Sliasthorp & Füsing: The Royal Seat Behind the Trading Town

When the Danish king Godfred forcibly resettled the merchants from Reric around 808, he brought them, according to the Royal Frankish Annals, to a place called Sliasthorp – "village on the Schlei". For a long time it was unclear whether this meant Haithabu itself or another place. Today much points to there having been a separate, lordly site.

The site of Füsing

On the other side of the Schlei, near today's Füsing, archaeologists discovered a large settlement with a quite different character from Haithabu: not a dense town of craftsmen and traders, but spacious farmsteads, among them a particularly large building – a hall such as befits a ruler's seat. Metal-detector finds (weapon and riding gear, precious metal) show: it was not the simple merchant who lived here, but the upper class.

Two places, one task

This gives a coherent picture: Haithabu was the market, where goods were traded, forged and shipped – Sliasthorp/Füsing was the seat of power from which the king protected the trade and controlled the toll. The two together, with the Danevirke and the Ox Road behind them, formed a system of lordship and trade at the most important isthmus of the North.

"… and ordered that a stay be made at the border of his kingdom, which is called Sliasthorp."after the Annales regni Francorum (public domain, own translation)

Sliasthorp reminds us that behind every great trading town stood a power that protected it – and that in Schleswig this power is very concretely tangible, right opposite the famous town by the water.

Read more with us

Hedeby · The Danevirke · Reric · Nordalbingia · The Ox Road.

Sources & literature

Annales regni Francorum; excavations at Füsing (Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Schleswig); standard literature on Haithabu; quote public domain or own translation.

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