THE NORTHMEN IN GREENLAND.
These Northmen were certainly a very wonderful people, and they did
very wonderful things; but of all their enterprises the most singular
would seem to be their coming to Greenland, where they were without
the lines of conquest which were so attractive to their brothers
and ancestors; for they were kindred of the Northman Rollo, son of
Rögnvald, jarl of Maere, and king of the Orkneys, who ravaged the
banks of the Seine, and played buffoon with the King of France; the
same with those Danes who, in Anglo-Saxon times, conquered the half
of England: descendants they were of the same Cimbri who threatened
Rome in the days of Marius, and of the Scythian soldiers of conquered
Mithridates, who, under Odin, migrated from the borders of the Euxine
Sea to the north of Europe, whence their posterity descended within a
thousand years by the Mediterranean, and flourished their battle-axes
in the streets of Constantinople; fellows they were of all the
sea-kings, and vikings, and “barbarians” of the North, whose god of
war was their former general, and who, scorning a peaceful death,
sought for Odin’s “bath of blood” whenever and wherever they could
find it. In Greenland they appear like a fragment thrown off from a
revolving wheel by centrifugal force. And here they seem to have lost
the traditional ferocity of their race, though not its adventurous
spirit. Sailing westward, they discovered America, which was the
crowning glory of their career. Sailing eastward, they saw the light
of Christianity which was breaking in the North, and its blessings
followed them to their distant homes.
These two voyages to the west and east symbolize the character
of this wonderful race. Love of change made their conversion to
Christianity easy; love of adventure made all enterprises of
discovery seem trifling hazards, and gave them the world to roam in.
To their achievements in the Western hemisphere the influence of
the Christian religion was, no doubt, very powerful. It weaned them
from Europe and its perpetual wars, and while it did not destroy, it
turned their enterprise into a new channel, and one more consistent
with the new faith.
The introduction of Christianity into Greenland was accomplished
by Lief, son of Red Eric; and it was the same man who discovered
America—two grand achievements which rank Lief Ericson as one of the
heroes of history. With respect to the former event, an old Icelandic
saga thus briefly records the fact:
“When fourteen winters were passed from the time that Eric the Red
set forth to Greenland, his son Lief sailed from thence to Norway,
and came thither in the autumn that King Olaf Tryggvason arrived
in the North from Helgaland. Lief brought up his ship at Nidaros
[Drontheim], and went straightway to the king. Olaf declared unto him
the true faith, as was his custom unto all heathens who came before
him; and it was not hard for the king to persuade Lief thereto, and
he was baptized, and with him all his crew.”
Nor was it hard for King Olaf to “persuade” his subjects generally
“thereto.” His Christianity was very new and rather muscular, and
under the persuasive influence of the sword this royal missionary
made more proselytes than ever were made before in the same space of
time by all the monks and missionaries put together.
When Lief came back to Greenland with a new religion and a priest
to boot, his father Eric was much incensed, and declared the act
pregnant with mischief; but after a while he was prevailed upon to
acknowledge the new religion, and at the same time to give his wife
Thjodhilda, who had proved a more ready subject for conversion, leave
to build a church. Thus runs the saga:
“Lief straightway began to declare the universal faith throughout
the land; and he laid before the people the message of King Olaf,
and detailed unto them how much grandeur and great nobleness there
was attached to the new belief. Eric was slow to determine to leave
his ancient faith, but Thjodhilda, his wife, was quickly persuaded
thereto, and she built a kirk, which was called ‘Thjodhilda’s Kirk.’
And from the time she received the faith she separated from her
husband, which did sorely grieve him.”
And this appears to have been the last, and (as the sequel shows) was
the most potent argument for his conversion. To get his wife back,
he turned Christian, and ordered the pagan rites to be discontinued,
and the pagan images of Thor, and Odin, and the rest of them, to be
broken up and burned.
Whether this first Greenland church of Thjodhilda’s was built at
Brattahlid, or Gardar, or Krakortok, can not now be positively
said; but we might, perhaps, find some reason to conclude it was
the latter, from the fact that an old man named Grima, as the saga
states, who lived then at Brattahlid, made complaint, “I get but
seldom to the church to hear the words of learned clerks, for it is a
long journey thereto.”
This much, however, we do know, that the church—wherever it was
situated—was begun in the year 1002, and was known far and wide
by the name of its pious lady-founder. Several churches and three
monasteries were built afterwards. One of these latter was near a
boiling spring, the waters from which, being carried through the
building in pipes, gave a pleasant warmth to the good monks who
occupied it, and they needed no other heat the year round.
The Christian population of Greenland became, in course of time, so
numerous that it was necessary for the Bishop of Iceland to come
over there frequently to administer the duties of that part of his
see; for the diocese of Gardar, as it was called, was from the first
attached to the See of Iceland.
A hundred years thus passed away, and both in spiritual and temporal
matters the Northmen in Greenland were getting along finely. Their
intercourse with Europe was regular, and their export trade,
especially in beef, was considerable. Indeed, Greenland beef was for
a long time highly prized in Norway, and there was no greater luxury
to “set before the king.” The people were almost wholly independent
of the Icelandic government. Under a system of their own devising,
which appears to have perfectly satisfied their necessities, they
lived quite unmolested by the outside world, and, undisturbed by wars
and rumors of wars, the descendants of Eric the Red were as happy as
any people need wish to be.
They lacked only one thing to complete their scheme of perfect
independence: they needed a bishop of their own, which would cut
them loose from Iceland altogether; and, in truth, the Icelanders
were such a liberty-loving people that they were in no wise disposed
to dispute their claims. But a bishop they could not have without
the sanction of the powers that ruled in Norway; for the pope would
not appoint so high an officer for any of the regions directly
or indirectly subject to the control of Norway except upon the
nomination of the king, after consultation with his spiritual
advisers. Numerous petitions were accordingly sent over to the king,
in order to secure his good offices. For a time these efforts were
attended with but partial success, since a temporary bishop only was
vouchsafed them in the person of Eric (not the Red), who went to
Greenland in the year 1120, and, without remaining long, returned
home, having, however, visited Vinland in the interval—this Vinland
being the America which Columbus thought to be a part of Asia some
four centuries later.
Finding they did not get a bishop of their own according to their
deserts (as they estimated them), they grew indignant, and one of
their chief men, named Sokke, declared that they must and would have
one. Their personal honor and the national pride demanded it; and,
indeed, the Christian faith itself was not in safety otherwise.
Accordingly, under the advice of Sokke, a large present of walrus
ivory and valuable furs was voted to the King of Norway; and Einer,
son of Sokke, was commissioned to carry the petition and the present.
The result proved that the inhabitants of Ericsfiord were wise
in their day and generation; for whether through the earnestness
of their appeals, or the value of their gifts, or through the
persuasiveness of the ambassador, or through all combined, they
obtained, in the year 1126, Bishop Arnold, who forthwith founded his
Episcopal See at Gardar, and there erected a cathedral, which was
built in the form of a cross.
Arnold seems to have been a most excellent and pious leader of these
struggling Christians. Zealous as the famous monk of Iona, without
the impulsiveness of that great apostle of Scotland, he bound his
charge together in the bonds of Christian love, and gave unity and
happiness to a prosperous people. He died in the year 1152, and
thenceforth, until 1409, the See of Gardar, which he had founded,
was regularly maintained. According to Baron Halberg, in his history
of Denmark, seventeen successive bishops administered the ordinances
of the Church in Greenland, the list terminating with Andreas, who
was consecrated in 1406. The see and Andreas expired together; and
the last account we have of either was made in 1409, when it is
recorded that he officiated at a marriage, from the issue of which
men now living are proud to trace their ancestry. This was his last
official act, so far as we have record.
But the people did not then wholly disappear, even if the official
see ceased to exist. To the causes which led to their final overthrow
we shall have occasion to refer presently.