Long after your last raid: Aging in the era of Vikings

It was Thomas Hobbes, that famous 17th-century CE English philosopher and political scientist, who once quipped that life without government, laws, or society would be "nasty, brutish, and short." Whilst Hobbes was discussing this life in England in the early modern period, his description could also just about sum up life over half a millennium earlier and across the Norwegian Sea.

Yes, this description could also apply to life in the Viking heartland of Scandinavia during the early medieval period.

For communities across the Viking world, scattered across Scandinavia, Europe, and the North Atlantic, from the mid-8th to the early 12th centuries CE, life was, by modern standards, extremely cheap. If you didn't fall victim to an axe in the head during a Viking raid, then there was a whole horde of diseases or everyday dangers that could end your life.

Most tragically, of course, was infant mortality. Without modern medical equipment, knowledge, or procedures, infant mortality rates were sky-high compared to today's (thankfully) low rates, especially in the West.

Whilst accurate statistics from the early medieval period are notoriously troublesome to collate, the general academic consensus is that those who lived during the Viking Age, if they managed to survive birth and childhood, reach adulthood, and avoid all the disease, death, and Viking raids, had a pretty good chance of living well into their 40s, 50s, and even 60s (which, as the current author would strongly argue, as he is rapidly approaching 40, is surely the prime of one's life...right?).

First, we turn to the concept of "being old." How old was old for our ancestors in the Viking world?

How old was old?

A quick scroll through social media and you'll see a number of graying influencers boldly declaring that life begins at insert number after 40. Thanks to the joys of modern medicine and technology, many of us live for decades longer than our ancestors ever did or could.

However, if we wind the clock back a millennium and look at life in the Viking world, then life was about as short as a TikTok reel, right? It is hard to gauge personal opinions from the distance of a millennium, but we can generally say that by the time you reached the current author's age (rapidly approaching 40), you were considered mature and experienced. 

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