common prayer of the time.

To prevent these attacks, or at least mitigate their savagery, a system developed whereby native populations would pay a tribute to the invading Danes.

In 845, for instance, Charles the Bald, King of France, paid 7,000 livres to Viking chieftain Ragnar to stop him attacking Paris, a policy repeated by his successors Charles the Big and Charles the Simple.

In Spain, regular payments were made to Danish plunderers, while in the 9th century the Danes imposed a tax on the population of Ireland, with those who didn't pay having their noses slit open as punishment (hence the origin of the English phrase "Paying through the nose").

	QUOTE
"Towns and villages were attacked, monasteries looted, civilians killed or, if they were lucky, taken away and sold into slavery. "A furare normannorum libera nos, Domine" ("From the rage of the Norsemen keep us, Oh Lord") ran a common prayer of the time. "

In England, this system of tribute paying became institutionalised in what was known as the Danegeld, or Dane debt. First levied in 868 to pay off raiding Vikings, it became a regular tax under king Aethelred (978-1016), during whose reign more than 40 million silver pennies were paid in tribute.

Ironically, the introduction of a single, uniform currency in England, during the reign of King Athelstan (924-939), was a direct consequence of the need to maintain a constant supply of cash to the rapacious Norsemen.

Vikings and the euro

In a sense the Viking tribute was the euro of its day -- a common financial denominator linking all the countries of Europe.

Of course the modern euro is a far more benign phenomenon, designed to foster pan-European harmony rather than simply ensuring you don't get your head hacked off.

At the same time, however, the system of paying off marauding Scandinavians did, like the euro, create a financial bond between people from very different lands. A Saxon peasant might not have had much in common with an Iberian one, but both would have been terrified of the Danish invaders, and both would at some point or other have had to cough up to get rid of them.

Not that the parallel should be overstressed. After all, 21st century Danes at least have a choice as to whether they wish to enter the single currency or not. Unlike your average 10th century peasant, they can always vote Nej. And nobody is going to slit their noses if they do.