Viking jewellery - Here you can buy Viking brooches and authentic fibula replicas.

About Viking jewellery in over 300 years

Buy Viking jewellery at Pera Peris – House of History

In this category, you will find a wide selection of brooches and fibulae from the jewellery collection of Pera Peris – House of History. Here you can buy detailed replicas of Viking brooches or purchase Viking jewellery designed according to your own specifications and closely based on historical models from the Viking Age, crafted in the typical artistic styles of the Viking Age.

Our medieval mail order company stocks high-quality replicas and museum replicas of Viking jewellery from various eras and countries of the Viking Age, from Scandinavia to the Baltic States to Russia and England.

In the Viking jewellery category, you can buy a large selection of Viking brooches and fibulae as well as historically accurate replicas of typical bow fibulae, also known as tortoise fibulae, hump fibulae or oval fibulae, which were essential for women's clothing in the Viking Age.

You will also find various designs of cloverleaf brooches typical of Viking-era women's costumes, replicas of equilateral brooches and a wide selection of so-called disc brooches.

An indispensable part of the costume for Viking men was a ring brooch, also known as a horseshoe brooch or omega brooch, which they also used in a smaller version on their calf wraps and as a small brooch at the neckline.

Our Viking jewellery is made of high-quality bronze and is characterised by a particularly beautiful, golden-yellow bronze alloy. You can also buy our Viking brooches in genuine silver-plated, whereby we coat our jewellery with an extra-strong layer of silver of up to 10 mg.

In addition, many of our brooches are also coated with a special tarnish protection that ensures that the shiny bronze does not oxidise and darken or the silver does not turn black, so that you can enjoy your Viking jewellery for a long time to come.

Viking jewellery

In a period of only 300 years, the jewellery craftsmen of the Viking Age created masterpieces of powerful dynamism, jewellery of impressive beauty and remarkable craftsmanship.Viking jewellery was usually made of bronze, but silver-plated or gold-plated bronze and even pure silver were also used.

iking jewellery was designed from wax and cast in a so-called lost mould, or hammered from bronze and silver sheet metal on patrices and decorated with filigree granulation.

The so-called fibula, basically a brooch, was particularly important for Viking-era clothing. This garment clasp was used to fasten not only the neckline of the tunic, but also the cloak and the dress of Viking women.

Depending on their area of use and cultural region, a distinction is made between different types of brooches, including horseshoe brooches, disc brooches, cloverleaf brooches, equal-armed brooches, box brooches, animal head brooches and shell brooches, all of which were characteristic of Viking jewellery.

A distinction must be made between women's and men's jewellery, as it not only had a decorative but also a practical function and was also gender-specific in nature.

For example, only women wore a so-called oval brooch, which is also known as oval brooch, tortoise brooch or turtle brooch because of its shape. This Viking jewellery was worn in pairs below the shoulders and served to fasten the apron to the garment.

Similarly, only women wore a so-called trefoil brooch, which was usually worn in the middle of the chest and fastened the neckline of the shirt or a light cape. Viking men, on the other hand, fastened their cloaks with a horseshoe brooch, which, as the name suggests, was shaped like a horseshoe.

Horseshoe brooch or ring brooch

A typical piece of jewellery for men in the Viking Age was the horseshoe brooch, also known as an omega brooch or ring brooch. The horseshoe brooch of the Vikings was often used for particularly heavy fabrics such as a heavy woollen cloak and worn on the left shoulder so that the wearer had his right hand free to draw his sword.

Women, on the other hand, fastened their cloaks directly on their chests with a smaller disc brooch, cloverleaf brooch or equilateral brooch. The Vikings also wore smaller ring brooches as functional jewellery, which fastened the neckline of their shirts or secured the calf wraps on their legs.

The horseshoe brooch was often richly decorated as a kind of status symbol, made of precious materials such as silver and sometimes even gold-plated. These magnificent brooches could reach a length of 30 cm and were probably used purely as status symbols rather than for everyday use.

Unlike the magnificent brooches, however, Viking garment fasteners were usually made of bronze and were at most silver-plated, while ordinary men often used only horseshoe brooches made of iron.

Depending on the region, different forms of horseshoe brooches can be found. In Finland, for example, the so-called polyhedron brooch was popular, an omega brooch with cubic end caps, while in the Baltic region, horseshoe brooches with stylised animal heads were popular.

In England, on the other hand, the thistle brooch was popular, with ends shaped like the heads of thistles, and it also became popular as jewellery among the Vikings in western Norway.

In addition, there were many other types of these brooches in the Viking Age, such as ring brooches with various dragon or animal heads or faces, spirals and triangular-shaped end plates.

The ring pins of the Vikings

Another type of Viking jewellery that was widespread alongside horseshoe brooches was the so-called ring pin, which had a closed ring instead of the open horseshoe shape and was not locked in place.

The ring pins of the Vikings were often made only of iron and were very simple in design, but there were also extremely elaborate and downright baroque ring pins made of silver-plated bronze. This Viking jewellery made the wealth, rank and position of the wearer within Viking society more than clear.

However, the simplest form of garment fastener used by the Vikings was the garment pin, which was often carved from antler or bone. There were also bronze cloak pins, such as the famous cloak pin from Haithabu, which was decorated with an expressive dragon's head.

Brooches of the Viking Age

Another form of garment fastener are filigree brooches in the Urnes style, which feature intertwined snakes in openwork and became popular towards the end of the Viking Age. As an alternative to disc brooches and trefoil brooches, the Vikings also reworked book fittings from Christian monasteries into brooches.

This Viking jewellery was often decorated with plant motifs such as palmettes and acanthus leaves from the Carolingian workshops of the Frankish Empire and was quite atypical for Scandinavian art.

Another brooch typical of Viking jewellery was the so-called equal-armed brooch, a brooch with two uniformly designed ‘wings’ that could be decorated with plastic animal motifs, but were more often executed in simple notch carving.

The Vikings also had bird brooches and diamond-shaped brooches, known as diamond brooches, but these were generally less common than disc brooches and cloverleaf brooches. 

However, a characteristic feature of all Viking brooches was that they were made of bronze or silver and worn in the centre of the chest to fasten the neckline of a shirt, a cape or a caftan.

The Viking Age cloverleaf brooches

The cloverleaf brooch came to the north as Viking jewellery through contacts with Franconia. Cloverleaf-shaped fittings were used as strap dividers in Franconian military equipment and also found their way into Viking territories as trade goods or booty during the Carolingian period.

Here, these original strap dividers were reworked into brooches by Scandinavian goldsmiths and developed into a typical piece of jewellery for Viking-era women's costumes, as such cloverleaf brooches were soon also being made in their own Scandinavian style.

The trefoil brooch was used as jewellery only by Viking women and was always worn in the centre of the chest or used to fasten light cloaks. chain could also be attached to the cloverleaf brooch and extend to the two shell brooches on either side.

The trefoil brooch was worn as jewellery throughout almost the entire Viking Age, until this garment clasp gradually disappeared from Viking costume towards the middle of the 10th century.

However, it was not only the fittings of Carolingian military equipment that the Vikings brought back to the north as loot on their raids, but also precious book fittings from Christian monasteries, which they then remade into brooches.

Franconian fittings were usually decorated with plant motifs such as palmettes and acanthus, which were atypical for Scandinavian Viking jewellery.

The equal-armed brooches of the Vikings

As an alternative to the cloverleaf brooch, Viking women also wore the so-called equal-armed brooch, in which two uniformly designed ‘wings’ extended from the central part of the brooch.

This typical Viking jewellery was often designed using the carving technique, but there were also equal-armed brooches in a figurative style, with naturalistic figures and animal figures on the brooch.

Like the cloverleaf brooch, the equal-armed brooch was also worn in the middle of the chest, where it fastened the cloak.

Viking disc brooches

The disc brooch was a very popular and widespread piece of Viking jewellery. As the name suggests, this brooch was designed in the shape of a disc and is therefore often referred to as a round brooch.

This garment clasp was primarily used for the neckline of the garment, but could also be used to fasten a light cloak.

The round brooch was worn as a brooch throughout the Viking settlement area by both men and women as jewellery and could reach sizes of 2 to 6 cm.

The Viking disc brooch was usually cast in bronze and was often decorated with openwork tendrils and mythical creatures such as dragons and snakes, or with figurative animal representations.

The disc brooches of the eastern type, which are found particularly in Russia and eastern Scandinavia, are especially beautiful. These brooches were often made using the filigree granulation technique and are rightly considered masterpieces of Viking-era craftsmanship.n addition to the most common bronze disc brooches, there were also brooches made entirely of silver or even gold-plated.

The oval brooches of the Viking Age

The oval brooch is the quintessential Viking jewellery and was a must-have accessory for Viking women's clothing for a long time. Only women wore these oval brooches as garment fasteners, which are also known as bowl brooches, turtle brooches or tortoise brooches due to their shape.

The oval brooch was always worn in pairs and connected the apron to the dress below the shoulders. These oval brooches were often connected with one or even several chains, which were sometimes connected in the middle of the chest with another brooch, e.g. a trefoil brooch or disc brooch.

Ribbons or chains often hung down from the oval rooch, to which toiletries such as ear spoons, tweezers or even a thorn were attached, so that they were always at hand.

At the beginning of the Viking Age, the turtle brooch was cast from a single piece and was rather small and modest in design.owever, as the Vikings became increasingly wealthy, this Viking jewellery developed into richly designed status symbols that could reach remarkable sizes and weights.

Unlike the early models, the later oval brooches were mostly double-shelled, with an openwork upper part above a shell underneath. The bowl rooch was found in all areas settled by Vikings, and some models of these Viking brooches became so widespread as jewellery that they can be found from Norway to Sweden to Iceland and France, and even in England and Russia.

The Gotland box brooches

Towards the end of the Vendel period and at the beginning of the Viking Age, a unique brooch had developed on the Swedish island of Gotland, the so-called box brooch, also known as the Gotland brooch.

In contrast to the Viking bowl brooch, the box brooch was worn as a so-called solitary brooch, not in pairs, but as a single brooch, and was used to fasten a coat or cloak.

Another special feature of Viking Age jewellery is the so-called animal-head brooch, which, like the shell brooch, was also worn in pairs between the 9th and 11th centuries.

These brooches were probably used to fasten a cloak or cape to a dress, as the arrangement of the animal-head brooches in the finds shows.

The animal-head brooch was usually cast in one piece and, in later forms, also had a back plate. Some examples of animal-head brooches, like the mainland Scandinavian shell brooches, were also double-shelled.

What does Viking jewellery mean to people today?

Viking jewellery is much more than a fashion accessory – it tells stories of strength, courage and freedom. Those who wear Viking jewellery connect with a fascinating era full of adventure, mythology and craftsmanship. Every pendant, ring or bangle is a piece of history that shows personality and emphasises individuality. Are you ready to wear jewellery that expresses more than just a style? Then discover the world of Viking jewellery at PERA PERIS.

What was the significance of Viking jewellery?

Viking jewellery was not just for decoration. It symbolised status, power and belonging, and often featured protective symbols or religious signs. Thor's hammer, runes, dragons and wolves were not mere embellishments – they stood for protection, strength and connection to the Norse gods. Viking jewellery therefore always has a deeper meaning. Those who wear Viking jewellery today consciously connect with this symbolism and show that they are looking for more than just ordinary jewellery.

What did the Vikings use for their jewellery?

Traditionally, Viking jewellery was made of silver, bronze and iron, complemented by amber or glass beads. These materials stand for quality, durability and authenticity. High-quality Viking jewellery impresses with its robust workmanship and timeless look – perfect for everyday wear or special occasions. Do you want a piece of jewellery that will last a long time and look stylish at the same time? Then choose Viking jewellery made from authentic materials.

Who wears Viking jewellery today?

Are you wondering whether Viking jewellery is only for medieval enthusiasts? Not at all! Men and women wear it as an expression of their personality. Whether arm rings, rings, chains or pendants – Viking jewellery can be combined in a modern way and suits every style. It is a statement of individuality, a spirit of adventure and a love of Norse mythology.

What symbols are typical of Viking jewellery?

Viking jewellery can be rich in symbols that tell stories. Thor's hammer (Mjölnir) stands for protection and strength, runes symbolise knowledge and destiny, while dragons, wolves and ravens represent power, wisdom and courage. Are you looking for jewellery with meaning? Then Viking jewellery offers the perfect combination of symbolism and aesthetics.

Why is genuine Viking jewellery the perfect gift?

Want a gift that will last? Viking jewellery is extraordinary, personal and full of symbolic meaning. Whether for birthdays, anniversaries or as a token of appreciation, authentic Viking jewellery leaves a lasting impression and is more than just an ordinary gift.

Why buy Viking jewellery today?

Authentic Viking jewellery is timeless, expressive and a symbol of strength, freedom and personality. Whether for yourself or as a gift, when you choose a piece of authentic Viking jewellery, you are choosing a piece that perfectly combines history, mythology and personal style. Get a piece of Nordic tradition now and wear an accessory that is more than just beautiful.

We hope you enjoyed this little excursion into the jewellery of the Vikings and that you will find a piece of Viking jewellery to suit your authentic outfit or as a stylish accessory for everyday wear.