angelical, and it is meet that they should become joint heirs with the
angels in heaven.’
Then he sought further information concerning them.
‘What do you call the province from which the boys were brought hither?’
‘Deira,’ was the reply given him.
‘Deira!’ said the monk; ‘that is well said. _De ira eruti_—they shall be
snatched from the wrath of God!’
Again he asked: ‘What is the name of their king?’
‘Their king is named Aelle.’
‘_Alleluia!_’ replied the monk, playing on the name of the king. ‘It is
most fit that the love of God our Creator be sung in those parts.’
Fifteen years after this conversation took place in the market of Rome,
the monk had become famous as Pope Gregory the First. Then, in
fulfilment of the plans he had formed for rescuing the Angli from the
wrath of God, he chose a monk named Augustine to make a journey to
Britain with some companions. Augustine, with his small band, set out,
but on reaching Gaul was so dismayed by the reports of the savage
character of the people to whom he was bidden to go, that he turned
back, and sought release from the task which had been imposed upon him.
This Gregory refused, reminding him that ‘the more difficult the task,
the greater is the reward.’
Augustine once more set out, and landed at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of
Thanet, in the Spring of the year 597. The king of Kent was then
Aethelberht, who had married a Christian princess, the daughter of the
king of the Franks. Thus the way had been made clear for the mission of
Augustine, and Kent soon became a Christian kingdom.
King Aelle of Northumbria died in 588, and thirteen years later his son
Edwin became king. Edwin had married the daughter of Aethelberht of
Kent, Aethelburga by name, and with her there came to Eoferwic Paulinus,
a monk.
For long this monk was unable to persuade Edwin to become a Christian;
but in 626 there was called a meeting of the king’s _Witan_, or ‘wise
men,’ each of whom was asked what he thought of the new doctrines then
being preached by Paulinus.[11] After Coifi,[12] the king’s high priest,
had expressed his opinion that the gods they worshipped had no power,
one of the king’s counsellors broke in with these words:—
‘Thus it seems to me, O my king, that the life of man on earth, in
comparison with the life unknown to us, is just as if you were
sitting at table with your ealdormen and thegns in wintertide—when
the fire was kindled and your hall made warm, while it rained and
snowed outside—and there came a sparrow and quickly flew through the
hall, coming in by one door and passing out by the other. During the
time that he is passing through the hall he is safe from the
winter’s storm, but it is only for the twinkling of an eye, and in
the shortest space of time he passes from winter into winter.
‘So seems the life of man—it is ours for a little while, but what
goes before it and what follows after we know not. Therefore if this
teaching makes anything clearer and more certain, it is meet that we
follow it.’
Footnote 11:
The place of meeting was either York or Londesborough.
Footnote 12:
_Kóh-i-fi_ in pronunciation.
What an apt comparison—the life of a man is like the brief flight of a
sparrow through a pleasant room! Many a time must those present when the
words were spoken have seen a bewildered sparrow fly swiftly through the
king’s hall, entering it to seek shelter from the storm without, and
leaving it to seek safety from the smoke of the fire and the noise of
men’s voices within. And what more suitable illustration of man’s
ignorance of the hereafter could have been chosen? We can imagine its
effect upon Coifi, who, on hearing the words of the king’s counsellor,
exclaimed:—
‘I see clearly that what we have been worshipping is but naught. For
the more earnestly I have sought the truth through our worship, the
less I have found it. Therefore, O king, I now advise that we
speedily destroy and burn with fire the altars which we hallowed
without receiving any benefit.’
Thus were King Edwin of Deira and his _Witan_ converted to the true
religion, and the temple which contained the heathen altars destroyed.
Coifi himself sought permission to be the first to cast down the idols
it contained, and the king granted him weapons and a horse for the
purpose. Riding to the temple, he first cast his spear against the
altar, and then called to his companions that they should pull down the
idols and burn them. ‘The place is yet pointed out,’ wrote Bede one
hundred years later, ‘not far east from Eoferwic beyond the river
Derwent, and is to-day called Godmundingaham, where the high priest,
through the inspiration of the true God, cast down and destroyed the
altars which he himself had previously hallowed.’
‘Not far east from York, beyond the river Derwent’—such was Bede’s
description of the place of this memorable deed. GODMUNDINGAHAM, he
says, was its new name, and GOODMANHAM it is in our own day. Tradition
says further that the present church, dedicated to All Saints, stands on
the exact site of the heathen temple which Coifi, the heathen high
priest, was the first to profane. But whether tradition speaks true we
have no means of knowing.
[Illustration:
GOODMANHAM CHURCH.
(_From an old Engraving_).
]
* * * * *
The immediate results of the adoption of Christianity at Goodmanham were
the building of a wooden church at York, and the baptism in it of King
Edwin on Easter Day 627. This wooden church, dedicated to St. Peter, was
shortly afterwards succeeded by a larger and loftier church of stone,
which, in its turn, was destined to be succeeded by another yet larger
and loftier—the Minster that we count to-day as one of the glories of
Northern England.
Six years later King Edwin was slain in battle against Penda, the
heathen king of Mercia, and Cadwallon, a British king, ‘more fierce and
cruel than the heathen, for he was a barbarian.’ The head of Edwin was
taken to York and buried in the stone church of St. Peter which he had
begun to build; and Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, fled by sea
southwards to Kent with Edwin’s widowed queen and their two children.
Then for the whole of an ‘unhappy and godless’ year Northumbria was
wasted by Cadwallon.
At the end of the year Edwin’s nephew Oswald, with an army small but
strengthened by belief in Christ, fought against Cadwallon. Now Oswald
was ‘a man dear to God,’ and before the battle he caused to be made a
hastily-constructed cross of wood, which was erected in a pit dug in
front of his army. With his own hands he set up this cross and held it
till his men had made it firm with heaped-up soil. Then did Oswald call
to him all his men and gave them his command: ‘Let us all bend the knee
and together ask the almighty, living, and true God to defend us with
His mercy from this proud and cruel foe; for He knows that we are justly
fighting for the safety of our people.’
This they all did; and in the fight which followed, Oswald gained a
complete victory, and Cadwallon was slain. The place of Oswald’s victory
was called ‘Heavenfield’; and, says Bede, ‘many people to-day take chips
and shavings from the wood of that holy cross and put them in water, and
sprinkle the water on sick men and beasts, or give them it to drink, and
they are at once cured.’
* * * * *
With the accession of King Oswald Christianity returned to the people of
the north. This time, however, it was brought not by the monks of Rome,
but by British monks from a monastery which had been established by
Columba, an Irish saint, on the tiny island of Iona, lying off the west
coast of Scotland.
It was to this monastery that Oswald sent asking for teachers for his
people. In reply there was sent him a monk of hard and stern nature, to
whom the people would not gladly listen; so that he was able to effect
little, but returned to Iona and reported that he could do nothing
because the people of Northumbria were unteachable. ‘Was it not,
brother,’ said one of his fellow monks, ‘you who were not sufficiently
patient and gentle with those untaught men?’ The question made all
present turn to the speaker, and they quickly decided that he was worthy
to be sent as teacher to their friend, King Oswald.
So came to Northumbria the saintly Aidan, whose success in converting
the heathen Angles was due chiefly to the fact that as he taught so he
himself lived. For, says Bede,
he in no way desired or sought after the things that are of this
world; but all the worldly goods that were given him by kings or by
rich men he gladly gave to the poor and needy who came to him.
Through all the land he travelled, visiting towns and wayside
villages, and never on horseback, unless there were special need,
but always on foot. And wheresoever he came and whomsoever he met,
whether rich or poor, he turned to them. If they were unbelievers,
then he invited them to believe in Christ; if they were believers he
strengthened them in their belief, and with word and deed stirred
them up to almsgiving and the performance of good deeds.
By the labours of Aidan and his fellow monks the men of the north again
became Christians; and such earnest Christians were they that they
hallowed with the ‘Sign of the Cross’ the places at which they held
their meetings for the purposes of government.
A British burial mound was often found convenient for an Anglian _mōt_,
or meeting,—whence the name ‘Moot Hill’—and its purpose was marked by a
large trench in the form of a cross cut through the mound down into the
chalk. The four arms of the trench were made roughly equal, and always
pointed north, south, east, and west. Cowlam Cross, near which the
village church was afterwards erected, is cut seven feet deep in the
solid chalk, and another similar cross with arms twenty-one feet long
has been discovered at Helperthorpe.
[Illustration: TWO SIDES OF AN ANGLIAN CROSS SHAFT AT LEVEN.]
Where no convenient mound existed, the place of meeting was sometimes
marked in the opposite way. Instead of cutting a deep trench they raised
at right angles two ridges of earth and stones, entirely surrounded by a
shallow ditch.
Such crosses have been named _Embankment Crosses_, and eleven have been
discovered within a radius of fifteen miles from Driffield. A favourite
name for them among the country folk is that of _bield_, or shelter,
because they were supposed to have been built up to serve as shelters
for the cattle. There is one near East Heslerton, known locally as the
‘Old Bield,’ the arms of which measure 45 yards each, north and south,
and 50 yards east and west. Another formerly existed near the site of
the ancient village of Haywold. Ploughing operations have caused
this—and probably many others—to be destroyed; but its name, ‘Christ
Cross,’ is still preserved.
With the introduction of Christianity there took place great development
of the arts of peace in home and village life. ‘The English forged the
ploughshare rather than the sword. They built weirs, and fished, and set
up watermills by the rivers. Boat-building, brewing, leather-tanning,
pottery, dyeing, weaving, the working of gold and silver, and
embroidery, grew and soon began to flourish. The days of merchandise
succeeded the days of plunder; life became gentler, nearer in spirit to
the homes of England as we now conceive them.’
VIII.
THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN.
Two hundred years pass onwards from the coming of Saint Aidan to
Northumbria, and we are again among scenes of famine, sword, and fire.
Let us see what the records of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles have to tell.
A.D. 787. In these days first came three ships of the Northmen, and
when the bailiff rode down to them, and would take the men
to the king’s town—for he knew not who they were—he was
slain. Those were the first ships of the Danish men that
came to the land of the Angles.
A.D. 833. In this year King Egbert fought against the crews of
thirty-five ships at Charmouth, and there was great
slaughter, and the Danish men possessed the battlefield.
A.D. 851. In this year the heathen men first remained over the
winter, and in the same year came three hundred and fifty
ships into the mouth of the Thames, and broke into
Canterbury and London, and put to flight Beorhtwulf, King
of Mercia.
A.D. 867. In this year the heathen army went from East Anglia over
the mouth of the Humber to York ... and there was immense
slaughter of the Northumbrians, some within York, and some
without, and the survivors made peace with the heathen
army.
These records show that the history of the fifth and sixth centuries was
being repeated at the close of the eighth century, and during the ninth.
They tell us of the inroads of a new race of free-booters, men of
Northern Europe—coming from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—men among whom
was a passionate love of the sea and an overwhelming desire for the
plunder of other lands. Sea-pirates they are now often called, but we
must remember that among them what we should call piracy was looked upon
as the most honourable career in life.
Each year as Spring came round these Danish sea-rovers would gather
together their men, take advantage of the north-east winds, and sail
away to Britain, or the northern coast of France, or even to the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea, and return laden with plunder on the coming of
Autumn.
One thing the records which have been quoted make very clear. In 787
‘first came three ships of the Northmen’; less than fifty years later
King Egbert of Wessex was fighting against the crews of thirty-five
vessels; and in 851 the fleet of ships entering the Thames numbered no
fewer than three hundred and fifty. What does this astonishing increase
in numbers mean? It can mean only one thing—that the Northmen found
their marauding expeditions to England profitable. England, in other
words, was worth plundering. In fact, England was so prosperous a
country, and its churches and monasteries contained such treasures of
gold and silver, that the Northmen found it worth their while to build
more ‘long-ships’—as their ships of war were called—in order that they
might plunder it more completely.
* * * * *
But as time passed away the Northmen came not merely to plunder and
return home, but to seek new homes in the fertile lands of Britain. In
later records we find mention of peace being made between the Angles and
the Danes without the fighting of a battle:—
A.D. 872. In this year went the heathen army into Northumbria. They
also took up winter quarters at Torksey, and the Mercians
made peace with the invaders.
A.D. 876. In this year Healfdene divided the Northumbrian land, and
the Danes gave themselves up to ploughing and tilling the
land.
Two years after the last record Alfred, King of the West Saxons, made
with Guthrum, the Danish leader, a treaty by which all Northern and
Eastern England—all England, that is, north of Watling Street, the Roman
road leading from London to Chester—was ceded to the Danes to be ruled
according to their laws. Henceforth this district becomes known as the
DANELAGH.
So history goes on repeating itself. For just as the Angles and Saxons
had warred against the Britons, and then made settlements and turned to
forest-clearing and ploughing, sowing and reaping; so a few centuries
later came the Danes to make war upon them in turn, and finally to take
possession of uncleared and hitherto unclaimed lands whereon to make for
themselves new homes.
Very numerous settlements were made by the Danes in the part of England
known as the Danelagh, and most of these may be recognised by the
village names of to-day. What to an Angle were a _tūn_ and a _wīc_[13]
were to a Dane a _bȳr_[13] and a _thorp_. Hence the name-endings _by_
and _thorp_ denote respectively the sites of a Danish farmhouse and a
Danish village; and it is interesting to pick out such names on a
large-scale map, and see how they occur in groups or succeed one another
along the line of an old highway.
Footnote 13:
Pronounced _week_ and _beer_, respectively.
Thus in the East Riding, within a radius of five miles of the Anglian
settlements of Bridlington and Hessle, we shall find the Danish names
Hilderthorpe, Wilsthorpe, Fraisthorpe, Haisthorpe, Caythorpe, Carnaby,
Bessingby, Sewerby; and Anlaby, Willerby, Skidby, Wauldby, Tranby,
Ferriby. Other groups will be found round York, Malton, and Pocklington.
The best example of the occurrence of a succession of Danish names along
the line of an ancient highway is to be found on the other side of the
Humber. Here, along the road from the Humber to the old Roman station at
Caistor, passing through the Anglian settlements of Horkstow and Brigg,
there are no fewer than fifteen villages whose names end in _by_, and
one of them has in addition the suffix _Thorpe_.[14]
Footnote 14:
There are more Danish place names in Lincolnshire than in all the rest
of England south of the Humber. North of the Humber the largest number
is to be found in the East Riding.
[Illustration: DANISH SETTLEMENTS IN A PORTION OF NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE.]
Place names ending in _by_ and _thorp_ by no means exhaust the list of
Danish settlements. A complete list of name-endings which are Norse in
origin would include the following:—
beck a stream.
by a farmstead.
fell a hillside.
force or foss a waterfall.
garth an enclosure.
gill a ravine.
holm } an island, or a piece of firm land rising
holme } out of the surrounding marsh.
how a hill.
lund a sacred grove.
ness a headland.
scar a cliff.
tarn a small mountain lake.
thorp or thorpe a village.
thwaite a forest clearing.
toft an enclosure.
wick or wyke a bay or creek.
Examples of all these can be found on the map of Yorkshire, and most of
them occur in the East Riding. But it must be remembered that the modern
place name is not always a sure guide in this direction. Names have in
many cases changed during the course of centuries. For example, the name
‘Nunburnholme,’ which looks Danish in origin, was originally _Brunham_;
while, on the other hand, ‘Kilnsea’ and ‘Withernsea’ have replaced the
older Danish names _Hornes_ and _Witfornes_.
The two name-endings which conclude the list given above are very
interesting, because it was the Danish word _vīk_[15] that gave rise to
the name by which the sea-rovers became generally known in our country.
_Vikings_, or men of the creeks—so they were called; and so may we call
them, if we remember that their letter _v_ stood for the sound of our
_w_, and that their name is to be pronounced _Wik-ings_ and not, as it
is so commonly mispronounced, _Vi-kings_.
Footnote 15:
Pronounced exactly like the Anglian word _wīc_.
* * * * *
A hardy and a daring race were these old Vikings. There were no
‘wasters’ and few ‘slackers’ among them. When a Viking’s son was born,
the babe was shown to its father for his approval or disapproval. If the
father liked the look of his babe, and thought that it showed signs of
growing up into a manly and sturdy boy, it was taken back to its mother
to be ‘raised.’ But woe betide the babe that looked puny and sickly, or
that showed signs of deformity! The father’s orders were that it should
be taken outside his dwelling and exposed to the cold so that it died.
‘What a cruel custom!’ you will think. Yes, so it was. But the Vikings
lived in an age when men looked upon things very differently from the
way in which we look upon them. In a cruel age the Northmen were so
cruel, and the fear that they inspired in the hearts of the people whose
lands they plundered was so great, that the monks inserted in their
Litany the prayer:—
A FURORE NORMANNORUM, LIBERA NOS, DOMINE!
(From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us!)
There is little wonder that, with such a rearing as the children of the
Vikings received, a race of warriors grew up among whom was the
unwritten law that ‘a Dane who wished to acquire the character of a
brave man should always attack two enemies, stand firm and receive the
attack of three, retire only one pace from four, and flee from no fewer
than five.’
Social distinctions among the Danes were similar to those among the
Angles. In place of the Anglian _eorl_, _ceorl_, and _theow_ were the
Danish _jarl_,[16] _karl_, and _thrall_; with this difference—that the
Danish _jarl_ was a military commander and not a man who could pride
himself on being descended from the gods. It is from the word ‘jarl’
that our English word ‘earl’ has arisen.
Footnote 16:
Pronounced _yarl_
* * * * *
Like their cousins the Angles, the Northmen were heathens when they
invaded our shores.
The Wōden, Tīw, and Frīg of the Angles were the Odin, Tȳr and Freya of
the Danes. But their greatest god was Thor, the Thunderer, whose name
will be recognised in the name for the fifth day of the week.
[Illustration:
DANISH CROSS HEAD AT NORTH
FRODINGHAM.
]
Like the Angles, also, the heathen Northmen eventually became
Christians, and evidences of their Christianity have come down to us. In
the vicarage garden at North Frodingham is a broken cross head of Danish
tenth-century workmanship, and in the churchyard at Nunburnholme is
preserved a broken cross shaft sculptured with figures of men, women,
children, and animals.
But the most interesting relic of Danish Christianity is a sun-dial now
built high up in one of the interior walls of the church at Aldbrough.
Round it, in Anglian letters, is the inscription:—
ULF LET ARÆRAN CYRICE FOR HANUM AND
GUNWARA SAULA.
Put into modern English this would read:—
Ulf caused to be built a church for himself and for
the soul of Gunvör.
[Illustration:
_ALDBROUGH_
_Danish Sun-Dial Built into the Wall of Aldbrough Church._
]
Though written in Anglian letters, the names Ulf and Gunvör are both
Danish names, and the word ‘Hānum’ is likewise a purely Danish word. Who
this Ulf was we do not know, for the name was a common one. One jarl Ulf
married the sister of King Cnut, and another was the owner of lands at
Aldbrough and Brandesburton during the reign of King Edward the
Confessor.
IX.
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 892.
A PICTURE OF LIFE IN THE EAST RIDING DRAWN FROM
DETAILS IN THE OLD NORSE SAGAS.
The year of Our Lord is eight hundred and ninety-two, and the scene lies
a couple of miles north of the village of Hessle, on the Yorkshire bank
of the Humber.
Twenty-five years before this date a heathen army had crossed over the
Humber on their march to York, and a good number of broken heads and
hewn-off limbs had been the result of their visit to the province of
Deira. Then, like sensible people, the invaders and the invaded had come
to terms. Villages of the Angles were not too numerous in the district.
At any rate there was plenty of unoccupied land lying around them, and
this was just what the invaders wanted; for their brothers and sisters
had grown so numerous in the lands across the sea that those who had
left their homes had no great desire to go back to them.
Among the band of heathen Northmen had been a jarl named Anlaf, and
between Anlaf and the ealdorman at Beverley it had been agreed that the
former should choose land whereon to settle his men somewhere in the
four miles of unoccupied country lying between Hessle and Cottingham.
Also his men were to be allowed to choose wives from among the maidens
of these two villages or the neighbouring ones of Weighton and
Riplingham. In return the Northmen were to give their attention to
clearing and tilling the land they had chosen, and to conduct
themselves, as far as could reasonably be expected, in a manner harmless
to the people of all the surrounding villages.
Such had been the beginnings of Anlafsbyr. The land for settlement was
chosen—nice dry land on rising ground with a natural drainage to the
river—rough shelters for the men were first made, and the ground was
then marked out for the building of Anlaf’s hall. Three times was the
ground measured for this, and each time after the first the measurements
proved slightly larger than the previous ones. This boded good luck, and
the work was therefore entered upon with spirit.