THE SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN BY NORTHMEN.
The Notitia—Probable origin of the name England—Jutland—The language
of the North and of England—Early Northern kings in England—Danes
and Sueones—Mythical accounts of the settlements of England.
Britain being an island could only be settled or conquered by seafaring
tribes, just in the same way as to-day distant lands can only be
conquered by nations possessing ships. From the Roman writers we have
the only knowledge we possess in regard to the tribes inhabiting the
country to which they gave the vague name of Germania. From the Roman
records we find that these tribes were not civilised and that they were
not a seafaring people.
Unfortunately the Roman accounts we have of their conquest and
occupation of Britain, of its population and inhabitants, are very
meagre and unsatisfactory, and do not help us much to ascertain how the
settlement in Britain by the people of the North began. Our lack of
information is most probably due to the simple reason that the
settlement, like all settlements of a new country, was a very gradual
one, a few men coming over in the first instance for the purpose of
trade either with Britons or Romans, or coming from the over-populated
North to settle in a country which the paucity of archæological remains
shows to have been thinly occupied. The Romans made no objection to
these new settlers, who did not prove dangerous to their power on the
island, but brought them commodities, such as furs, &c., from the North.
We find from the Roman records that the so-called Saxons had founded
colonies or had settlements in Belgium and Gaul.
Another important fact we know from the records relating to Britain is
that during the Roman occupation of the island the Saxons had
settlements in the country; but how they came hither we are not told.
In the _Notitia Dignitatum utriusque imperii_, a sort of catalogue or
“Army List,” compiled towards the latter end of the fourth century,
occurs the expression, “Comes litoris Saxonici per Britannias”—Count of
the Saxon Shore in Britain. Within this litus Saxonicum the following
places are mentioned:—Othona, said to be “close by Hastings”; Dubris,
said to be Dover; Rutupiæ, Richborough; Branodunum, Brancaster;
Regulbium, Reculvers; Lemannis, West Hythe; Garianno, Yarmouth;
Anderida, Pevensey; Portus Adurni, Shoreham or Brighton.
This shows that the so-called Saxons were settled in Britain before the
Notitia was drawn up, and at a date very much earlier than has been
assigned by some modern historians.
The hypothesis that the expression “litus Saxonicum” is derived from the
enemy to whose ravages it was exposed seems improbable. Is it not much
more probable that the “litus Saxonicum per Britannias” must mean the
shore of the country settled, not attacked, by Saxons? The mere fact of
their attacking the shore would not have given rise to the name applied
to it had they not settled there, for I maintain that there is no
instance in the whole of Roman literature of a country being named after
the people who attacked it. If, on the other hand, the Saxons had landed
and formed settlements on the British coasts, the origin of the name
“Litus Saxonicum” is easily understood.
Some time after the Romans relinquished Britain we find that part of the
island becomes known as England; and, to make the subject still more
confusing, the people composing its chief population are called Saxons
by the chroniclers and later historians, the name given to them by the
Romans.
That the history of the people called Saxons was by no means certain is
seen in the fact that Witikind, a monk of the tenth century, gives the
following account of what was then considered to be their origin[17]:—
“On this there are various opinions, some thinking that the Saxons had
their origin from the Danes and Northmen; others, as I heard some one
maintain when a young man, that they are derived from the Greeks,
because they themselves used to say the Saxons were the remnant of the
Macedonian army, which, having followed Alexander the Great, were by his
premature death dispersed all over the world.”
As to how Britain came to be called England the different legends given
by the monkish writers are contradictory.
The _Skjöldunga Saga_, which is often mentioned in other Sagas, and
which contains a record down to the early kings of Denmark, is
unfortunately lost: it would, no doubt, have thrown great light on the
lives of early chiefs who settled in Britain; but from some fragments
which are given in this work, and which are supposed to belong to it, we
see that several Danish and Swedish kings claimed to have possessions in
England long before the supposed coming of the Danes.
Some writers assert that the new settlers gave to their new home in
Britain the name of the country which they had left, called _Angeln_,
and which they claim to be situated in the southern part of Jutland; but
besides the Angeln in Jutland there is in the Cattegat an Engelholm,
which is geographically far more important, situated in the land known
as the Vikin of the Sagas, a great Viking and warlike land, from which
the name Viking may have been derived, filled with graves and
antiquities of the iron age. There are also other Engeln in the present
Sweden.
In the whole literature of the North such a name as Engeln is unknown;
it may have been, perhaps, a local name.
In the Sagas the term _England_ was applied to a portion only of
Britain, the inhabitants of which were called _Englar_, _Enskirmenn_.
Britain itself is called _Bretland_, and the people _Bretar_.
“Öngulsey (Angelsey) is one third of Bretland (Wales)” (Magnus
Barefoot’s Saga, c. 11).
Another part of the country was called _Nordimbraland_.
It is an important fact that throughout the Saga literature describing
the expeditions of the Northmen to England not a single instance is
mentioned of their coming in contact with a people called _Saxons_,
which shows that such a name in Britain was unknown to the people of the
North. Nor is any part of England called Saxland.
To make the confusion greater than it is, some modern historians make
the so-called Saxons, who were supposed to have come over with the
mythical Hengist and others, a distinct race from the Northmen, who
afterwards continued to land in the country.
In the Sagas we constantly find that the people of England are not only
included among the Northern lands, but that the warriors of one country
are helping the other. In several places we find, and from others we
infer, that the language in both countries was very similar.
“All sayings in the Northern (norræn) tongue in which there is truth
begin when the Tyrkir and the Asia-men settled in the North. For it is
truly told that the tongue which we call Norræn came with them to the
North, and it went through Saxland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and part of
England” (Rimbegla, iii. c. i.).
“We are of one tongue, though one of the two, or in some respects both,
are now much changed” (Prose Edda, ii.)
“Then ruled over England King Ethelred, son of Edgar (979). He was a
good chief; he sat this winter in London. The tongue in England, as well
as in Norway and Denmark, was then one, but it changed in England when
William the Bastard won England. Thenceforth the tongue of Valland
(France) was used in England, for he (William) was born there” (Gunnlaug
Ormstunga’s Saga, c. 7).
That the language of the North should have taken a footing in a great
part of England is due, no doubt, to the continuous flow of immigration,
from the northern mother country, which entirely swamped the former
native or British element.
The story given in the English or Irish chronicles of the appearance of
the Danes, in A.D. 785, when their name is first mentioned, is as little
trustworthy as that of the settlement of England, and bears the
appearance of contradiction and confusion in regard to names of people
and facts.
We must remember that the Sueones are not mentioned from the time of
Tacitus to that of Charlemagne (772–814), and certainly they had not
disappeared in the meantime.
What were the Danes doing with their mighty fleets before this? Had
their ships been lying in port for centuries? Had they been built for
simple recreation and the pleasure of looking at them, or did their
maritime power arise at once as if by magic? Such an hypothesis cannot
stand the test of reasoning. The turning of a population into a
seafaring nation is the work of time. Where in the history of the world
can we find a parallel to this story of a people _suddenly_ appearing
with immense navies? Let us compare by analogy the statement of the
chronicles with what might happen to the history of England in the
course of time.
Suppose that for some reason the previous history of England were lost,
with the exception of a fragment which spoke of her enormous fleet of
to-day. Could it be reasonably supposed that this great maritime power
was the creation of a few years?
A few years after the time fixed as that of their first supposed
appearance we find these very Danes swarming everywhere with their
fleets and warriors, not only in England, but in Gaul, in Brittany, up
the Seine, the Garonne, the Rhine, the Elbe, on the coasts of Spain, and
further eastward in the Mediterranean.
The Sueones, or Swedes, reappear at the close of the eighth and
commencement of the ninth centuries by the side of the Danes, and both
called themselves Northmen. Surely the maritime power of the Sueones,
described by Tacitus, could not have been destroyed immediately after
his death, only to reappear in the time of Charlemagne, when it again
becomes prominent in the Frankish annals.
A remarkable fact not to be overlooked is that, in the time of
Charlemagne, the Franks and Saxons were not a seafaring people, though
their countries had an extensive coast with deep rivers. The Frankish
annals never mention a Frank or Saxon fleet attacking the fleets of the
Northmen, or preventing them from ascending their streams, though
Charlemagne ordered ships to be built in order to resist their
incursions.
While the country of the Saxons was being conquered by this Emperor, we
find that the Saxons themselves had no vessels on the Elbe or Weser in
which, if defeated, they could retire in safety, or by help of which
they could prevent the army of their enemies from crossing their
streams. Such tactics were constantly used by the Northmen in their
invasions of ancient Gaul, Britain, Germania, Spain, &c.
Thus we see that, though hardly more than three hundred years had
elapsed since the time when, according to the Roman writers, the fleets
of the Franks and Saxons swarmed over every sea of Europe, not a vestige
of their former maritime power remained in the time of Charlemagne, and
the Saxons were still occupying the same country as in the days of
Ptolemy.
Pondering over the above important facts, the question arises: Were not
the Romans mistaken in giving the names of Saxons and Franks to the
maritime tribes of whose origin, country, and homes they knew nothing,
but who came to attack their shores? Were not these so-called Saxons and
Franks in reality tribes of Sueones, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians? The
Romans knew none of the countries of these people. It seems strange, if
not incredible, to find two peoples, whose country had a vast sea-coast
and deep rivers, totally abandoning the seafaring habits possessed by
their forefathers.
It cannot be doubted that Ivar Vidfadmi, after him Harald Hilditönn,
then Sigurd Hring and Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons, and probably some of
the Danish and Swedish kings before them, made expeditions to England,
and gained and held possessions there. Several distinct records, having
no connection with each other, being parts of different Sagas and
histories, with the archæology, form the evidence.
“Ivar Vidfadmi (wide-fathomer) subdued the whole of Sviaveldi (the
Swedish realm); he also got Danaveldi (Danish realm) and a large part of
Saxland, and the whole of Austrriki (Eastern realm, including Russia,
&c.) and the fifth part of England. From his kin have come the kings of
Denmark and the kings of Sweden who have had sole power in these lands”
(Ynglinga Saga, c. 45).
The above is corroborated by another quite independent source.
“Ivar Vidfadmi ruled England till his death-day. As he lay on his
death-bed he said he wanted to be carried to where the land was exposed
to attacks, and that he hoped those who landed there would not be
victorious. When he died it happened as he said, and he was
_mound-laid_. It is said by many men that when King Harald Sigurdsson
came to England he landed where Ivar’s mound was, and he was slain
there. When Vilhjálm Bastard came to the land he broke open the mound of
Ivar and saw that the corpse was not rotten; he made a large pyre, and
had Ivar burned on it; then he went up on land and got the victory”
(Ragnar Lodbrók’s Saga, c. 19).
We find that not only did the Norwegians call themselves Northmen, but
that both Danes and Sueones were called Northmen in the Frankish
Chronicles.[18]
“The Danes and Sueones, whom we call Northmen, occupy both the northern
shore and all its islands.”
So also Nigellus (in the reign of Louis Le Debonnaire).[19]
“The Danes also after the manner of the Franks are called by the name of
Manni.”
The time came when the people of the North, continuing their expeditions
to Britain, attacked their own kinsmen. After the departure of the
Romans the power of the new comers increased, and as they became more
numerous, they became more and more domineering: the subsequent
struggles were between a sturdy race that had settled in the country and
people of their own kin, and not with Britons, who had been so easily
conquered by the Romans, had appealed to them afterwards for protection,
and had for a long period been a subject race. It is not easy to believe
that the inhabitants of a servile Roman province could suddenly become
stubborn and fierce warriors, nor are there any antiquities belonging to
the Britain of yore which bear witness to a fierce and warlike character
displayed by the aboriginal inhabitants.
From the preceding pages we see that Franks and Saxons are continually
mentioned together, and it is only in the North we can find antiquities
of a most warlike and seafaring people, who must have formed the great
and preponderating bulk of the invading host who conquered Britain.
Britain after a continuous immigration from the North, which lasted
several hundred years, became the most powerful colony of the Northern
tribes, several of whose chiefs claimed a great part of England even in
the seventh century. Afterwards she asserted her independence, though
she did not get it until after a long and tedious struggle with the
North, the inhabitants and kings of which continued to try to assert the
ancient rights their forefathers once possessed. Then the time came when
the land upon which the people of these numerous tribes had settled
became more powerful and more populous than the mother country; a case
which has found several parallels in the history of the world. To-day
the people of England as they look over the broad Atlantic may perhaps
discern the same process gradually taking place. In the people of the
United States of North America, the grandest and most colossal state
founded by England or any other country of which we have any historical
record, we may recognise the indomitable courage, the energy and spirit
which was one of the characteristics of the Northern race to whom a
great part of the people belong. The first settlement of the country,
territory by territory, State by State—the frontier life with its bold
adventures, innumerable dangers, fights, struggles, privations and
heroism—is the grandest drama that has ever been enacted in the history
of the world. The time is not far distant, if the population of the
United States and Canada increases in the same ratio as it has done for
more than a hundred years, when over three or four hundred millions of
its people will speak the English tongue; and I think it is no
exaggeration to say that in the course of time one hundred millions more
will be added, from Australia, New Zealand and other colonies which
to-day form part of the British Empire, but which are destined to become
independent nations. In fact we hesitate to look still further into the
future of the English race, for fear of being accused of exaggeration.
There is a mythical version of the settlement of Britain contradictory
of the Roman records. This version is that of Gildas whose ‘De Excidio
Britanniæ’ is supposed to have been composed in the sixth century (560
A.D.), and whose statements have unfortunately been taken by one
historian after the other as a true history of Britain. His narrative,
which gives an account of the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain and
the numerous wars which followed their invasion, has been more or less
copied by Nennius, Bede and subsequent chroniclers, whose writings are a
mass of glaring contradictions, diffuse and intricate, for they contain
names which appear to have been invented by the writers and which cannot
be traced in the language of those times, while the dates assigned for
the landing of the so-called Saxons do not agree with one another.
The historians who use Gildas as an authority and try to believe his
account of the settlement of Britain by Hengist and Horsa (the stallion
and the mare) are obliged, in order to explain away the Roman records,
to give a most extraordinary interpretation to the Notitia.
We are all aware that the people of every country like to trace their
origin or history as far back as possible, and that legends often form
part of the fabric of those histories. The early chroniclers, who were
credulous and profoundly ignorant of the world, took these fables for
facts, or they may have possibly been incorporated in the text of their
supposed works after their time. The description of the settlement of a
country must be founded on facts which can bear the test of searching
criticism if they are to be believed and adopted; Gildas and his
copyists cannot stand that test, and the Roman records, as corroborated
by the archæology and literature of the North and the archæology of
England, must be taken as the correct ones.
The mythological literature of the North bears evidence of a belief
prevalent among the people, that their ancestors migrated at a remote
period from the shores of the Black Sea, through south-western Russia,
to the shores of the Baltic. This belief seems to be supported by a
variety of evidence. Herodotus describes a people on the Tanais, the
Budini, as being blue-eyed and yellow-haired, with houses built of wood,
his description of the walls reminding one of the characteristics of the
Danavirki (Herodotus, IV. 21, 108, 109). One of his tribes, the
_Thysagetæ_, may possibly be indicated in the _Thursar_ of the Voluspa,
&c.
When we appeal to Archæology, we find in the neighbourhood of the Black
Sea, near to the old Greek settlement, graves similar to those of the
North, containing ornaments and other relics also remarkably like those
found in the ancient graves of Scandinavia. The Runes of the North
remind us strikingly of the characters of Archaic Greek. If we follow
the river Dnieper upwards from its mouth in the Black Sea, we see in the
museums of Kief and Smolensk many objects of types exactly similar to
those found in the graves of the North. When we reach the Baltic we find
on its eastern shores the Gardariki of the Sagas, where, we are told,
the Odin of the North placed one of his sons, and on the southern shores
many specimens have been discovered similar to those obtained in
Scandinavia.
In the following chapters the reader will be struck by the similarity of
the customs of the Norsemen with those of the ancient Greeks as recorded
by Homer and Herodotus; for example, the horse was very much sacrificed
in the North, and Herodotus, describing the Massagetæ, says:
“They (the Massagetæ) worship the sun only of all the gods, and
sacrifice horses to him” (I. 216).
In regard to the Jutes, Jutland = Jöts, Jötnar; Jötland, Jötunheim, we
find them from the Sagas to be a very ancient land and people, and meet
several countries bearing kindred names—even to this day we have
Göteborg, in which the _G_ is pronounced as English _Y_.
From the Roman, Greek, Frankish, Russian, English, and Arabic records,
we must come to the conclusion that the “Viking Age” lasted from about
the second century of our era to about the middle of the twelfth without
interruption, hence the title given to the work which deals with the
history and customs of our English forefathers during that period.