IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND IRELAND.
EARLY EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN TO THE COASTS OF THE ROMAN
PROVINCES.—CAUSES WHICH LED TO THEM.—POVERTY OF THE SOIL, FAMINE,
COURAGE.—DOMESTIC PIRACY.—TRIBES OF PIRATES.—INVASION OF ENGLAND BY
THE SAXONS AND DANES.—AUTHORITY OF SAXO GRAMMATICUS.—DEPREDATIONS IN
ENGLAND PRIOR TO THE REIGN OF ATHELSTANE.—VICTORY OF THAT
MONARCH.—RAVAGES OF THE NORTHMEN IN FRANCE.—HASTINGS.—ROLLO THE
GREATEST OF THE SCANDINAVIAN PIRATES.—HIS CONQUEST OF NORMANDY, OF
WHICH HE WAS THE FIRST DUKE.—THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND.—EARLY
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE IRISH AND THE NORTH OF EUROPE.—FIRST RAVAGES
OF THE NORTHMEN.—THEIR ALARMING PROGRESS IN THAT ISLAND.—VICTORY
OBTAINED OVER THEM BY KING BRIAN.—THEIR SUBSEQUENT DEPREDATIONS AND
DECLINE.
THAT the expeditions of the Northmen were not confined to the shores of
the Baltic, long before the period which is usually assigned to them, is
evident from the whole course of the later Roman history. During the
domination of the empire in Gaul and Britain, the local governors,
whatever their zeal, were unable to prevent the depredations which the
maritime inhabitants of Friesland and Jutland made on the more southern
coasts. The Saxons and Franks were among the earliest pirates of the
north. In the third century we find them on the coast of Gaul; in the
fourth and fifth, they were no less troublesome on that of Britain. Even
from the time of Cæsar, the tribes on the maritime coast, from the
mouths of the Rhine to the Baltic Sea, were beginning to learn the
piratical life. Their position was highly favourable to such pursuits.
Located in the vicinity of rivers, friths, and bays, where the soil is
unproductive, their wants must have led them to regions where Nature was
more lavish of her gifts. This was more especially the case of the
people on the sandy shores of Friesland and the Baltic; and, in those
regions, they become pirates, just as the Arabs become robbers,—from
necessity. But other causes were also at work, and probably at a period
still earlier. Amidst the endless migrations of the barbarous tribes who
occupied central and northern Europe, the impulse must have been
extended to more distant shores. When, for instance, Asiatic Scythia
sent forth her swarms to conquer and to colonise, the original
inhabitants either bent their necks to the new yoke, or escaped from it
by retiring farther to the west. Those of Scandinavia were compelled to
look for settlements in the south; and this object could only be
obtained by means of ships. There is reason to believe that these
emigrations, or maritime expeditions, came to our own islands before the
birth of Christ; this, indeed, is expressly affirmed by Bede, who
mentions the first arrival of the Picts in these islands. They came, he
informs us, from Scythia; and, sailing round the southern coast of
Britain, landed on that of Ireland, where the Scots were then settled.
As there was not room for both people, the new comers, in conformity
with the advice of the Scots, proceeded to the opposite shores, viz.,
those of Galloway and Argyle. This could not have been a solitary
immigration into these islands; the Scots themselves were a conquering
and a new tribe when the Picts arrived. If this is true of the western,
it is still more so of the eastern, coasts of England and Scotland,
especially of the latter. Danish expeditions, before our Saviour’s
birth, are frequently mentioned by Saxo; and, absurd as his chronology
often is, we think that there is some foundation for his statement,
corroborated as it is by that of Bede. But we must not lose sight of the
fact, that the two writers are speaking of events in themselves
dissimilar. Bede alludes to the emigration of whole tribes, Saxo to
piratical expeditions.[260]
That at a barbarous period, when agriculture was little understood, and
in barren countries, where the greatest industry was unavailing, there
must have been many seasons of famine, would be admitted, if it were not
supported by the positive testimony of history. When they arrived, the
younger and more vigorous class of the people naturally betook
themselves to more southern regions. He that once visited those regions,
would be in no hurry to return. The long duration of winter, the
uncertainty of an early spring, the coldness and humidity of the
atmosphere, which often prevented the fruits of the earth from arriving
at maturity, must have appeared to striking disadvantage when contrasted
with the greater regularity of seasons in the south. Nor was this the
worst. The north was covered with endless forests, or with extensive
fens, or with bleak mountains, where industry might labour in vain; in
the south, nature produced, with small labour, what was necessary for
the support of man. Since, in the former, wars between one tribe and
another were of so frequent occurrence, the condition of the people must
have been dreadful; they must have been often thinned by famine. Hence
the expatriations, whether voluntary or compulsory, of which we read so
much in the ancient history of the north. One of the earliest on record
is that which took place under Snio, a prince of Jutland. A sore famine
arriving, he published an edict, that, to economise the grain, none
should be used in the brewing of beer. But this law was ineffectual; the
people were too fond of indulging in the beverage to be thus forced; and
a national Thing was convoked to devise the means of public safety. That
a law was passed for the destruction of the old, the very young, and
those unable to carry arms, or to cultivate the ground, is affirmed by
several writers; but the statement is incredible. There is greater truth
in another,—that banishment was substituted, and lots were cast to
determine the individuals. Sweden furnishes us with a second instance,
though not so ancient as the preceding. We have already seen that,
during the pressure of a famine, Olaf Trætelia was sacrificed to the
gods.[261] The remedy, however, was unavailing; the scourge became still
greater, and the people removed into Norway. Two centuries after this
period, one third of the Danes, says Peter Olaf, were thus driven into
exile; and they selected Prussia, Carelia, Samogitia, and other shores
of the Baltic, as their future abodes. This evil was more ancient than
we usually suppose. We find laws, permitting the exposure of infants
where the parents were unable to support them, before Christianity was
known to the Franks, or Bavarians, or Swabians, or any other of the
Germanic tribes. Where no temporary law was made for the expatriation of
a certain number of the people, the more adventurous would often retire
of their own accord. The Scandinavians were no strangers to the sea;
from their childhood they were accustomed to fish in their bays, gulfs,
mouths of rivers, and other parts of their coasts. This exercise made
them familiar with the management of small vessels, and led them to
regard the watery element as no less friendly than land. As they became
inured to the business, and extended their voyages, they learned where
particular species of fish were most abundant. It is probable that at a
very early period all the coasts of the Baltic were thus visited.[262]
These circumstances combined will explain the superior dexterity of the
Scandinavians and other Baltic nations in the management of vessels. If
want of subsistence led them to the deep, whether through expatriation,
or the hope of successful fishing, other causes made them pirates. It
was easier to take a vessel well laden with that useful commodity than
to catch it; and when, in these practices, the crew of one hostile tribe
met the crew of another, a battle was sure to follow. By degrees,
vessels for piracy alone were equipped; nor were the objects of plunder
confined to fish: the houses near the sea-coasts had other articles of
food, other commodities, which would enrich the pirate’s home. The
dangers attending a profession where the crews were necessarily armed,
were not likely to damp the spirit of adventure. Courage was a part of
the Northman’s religion; death in battle was a good, since it introduced
him at once to the enjoyments of Odin’s hall,—enjoyments far exceeding
whatever this world could furnish. Piracy, then, was the necessary
result of the Scandinavian’s position; and it must have been practised
more anciently than most historians admit. Tacitus tells us that in his
time the Suiones were formidable by their fleets. Navigation, indeed,
could not be in its infancy, when such colonies as that of the Picts
undertook voyages so long and hazardous. It could not be in its infancy
during the third century, when Caransius was nominated by the Roman
authorities of Gaul to protect, at the head of a powerful fleet, the
coasts daily menaced by the barbarians.[263]
That domestic piracy—viz., piracy confined to their own
coast—distinguished the Scandinavians long before their expeditions into
the south, is undoubted. First, they had to struggle with the hostile
races who had preceded them in the north,—whom on their arrival they had
to dislodge, and who for so many ages preserved a vindictive remembrance
of the outrage. The Goth and the Finn must have been enemies from the
beginning; and both must have been equally hostile to the Vends, a
Slavonic tribe of Pomerania, much addicted to piracy. Position, no less
than race, made tribes hereditary enemies. The Frisons and the Saxons
were rivals, and therefore enemies; so were the Swedes and the Danes; so
were the Scanians and Norwegians. Their fleets watched the coasts of
each other, ready to fight it whenever the opportunity was presented.
Thus, while the Norwegians were delighted in making predatory irruptions
into Quenaland, which was inhabited by Finns, the Vends were harassing
the Danes, and the Jutes the Saxons. In the fifth century—how long
before we have not individual instances to select—the Vends were
powerful enough to infuse terror into the whole of Denmark. Ismar, their
king, ravaged Fionia, defeated king Sivar, and took prince Jarmeric
captive. In the sixth century, a Slavonian fleet was defeated by
Halfdan, king of Scania. Saxo is full of maritime contests between the
two people; and though his chronology is wrong, the facts themselves are
indisputable. In general, the Vends exceeded the Scandinavians in
ferocity. Both had great advantages for maritime adventures. Lithuania,
Esthonia, and Livonia were as well provided with timber as Norway or
Sweden; and each country had a multitude of natural bays and creeks,
where refuge could be sought when the tempest was severe, or when an
enemy appeared too formidable to be resisted.[264]
But the coasts of the Roman provinces offered the greatest inducements
to piracy. They were Saxons and Franks whom Caransius had chiefly to
oppose. In the following century, they were more formidable to the local
governors. “In the beginning of the fourth century,” says Turner, in his
valuable history of the Anglo-Saxons, “the Saxons were not alone on the
ocean; other states, both to the south and north of their own locality,
were moving in concert with them, whose nominal distinctions were lost
in the Saxon name. This addition of strength multiplied the Saxon
fleets, gave new terror to their hostility, and recruited their losses
with perpetual population. The league extended. Their depredations
increased their population, affluence, and celebrity; and these results
extended their power. What emulation, policy, or rapacity may have first
prompted, success and fear made more universal. They who would not have
been tempted to unite, dreaded the wrath of those whose proffered
alliance they refused: and at length most of the nations north of the
Rhine assumed the name, strengthened the association, and fought to
augment the predominance of the Saxons. Towards the south, between the
Elbe and the Rhine, the Chauci seem to have led the way. The Frisii,
urged by kindred passion and a convenient position, willingly followed.
The precise date of the accession of others is not so clear; but in some
period of their power, the Chamavi, and at last the Batavi, the
Toxandri, and Morini, were in their alliance. North of their territorial
position the Cimbri, the Jutes, the Angles, and others not so
discernible, added their numbers to the formidable league; which lasted
until their expedition to Britain, and then began to dissolve. Without
detaining the reader by a detail of the modern chorography answering to
the position of these tribes, it may be sufficient to state, concisely,
that the progress and leagues of the Saxon states enlarged gradually
from the Elbe to the Weser; from the Weser they reached to the Ems; and,
still augmenting, they diffused themselves to the Rhine with varying
latitude, as the Franks, many of whose allies they seduced, quitting
that region, and abandoning their exploits on the ocean, marched upon
Gaul. The extension of this new confederation was favoured by the change
of policy and position adopted by the Franks. As this people stood
foremost to the Roman vengeance, they experienced its effects. They had
many distressing wars to maintain, which in time compelled them to
abandon maritime expeditions, and to consolidate their strength for
their continental conflicts. Their ultimate successes made this warfare
the most popular among them. Hence, the nearer we approach the period of
the invasion of England, we find the Franks less and less united with
the Saxons on the ocean, and even wars begin to be frequent between the
rival friends. As the former moved onward, to the conquests of Belgium
and Gaul, the Saxons appear to have been the only nation, under whose
name the vessels of piracy were navigated. Saxons were the enemies every
where execrated, though under this title several nations fought. Some of
the tribes on the maritime coast, who had composed the league of the
Franks, abandoned it, to share the easier warfare and ampler booty of
the Saxons. At last this successful people diffused themselves into the
interior of Germany so victoriously, that the vast tracts of country
embraced by the Elbe, the Sala, and the Rhine, became subjected to their
power, in addition to their ancient territory from the Elbe to the
Eyder. An old Belgic chronicle, in rhyme, makes Neder Sassen, Lower
Saxony, to have been confined by the Scheid and the Meuse; but this is a
larger extent than others admit.”[265]
In contemplating the piratical expeditions or maritime conquests of the
Northmen, during the pagan age, greater clearness will be attained by
classing them under the head of each country visited by those people.
1. _Britain._ The Jutes and the Angles were the most prominent allies of
the Saxons. The league was joined by other people of the north,—by
adventurous Danes no less than Slavonic Pomeranians. At the head of
maritime forces so numerous and so powerful, the Saxons became dreadful
scourges to Gaul and Britain. “In the latter country, their depredations
were rendered more secure by the frequent irruptions of the Picts and
Scots into the northern counties, who, like them, were joined in a
confederation. Had the Saxons or the Picts been left to their own
efforts, the Roman governors would not have been so much pressed by the
pirates as they were from the fourth century downwards. In a similar
combination of hostilities, Nectaridus, the commander of the Saxon
shore, was slain, and the general of the island, Fullo-faudes, perished
in an ambush. Several officers were sent by the Roman emperors to
succeed them; but their exertions being inadequate to the necessity,
Theodosius, an experienced and successful leader, was appointed by
Valentinian in their room. The Picts and the co-operating tribes
attacked from the north, while the Saxons and their allies assaulted the
maritime coasts. Theodosius, from Richborough, marched towards London,
and dividing his army into battalions, correspondent to the positions of
the enemies, he attacked the robbers encumbered with their plunder. The
bands that were carrying away the manacled inhabitants and their cattle,
he destroyed, and regained the spoil; of this he distributed a small
share among his wearied soldiers; the residue he restored to its owners,
and entered the city, wondering at its sudden deliverance, with the
glories of an ovation. Lessoned by experience, and instructed by the
confessions of the captives and deserters, he combated this mixture of
enemies, with well-combined artifice and unexpected attacks. To recall
those who in the confusion, from fear or from cowardice, had abandoned
their ranks or their allegiance, he proclaimed an amnesty; and to
complete the benefit he had begun, he prosecuted the war with vigour in
the north of Britain. He prevented, by judicious movements, the
meditated attack; and hence the Orkneys became the scene of his
triumphs. The Saxons, strong in their numbers and intrepidity, sustained
several naval encounters before they yielded to his genius. They ceased
at last to molest the tranquillity of Britain; and the addition of a
deserved surname, Saxonicus, proclaimed the service of Theodosius. He
added the province of Valentia to Roman Britain, restored the deserted
garrisons, and coerced the unruly borderers by judicious stations, and a
vigilant defence. The Saxon confederation might be defeated, but was not
subdued. Such was its power, that they were now bold enough to defy the
Roman armies by land, and invaded the regions on the Rhine with a
formidable force. The imperial general was unable to repulse them; a
reinforcement encouraged him. The Saxons declined a battle, and sued for
an amicable accommodation. It was granted. A number of the youth fit for
war were given to the Romans to augment their armies; the rest were to
retire unmolested. The Romans were not ashamed to confess their dread of
the invaders, by a perfidious violation of the treaty. They attacked the
retreating Saxons from an ambush; and, after a brave resistance, the
unguarded barbarians were slain or made prisoners. It is to the disgrace
of literature that the national historian of the day has presumed, while
he records, to apologise for the ignominious fraud. Such an action might
dishonourably gain a temporary advantage, but it could only exasperate
the Saxon nation. The loss was soon repaired in the natural progress of
population, and before many years elapsed, they renewed their
depredations, and defeated Maximus. At the close of the fourth century
they exercised the activity and resources of Stilicho. The unequal
struggle is commemorated by the encomiastical poet, whose genius gilds,
with a departing ray, the darkening hemisphere of Rome. After his death
the Saxons commenced new irruptions. They supported the Armorici in
their rebellion, awed the Gothic Euric, began to war with the Franks,
and, extending the theatre of their spoil, made Belgium, Gaul, Italy,
and Germany tremble at their presence.” It must be remembered that under
the word Saxons many tribes were included,—those of Denmark as well as
those of Holstein.[266]
[Sidenote: 408.]
The settlement of the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes—all comprehended
within the geographical limits of Denmark—in Great Britain, has been
recorded in two historical volumes of the Cyclopædia.[267] Thus, in 446,
Hengest laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent, which, under
eighteen successive kings, subsisted to the close of the eighth century.
In 477, Ella, another Saxon chief, called a smaller one, that of Sussex,
into existence. Of this state the names of the two first princes only
have descended to posterity. In 519, the more powerful kingdom of Wessex
was founded by Cerdic, and its princes were destined to unite the other
states into one monarchy within three centuries after its establishment.
By Ida, the kingdom of Bernicia was founded in 547; By Ella, that of
Deira, in 560. These states, being united in 644, formed the important
kingdom of Northumberland, which subsisted, with some interruptions,
until it was finally annexed, by Athelstane, to the Saxon monarchy.
Mercia, founded, in 586, by Crida; East Anglia, by Uffa; and Essex, by
Eswin; were all ultimately absorbed in the rising sphere of Wessex. All
these royal chiefs boasted of their descent from Odin; all were of
Scandinavian origin; all spoke the same language, and followed the same
piratical profession. That hordes of obscure adventurers—mere sea
kings—should thus subdue a great country, has been matter of surprise to
many writers. But we should remember that, at the period in question,
England was not a monarchy,—that, like the north, it was subject to many
kings, and that the conquest occupied a century and a half.[268]
That during this period the Danes, if not the Norwegians, were brought
into relation with the kings of Scotland, is asserted by Saxo. Frode
III., according to that historian, gave his daughter Ulvilda in marriage
to Thubar king of the Scots. Frode reigned in the fourth century, not,
as Saxo assures us, early in the first. Whether Hamlet of Jutland, and
other Danish princes, were really in Scotland, cannot be proved; but
there is nothing improbable in the relation. That country, like England
and the north, was divided among many chiefs, who assumed the regal
title; and that their domains should escape the depredations which so
afflicted the southern part of the island, is not to be credited. Beyond
all doubt, Scotland was visited by piratical bands as early, at least,
as England. Nor must we forget that the Saxon kingdom of Bernicia
comprehended, besides the north of England from the Tees to the Tweed,
all the east and centre of Scotland from the latter river to the Frith
of Forth. At what period the inhabitants north of that Frith were first
molested by the Danes and Norwegians would be a vain inquiry; we may
only infer that it was much earlier than is generally supposed.[269]
As the inhabitants of the Danish islands and of Norway had no share in
the spoils of England, they were not bound to respect the coasts after
their kindred had established the kingdoms of the polyarchy. Their
ravages, indeed, were experienced by the English chiefs before
Northumbria became a kingdom. Offa of Mercia, whose domains were invaded
by them, had the valour to defeat, and the generosity to pardon, his
foes. It has, however, been contended that we find no satisfactory
account of the Danes being here in such numbers as to command the notice
of history, before the eighth century. In this case, the authority of
Saxo is rejected as unworthy of credit. “Some documents for his history
Saxo may have derived from poems of the ancient Scalds, from
inscriptions on stones and rocks, from an inspection (yet how
imperfect!) of the Icelandic authors, and from the narrations of his
friend. We may even grant to him, that such men as he enumerates, such
actions as he so eloquently describes, and such poems as he so diffusely
translates, once appeared; but the chronology and succession into which
he arranges them are unquestionably false. The boasted fountains of the
history of the ancient Scandinavians, their memorial stones and funeral
runæ, the inscribed rings of their shields, the woven figures of their
tapestry, their storied walls, their lettered seats and beds, their
narrative wood, their re-collected poetry, and their inherited
traditions, may have given to history the names of many warriors, and
have transmitted to posterity the fame of many battles: but no dates
accompanied the memorials; even the geography of the incidents was very
rarely noted. Hence, however numerous may have been the preserved
memoranda, their arrangement and appropriation were left to the mercy of
literary fancy or of national conceit. Saxo unfortunately emulated the
fame of Livy, instead of becoming the Pausanias of Scandinavia; and
instead of patiently compiling and recording his materials in the humble
style or form in which he found them, which would have been an
invaluable present to us, he has shaped them into a most confused,
unwarranted, and fabulous chronology. The whole of his first eight
books, all his history anteceding Ragnar Lodbrog, can as little claim
the attention of the historian, as the British, history of Jeffry, or
the Swedish history of Johannes Magnus. It is indeed superfluous, if we
recollect the Roman history, to argue against a work which pretends to
give to Denmark a throned existence, a regular government, and a tissue
of orderly and splendid history for twenty-four royal accessions before
the birth of Christ. Saxo, on whose history many others were formerly
built, refers to the Icelandic writers; but this only increases our
depreciation of his narratives, for they are at irreconcileable variance
with all his history before the ninth century.”[270] Yet we are far from
subscribing, in its most rigorous sense, to this unfavourable character.
Saxo’s chronology we condemn as much as any writer; but we do not think
that his facts, however distorted by tradition, are not, for the most
part, founded in truth. That the authority of Snorro is superior to
Saxo’s we readily admit,—superior, we mean, as to chronology; for that
the latter must have been better acquainted with the actions of the
Danes themselves few will be so rash as to deny. Yet even Snorro assures
us that Ivar Vidfadme, a prince of the seventh century, conquered a
fifth part of England.[271] By this expression Northumbria is usually
understood; and there is nothing improbable in the opinion that the
kingdom of Bernicia—that portion of Northumbria north of the Tweed—was
overrun by this prince.[272]
[Sidenote: 793 to 868.]
The alleged depredations of Ragnar Lodbrog in Northumbria, to which we
have slightly alluded in the first chapter of this volume[273] have in
them so much of the romantic that we can place little dependence on
them. There is but one circumstance that can be made to lend them even
the appearance of probability. About the period of Ragnar’s death, a
formidable body of Danes descended on the island of Lindisfarne,
plundered the church which contained the shrine of St. Cuthbert,
massacred the ecclesiastics, defiled the altars, and consumed the
building by fire. The lay inhabitants of the island were not more
fortunate; the men were massacred, the women were forced, the children
tossed on the points of the Danish lances. In the following year (794)
the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were visited with the same fate.
During full seventy years,—that is, to the period when the weak brother
of Alfred allowed the centre of England to be overrun, and when Alfred
himself, by his flight, left the whole kingdom to their mercy,—their
depredations on the eastern coast, from the Frith of Forth to the
Humber, were, however desultory, however interrupted, most harassing and
most destructive. The Saxon kings of Northumbria, we are told, were too
much occupied in private feuds to have either time or means for
defending the country against the invaders,—if, indeed, there were any
Saxon kings at this time,—if the Danes were not the actual sovereigns of
the province. It is certain that all the historians of Denmark (who are
confirmed by the Icelandic chronicles) speak of such a dynasty, and
assure us that the sons of Ragnar Lodbrog were its kings. We see no
reason to dispute this statement. There is, however, a sad confusion in
the chronology. If Ragnar died in 794, and his sons avenged him in
little more than a year afterwards, they could not be at the head of the
armament which, in 866, appeared off the coast. Probably they and their
successors reigned from the close of the eighth to the tenth century,
and the confederated armament of 866 was one on a larger scale, and
headed by other leaders. What confirms this inference is the fact that
at this time Harald Harfager was subduing the petty kings of Norway; and
that many of them, preferring freedom to the despotism of a master, left
the country with their bravest warriors. During this period, all the
churches and monasteries of the province were destroyed. In 828, the
Danish power in Northumberland must have been great, or they would not
have been powerful, enough to defeat Egbert, the conqueror of so many
Saxon kingdoms, and the founder of the English monarchy. After the year
866, when, as we believe, there were many Norwegians in England, new
atrocities were committed,—atrocities which threw all former ones into
the shade. The monastery of Tynemouth, which had been restored, was soon
in flames; that of Lindisfarne shared the same fate; yet the monks were
so fortunate as to escape with the relics of St. Cuthbert. From the
smoking ruins of Lindisfarne, Halfdan, one of the chiefs, hastened to
the monastery of Coldingham. “According to Matthew of Westminster and
succeeding writers, the nuns of Coldingham nobly redeemed the reputation
of their establishment from the stain which had covered it in the time
of St. Cuthbert. The monastery was now, as in the former case, governed
by an abbess, named Ebba; who, if the historian be credible, deserves
the honours of canonisation somewhat better than her predecessor.
Hearing that it was the custom of the barbarians first to violate, and
then to destroy, virgins consecrated to God, she assembled the
sister-hood in the chapter house, and exhorted them to save their
chastity at the expense of their beauty. With a knife she dreadfully
disfigured her countenance; and her example was followed on the spot by
all the nuns. The Danes soon forced their gates; but turned with horror
from their embraces, and quickly consumed both them and their nunnery.
Though the monk of Westminster lived so long after the time, he might
follow some better guide than tradition—some record now lost; nor is the
fact itself either improbable or unparalleled. The same noble conduct is
related of the nuns of Ecija, during the Mohammedan invasion of Spain.
During seven years similar depredations followed throughout most of
Northumbria. Wherever the Danes penetrated, ecclesiastics were
massacred, churches and monasteries were levelled with the ground; the
whole country, in fact, became a Danish province, governed by princes of
the royal house of that kingdom. Great as was the evil produced by these
merciless pagans; though the monks, as an order, were almost wholly
annihilated, and civilisation was destroyed, yet the invasion itself led
to the conversion of the invaders. Resolved to remain in the country
which they had conquered, to cultivate the lands which they had divided
among themselves, they were compelled to enter into relations of amity
with the inhabitants, from whose example, or by whose persuasion, they
soon embraced the faith of Christ. That the Danish princes were soon no
less devout than their Saxon brothers appears from the splendid donation
of all the country between the Wear and the Tyne, made by Guthred to the
cathedral of St. Cuthbert, now transferred to Chester-le-Street.” Out of
evil comes good,—a proof of God’s particular providence.[274]
[Sidenote: 868 to 876.]
But the atrocities of the Northmen at this period are most graphically
described by the abbot Ingulf. After the destruction of Bardney, the
pirates hastened to the monastery of Croyland. “It was midnight: the
abbot Theodore and his monks had risen to matins when the enemy drew
near: the younger brethren the abbot immediately commanded to seek a
place of refuge, with their papers, relics, and jewels; while he
himself, accompanied by the more aged monks, and some children, awaited
whatever fate might be reserved for them. Perhaps he hoped that the grey
locks of some, and the infancy of others, might awaken pity even in
pagans. But they forgot, says Ingulf, the old verse,
“Nulla fides pictasque viris qui castra sequuntur.”
But he was prepared for any event,—to live or fall with his
establishment. Having taken an affectionate leave of about thirty junior
monks, he and his devoted companions returned to the church, finished
the matins, and celebrated mass. They had just communicated when the
pagans arrived, forced the gates, and rushed into the cloisters. The
silence which they found might have induced them to believe the
monastery was utterly forsaken, had not the distant chaunting of the
monks fallen on their ears. They hastened to the church and burst into
the choir; one chieftain instantly seized the abbot by the hair with his
left hand, while the right severed the head from the body. The
officiating clergy shared the same fate at nearly the same moment: the
children and the aged monks were tortured for the purpose of discovering
whither the treasures had been conveyed; but as the former were unable,
and the latter unwilling, to disclose the secret, their sufferings were
soon terminated by death. Of all these helpless inmates, one only was
saved,—a boy ten years old, whose innocence made an impression on one of
the chieftains. He had fled to the refectory with the sub-prior, whom he
saw murdered, and whose fate he begged to share; but the chieftain tore
the cowl from his head, threw a Danish cloak over him, and commanded him
to follow him. The three succeeding days were passed in plunder,—in
minutely examining every corner or crevice where treasure might be
buried. The shrine of St. Guthlake was overthrown; the marble monuments
around it, containing the mortal remains of saints and benefactors to
the house, were opened, in search of rings, chalices, and other precious
effects which the Saxons entombed with the bodies of the great; the
bones were thrown on the ground, and the sculpture defaced. On the
fourth day the extensive pile was on fire. Medeshamstede, or
Peterborough, also an abbey of royal foundation, was next visited. Its
noble library, its numerous treasures, which there had not been time to
remove, its magnificent architecture, rendered it one of the proudest
monastic establishments in the island. Within its gates many of the
neighbouring inhabitants had placed their most valuable effects, and
thither many had fled for protection. For a while the edifice made a
noble stand; but a stone thrown by an unknown hand having mortally
wounded the brother of Ubbo, the Danish king, the barbarian and his
followers made a more desperate attack, forced the gates, and commenced
the massacre. With his own hand Ubbo sacrificed the hoary abbot and
eighty-three monks to the shade of his brother; while the strangers fell
under the hands of his followers. The booty was immense; but the value
was trifling compared with that of the MS. treasures which were consumed
with the monastery. The conflagration continued a fortnight. While it
raged, the monks who had fled from Croyland returned to their former
abode, sat themselves down amidst the smoking ruins, and wept. So
overcome were they by the melancholy sight, that some time elapsed
before they proceeded to bury the scorched bodies of their brethren.
Having performed this sad office, and elected another abbot, they were
solicited to perform the last duties to the monks of Medeshamstede. With
sorrowful hearts they deposited the bones of the abbot and the
eighty-three monks in the same grave, over which Godric, their superior,
raised a monument, engraven with the history of this sad tragedy. From
Medeshamstede the pirates, exulting in their success, hastened to the
Isle of Ely, to inflict the same fate on the flourishing convent which
had been founded by the piety of St. Edilthryda. Its cloisters were
inhabited by the noblest ladies of England. Some fled; but the greater
number preferred the death which they knew awaited them. The place was
taken; the nuns were ravished and slaughtered; and the holy pile was
reduced to ashes. That such atrocities could be committed would be
incredible were they not too well attested to admit of scepticism.[275]
[Sidenote: 870 to 924.]
The struggles of Alfred with the ferocious Northmen have been detailed
in more than one volume connected with the present.[276] During this
period, there was a Danish monarchy in Northumbria, which, as we have
already observed, had been probably founded by the sons of Ragnar
Lodbrog. That monarchy subsisted in the reign of Edmund, the son of
Alfred; and, it was in full vigour on the accession of Athelstane. So
powerful, indeed, was Sigtrug, king of that province, that Athelstane,
to insure his friendship, conferred on him the hand of his sister. The
condition of this marriage was that Sigtrug should embrace Christianity,
and become the vassal of Athelstane. In five years, however, the
restless barbarian put away his wife, and relapsed into idolatry. To
punish the insult, Athelstane invaded Northumbria; but Sigtrug died
before his arrival; and the two sons of Sigtrug, Anlaf and Godfrey,
fled,—the former into Ireland, the latter into Scotland; and Athelstane
annexed Northumbria to his English crown.[277]
[Sidenote: 924 to 934.]
That Athelstane should so immediately raise the power of the Saxon
kingdom, as not only to defeat the Danes and Northmen, but to subjugate
a province which had always been hostile to it, shows what may be
effected by the energies of a single mind. Not satisfied with expelling
the enemy from Northumbria, he pursued them into Scotland, far north of
the boundary which had hitherto arrested the progress of English
victory: his fleets penetrated into Caithness, ravaging the coast as
they proceeded. And he is believed, at this period, to have located a
multitude of English colonists in the southern provinces of Scotland,
and thus to have laid the foundation of the present lowland population.
But Northumbria was too recent a conquest, and too dissimilar from the
rest of the monarchy, to remain secure. The chiefs of Denmark and
Norway, who had so long regarded England as a kind of inheritance, armed
in greater numbers than before, to check the rising power of Athelstane.
They were joined by all the noted sea kings of the age; by many of the
jarls or kings who had settlements in Ireland and Scotland; by the king
of the Scots, and by several Welsh chiefs. Never, we are told, had so
formidable an armament menaced England as that which, in 934, entered
the Humber. It consisted of 615 ships, headed by Anlaf, whom Constantine
of Scotland had induced to make the attempt. Anlaf, who, on his father’s
death, had obtained for himself a principality in Ireland, had a
reputation for skill and valour equalled by none of his countrymen. Of
the two thanes whom Athelstane had placed over Northumbria, one was
defeated and slain; the other, after the battle, fled to acquaint the
English monarch with the defeat. He prepared for the contest with
courage; and, to gain time until his forces were collected, entered into
negotiations. When his army was completed, he hastened into the north,
and was in presence of the pirates before they knew he had left the
Saxon provinces. If any faith is to be placed in either Saxon or
Norwegian writers, Anlaf, assuming the disguise of a harper, penetrated
to the tent of Athelstane, and entertained that monarch with his art.
His object, we are told, was to ascertain the position of the tent
previous to a nocturnal attack, which had been determined by the
confederate chiefs. But this incident, no less than the recognition of
Anlaf by one of the Saxon outposts, is too romantic to be easily
credited. What appears to be certain is, that Athelstane removed his
tent to another part of the field; and that the bishop of Sherburn, who
encamped in the place which he had abandoned, was slain before the
morning’s dawn. In the night there was a skirmish, which caused much
effusion of blood, and was advantageous to neither party. When day
arrived, the celebrated battle of Brunanburgh was fought. That town has
escaped the researches of antiquaries; and all that can be conjectured
is, that it was in some place north of the Humber. That the struggle was
a desperate one might be inferred alike from the character of the
combatants, and from the magnitude of the interests involved. Victory
declared for Athelstane; Constantine of Scotland was nearly taken, and
his son killed; the Cumbrians and Britons and Irish were destroyed, or
put to flight, and the bravest warriors of the north remained on the
field. This splendid advantage raised England in the esteem of all
Europe, and impressed the Northmen with a salutary terror.[278]
[Sidenote: 934.]
The intercourse between Athelstane and Eric of the Bloody Axe we have
before mentioned.[279] We have also related in what manner Sweyn of
Denmark[280] defeated Ethelred II., and eventually became king of
England. The history of that monarch brings down that of the
Scandinavian expeditions to the year 1014.
[Sidenote: 400 to 840.]
2. _France._ The devastations of the Saxons and the Jutes on the coasts
of Gaul commenced as early as those on the coast of Britain. We read of
them in the third and every succeeding century, until France was too
strong to be assailed with impunity,—until piracy was extinguished in
the north of Europe. In the fifth century, the pirates besieged Orleans,
and formed many settlements on the western coast. About the middle of
the sixth, Hamlet of Jutland is said to have fought the Franks in
person, and to have been defeated. The period, however, of Hamlet, is
purely conjectural; and his descent on the coast is equally so. But that
the Normans were there is affirmed by the contemporary Gregory of Tours,
who describes their ravages with much interest. Under the Carlovingians,
the piratical armaments were more powerful than at any preceding time.
In 795, the Danes ravaged Friesland; from 800, the coasts of Flanders
and France were infested; nor could the genius and vast resources of
Charlemagne punish their audacity. On witnessing their fugitive
depredations, he is said to have predicted the trouble which they would
cause his successors. Such a prediction required no supernatural
discernment; but it proves that the monarch had formed a correct
estimate of northern piracy. For the greater part of a century, however,
they did not appear in any overwhelming numbers on the French coast. The
forces of the Northmen were too much scattered over the deep, in
England, Ireland, the Orkneys, and the Baltic, to admit of any
considerable concentration at a given point. Their efforts, however
destructive, were desultory, and might have been easily repelled, had
there been any wisdom or any vigour in the government. But the sons of
the emperor Louis were too eager to destroy each other, to have time for
the chastisement of obscure pirates; and every year added to the
severity of the scourge. In 840, Rouen was burnt; and many great
monasteries of that province, defended as they were by numerous vassals,
shared the same fate. The banks of two rivers—the Seine and the
Loire—were ravaged from their mouths to the interior of France. Amboise
was next burnt, and Tours was besieged; but St. Martin saved his
city.[281]
[Sidenote: 840.]
The man whose ravages were to eclipse all former pirates was Hastings,
who headed the expedition into Touraine. Of him we have no mention in
the annals of the north; our only information respecting him is from the
French writers,—Dudo of St. Quentin, William of Jumvieges, William of
Poictiers, Orderic Vital, Robert Wace, and Benedict of St. Maur. In this
absence of Scandinavian authority, the critics of the north have
endeavoured to identify him with such of the Swedish, Danish, or
Norwegian chiefs, as bore a name kindred with his own. But the account
of Wace, however inaccurate in its details, is the only one that can be
followed. There was a king of Denmark, says this ecclesiastic, Lotroc,
an old man, who had a son called Biorn, surnamed Ironside, from his
defensive armour. Finding that his kingdom was too populous, he revived
an ancient law, which forced all the sons of a family except one, to
seek their fortunes on the deep. A considerable number of vessels being
prepared, Biorn was placed over the fleet; but, as his years were yet
tender, he was subjected to the councils of Hadding, or Hasting, a
veteran chief of the pirates. Who was this king? Modern writers
unanimously affirm that he was the celebrated Ragnar Lodbrog. In this
case, Biorn could be no other than Biorn Ironside, who, on the death of
his father in 794, ascended the throne of the Swedes. Yet how will this
chronology agree with the facts? The expedition of Hastings must be
referred to the middle of the ninth century; when, if any dependence is
to be placed on the critical historians of the north, Biorn had been
dead forty years. But wherever the name of this Lodbrog occurs, there is
the same chronological confusion; nor can we be surprised that Suhm
makes two heroes of that name,—one of the eighth, the other of the ninth
century.[282]
[Sidenote: 842 to 844.]
When Hastings arrived off the coast, he divided his fleet into two
squadrons. One ascended the Somme, set fire to the towns which lay on
its banks, and murdered the inhabitants. The other proceeded to the
mouth of the Loire, and committed the same depredations on its banks.
Nantes was taken, and all who had sought refuge in the cathedral were
put to death. Churches, monasteries, towns, hamlets,—everything which
lay in the passage of the invaders, was destroyed. Proceeding to the
south, they ravaged the coasts of Galicia, but were defeated by the king
of Leon. This check forced them from Spain; but they spread their wild
hordes over the south of France, from Thoulouse to the Pyrenees. As they
had established a kind of wooden fortress on the Loire, they now erected
one on the Garonne. But they were not satisfied with the failure of
their arms against Spain; they were determined, by future successes, to
blot out the memory of this disgrace; and, with a larger fleet, they
returned to that peninsula. Lisbon, then an inconsiderable town, was
plundered; passing to the south and east, the armament ascended the
Guadalquivir, and assailed the important city of Seville, then in the
power of the Mohammedans. Strange was the chance which thus brought the
robbers of Scandinavia and those of the Arabian deserts into collision
with each other. But the followers of Odin had the advantage over those
of Mohammed; doubtless because the latter were few in number, and
unprepared for the attack. From this city they made some predatory
excursions into the neighbouring country; but the Arabs, by surprising a
part of their fleet, counter-balanced the advantage they had just
gained.[283]
[Sidenote: 845 to 859.]
Whether Hastings was present in the expedition to Spain may be doubted.
There were several chiefs of the pirates, from all parts of Scandinavia;
and while one was laying waste the maritime coasts of the South, others
were equally active on those of France. Hastings, however, was at the
head of the party which, proceeding by way of Fescamp and Rouen,
extended its ravages over most of Neustria and Bretagne, and even to the
gates of Paris. All France was in consternation. The monks especially
were surprised that their holy relics had no power to arrest the
progress of the barbarians. St. Martin had saved Tours; but there was no
saint to defend the magnificent religious houses which were now
destroyed by the Northmen. When the enemy approached, the monks retired
with the relics, heaping curses loud and deep on these “men of hell,”
these “spawn of the devil.” But their curses were ineffectual as their
relics, and the tide of destruction flowed on. Many were the presents
which the Carlovingian kings made to the invaders to remove the scourge.
As in England, the money was received, but the depredations were only
transferred to some other part of the kingdom. But, so many were the
armaments which every year arrived from the North, and so many the
chiefs to be bribed, that the resources of the country were insufficient
for the purpose. It was probably this circumstance which led Hastings
into the Mediterranean. He had heard of Rome; and the glory no less than
the advantage of sacking that celebrated city, led him to the shores of
Italy. On his way, he plundered the coasts of Spain, of Africa, and
those of the islands which he passed. Disembarking in Tuscany, he
assailed Luna, which he is absurdly said to have mistaken for Rome; and
failing in his attempt to carry it by storm, he recurred to an
experiment which we have more than once read in the history of the
north. He caused the inhabitants to be informed that he was disgusted
with his manner of life; that he would repent; that he was the victim of
an incurable disease; that he wished to be baptized before his death.
The credulous ecclesiastics obtained a suspension of hostilities, and
prepared for the ceremony which was “to wash this Ethiop white.” On the
day appointed, he was carried in a litter to the cathedral; and he acted
his part to admiration. He received the holy rite with much appearance
of devotion; all must see that his days were drawing to their close; and
he begged that his bones might be deposited in one of the vaults beneath
the church. That was sacred ground; and when surrounded by the ashes of
saints and martyrs, he might hope to escape the pursuits of the evil
one. Who could refuse so humble a request? He was borne to his ship,
which he was scarcely expected to see alive. No sooner was he on board,
than he cast away his disease, and mentioned to his followers the plan
which he had devised for the capture of the city. In a short time, a
loud cry of grief was heard on board his vessel; the neophyte was dead,
and preparations were made for the funeral. When the day appointed by
the clergy arrived, the coffin, attended by all the chiefs, and a great
number of warriors, was slowly borne from the ship to the cathedral. It
was placed on a bier, near the choir of the church, and the funeral
service was commenced. The congregation to witness the ceremony was
great; it comprised the bishop, the clergy, the governor, the military,
and the principal inhabitants. Mass was sung; the funeral hymns were
chaunted; prayers for the requiem of the new-born soul were humbly
offered; and the attendants advanced to the bier to lower the corpse
into its last resting-place. At this moment, Hastings arose; his
warriors drew their swords from beneath their long cloaks, which were at
once thrown on the pavement; the doors were fastened; the work of
carnage commenced, and every one present was laid dead in the place. The
city was easily won; the inhabitants were massacred; the most precious
effects borne to the ships, and the city consumed by fire. This may seem
to be romance rather than history; but it is attested by so many
writers, and is so conformable with the character of the pagan
Scandinavians at once violent and treacherous that we dare not wholly
reject it. The circumstances may be embellished; but the foundation of
the story is probably true.[284]
[Sidenote: 858 to 863.]
While Hastings was in Italy, Biorn was pursuing the work of destruction
in France. In vain did Charles the Bald endeavour to expel him from the
kingdom. Arms being ineffectual, negotiation was tried, and for a large
sum Biorn consented to leave France. On his return, feeling that he was
indisposed, he landed on the coast, and there died. While the French
were congratulating themselves on this unexpected deliverance, they were
thrown into consternation by the news that Hastings was just returned
from Italy, and renewing his ravages. A misfortune which he had
sustained on the passage—that of being compelled through the violence of
the storm to throw overboard his numerous captives and most precious
effects—made him the more eager to repair his fortunes. Entering the
Rhone, and forming another entrenchment, he sent or headed detachments,
which plundered Arles, Nismes, and most of the towns between the Alps
and the Pyrenees. While thus occupied, another formidable body in the
Seine, which had not shared in the treaty made by Biorn, ravaged the
country to the gates of Paris. A third soon landed from the north, and
commenced its career by the destruction of Amiens; while a fourth was
equally mischievous in Flanders. Charles had, as before, recourse to
negotiation. To the party which had destroyed Amiens he engaged to pay
three thousand pounds weight of fine gold—an immense sum, and surely an
exaggeration. It is, however, certain that a heavy tax was levied on the
whole kingdom, and that in twelve months it was not wholly collected.
But while the negotiation was pending, other armaments arrived, and even
the king began to perceive that to purchase the retreat of one while so
many others were left to pursue their depredations, was great folly. The
negotiation, consequently, assumed a new character: and the pirates were
now to be paid, not for leaving the kingdom, but for assisting to expel
other bodies of their countrymen from it. Accordingly, there followed
some desultory hostilities between these kindred robbers: but while they
were thus occupied, other bands were carrying their depredations into
the heart of France. In the end, however, two of the armaments were
persuaded to leave the shores—probably to join in the conquest of
England, now governed by the feeble brothers of Alfred. But two yet
remained that of Hastings, and one stationed in the Loire. As the former
was so dreaded, his neutrality, at least, was to be purchased on any
terms. The abbot of St. Denis repaired to the head quarters of the
chief, and with some difficulty prevailed on him to accept the royal
offers. These were, a large sum of money, and the fief of Chartres with
the title of count, on the condition of his embracing Christianity, and,
as a French vassal, of aiding his liege superior against all enemies.
The conditions were accepted, and the fierce pirate of the Baltic became
one of the noblest peers of France.[285]
[Sidenote: 863 to 876.]
There now remained one piratical band only,—that on the Loire. As Paris
had been more than once menaced, king Charles caused to be constructed
on the Seine, below that city, a bridge, which was intended to arrest
the progress of the hostile vessels, by its inability to admit the high
masts. The writers of that period are minute in describing the excesses
of these men, whom they accompany step by step. But the detail is
tedious: in general they have more sympathy for churches and abbeys,
than for the peasantry; and much louder is their cry when a solitary
priest is massacred at the altar, or a sacred relic borne away, than
when a town is put to the sword. No church, no monastery, no village or
town was spared,—nothing which had not the means of self-defence. In 867
the robbers appeared in the vicinity of Paris: the bridge prevented
their arriving under the walls; and they established their head quarters
at the abbey of St. Denis. From thence they spread into the neighbouring
country, and acquired immense booty. But a contagious disease appearing
among them, and reducing their numbers, they slowly descended the river
to wait for reinforcements, which were constantly arriving on the coast.
But these reinforcements were now smaller than they had lately been:
three fourths of all the pirates that swept the seas were in England,
preparing to drive Alfred from the throne; and though those who remained
in France effected great mischief, they would have been unable to resist
any considerable body. They were not, however, inured to open campaigns:
their hostilities were undertaken on a smaller scale,—were generally
directed against some town or religious edifice where there was less
danger of resistance; and when assailed (as was sometimes the case) by a
much superior force, they retired into their fortified places. Angers,
which they captured in 873, was one of these. On this occasion Charles
the Bald exhibited an energy to which he was usually a stranger. He
raised an army, marched to Angers, compelled the Northmen to evacuate
it, and retire to their island entrenchments on the Loire. From this
place their predatory excursions were resumed. But they are beneath the
notice of history: they were undertaken, not for conquest, but for
booty. The period, however, is arrived when we must accompany the
exploits of one who did conquer, and who laid the foundation of a state
powerful enough to effect the greatest revolutions in Europe.[286]
Rognevald was one of the jarls of Harald the Fair-haired. After serving
his monarch in many difficult and dangerous enterprises, he fell in
battle. Of his sons, one, Einar, became jarl of the Orkneys. Einar was
an ambitious man. When Halfdan, a son of Harald, expelled him from their
island, he obtained reinforcements in Scotland, returned to the charge,
and deprived Halfdan of authority and life. Harald sailed to avenge the
death of his son; but Einar was left in possession of the government.
Not inferior to Einar in ambition or valour, was _Hrolf_, or
_Rollo_,—the _Rou_ of the Norman writers,—another son of Rognevald.
According to the Icelandic sagas, he was so tall and so robust that no
horse could carry him: hence his appellation of Hrolf _Gangr_, or the
Walker. Like his ancestors, he passed his time on the deep, and enriched
himself by his depredations on the shores of the Baltic. The death of
his father, and the rebellion of his elder brother, made him probably
less attached to the interests of Harald, or less obedient to his
commands. It is certain that he ventured to do what had been so
rigorously forbidden,—to make a piratical descent on the Norwegian
coast. The monarch was in the town which Rollo endeavoured to sack; and
his indignation at the attempt led him to banish the pirate for ever.
Whether this could be much punishment to one whose life had been passed
far from Norway may be doubted. Collecting as great a number of vessels
as were willing to join him,—and the dignity of his family no less than
his own prowess made him a popular chief,—he sailed for France. In his
way he appears to have made some piratical descents on the Scottish and
English coasts; and though he could not make much impression on either,
he did what, in his present circumstances, was quite as advantageous—he
loaded his ships with booty. Dudo of St. Quentin, and Wace, determined
that the founder of the Norman dynasty shall be a favourite of heaven,
introduce some visions and other miscellaneous appearances, which the
historian must leave to the monastic chronicler. These are harmless, and
may be despised; but when, to dignify the chief of some great family,
history is perverted, a severer censure is necessary. Thus, Dudo (who is
followed by many Norman writers) informs us that Rollo was powerful
enough to become the ally and friend of Alfred; that by the Saxon
monarch he was provided with a fleet to make war on the French king;
that in gratitude for this aid he afterwards assisted Alfred—whom his
subjects or the Danes had dethroned—to reascend the throne. How living
writers could fall into the absurdity of receiving such statements,
which are contrary to the unanimous voices of contemporary history, is
surprising.[287]
[Sidenote: 876 to 888.]
The year in which Rollo arrived in the south is not very clearly
established. Schoning has 995; but this will not bear the test of
scrutiny, for the French and Norman writers assert that he was occupied
above thirty years in his subjugation of Normandy, and we know that he
was recognised its duke in 912. Asser of St. David’s—a contemporary—has
the year 876, and he is confirmed by the writers nearest to the period;
yet there are some chronological difficulties which we cannot remove.
Harald of Norway did not undertake the voyage to the Orkneys before the
year 895; and the banishment of Rollo is assigned to the year following.
The only way to reconcile this anachronism is by the conjecture that
Rollo, being exiled for piracy in 876, joined his countrymen and the
Danes, who were ravaging England and France; that he established himself
at Rouen, but frequently extended his devastations to the north and east
of that city; that he was more than once in England, and perhaps in the
north, before his recognition as duke of Normandy. But let us follow his
footsteps. Landing at Walcheren, he defeated the count of Hainault, whom
he captured, and exacted a heavy sum by way of ransom. Repairing to
Rouen, he was not so ruthless as to destroy it: he accepted from the
archbishop a sum of money, fortified it, and made it the basis of his
operations against the French king. His arrival threw France into
consternation; and Hastings was sent to learn his object, which he
coolly replied was—conquest. But whether at this period he proceeded far
in his operations may well be doubted. His name does not appear in the
siege of Paris, which took place in 886, nor in many other enterprises
which from 876 to 896—that is, twenty years—afflicted France. Yet the
names of other chiefs are specified. As we have already conjectured, he
was probably for some years in England, or in the north. Certainly he
could not have entered on that splendid career which led to his
elevation, before the year 890, or later still. Yet it is possible that
he might be joined with the other chiefs in the devastations which, from
876,—during full thirty years,—afflicted the whole of France. However
this be, in ten years after his first disembarkation, siege was laid to
Paris. It is described by a contemporary poet,—by an eye-witness, Abbo,
monk of Fleury. It was of considerable duration, and many were the
desperate assaults which were made upon the city; but they were as
bravely repelled; and the siege was raised. Yet the Northmen did not
retire further than the abbey of St. Germain’s, where they continued for
some time to despatch their destructive hordes. As no great enemy was
before them, they split into two bodies; and while one was collecting
booty and burning villages, another laid siege to Chartres. In this
attempt, however, they failed,—a result which Wace ascribes to the
virtue of a certain relic.[288] A new attack was made on Paris, but with
as little effect. At this juncture arrived the emperor Charles the Fat,
to succour the capital; and the expulsion of the pirates seemed
inevitable. But far different was the result: without striking a blow,
he negotiated, and agreed to give the pirates seven hundred pounds of
gold, with permission to ravage the two sides of the Seine into
Burgundy, provided they would then leave—not France, but the central
provinces. They received the money, and ravaged Burgundy; but they had
no intention to forsake the fertile plains of the interior for the
dreary maritime coast.[289]
[Sidenote: 888 to 896.]
Though Eudes defeated the pirates, this was merely a temporary check,—so
temporary as scarcely to arrest their progress. Meaux was besieged and
taken; Champagne, Lorraine, and Burgundy were ravaged; Troyes, Chalons,
Toul, Verdun were occupied; Picardy and Artois, to the borders of the
sea, were laid waste. Contemporaneously with these rapid successes were
the depredations of the pirates who were still entrenched on the Loire.
There was no rest for France; no hope of expelling her daring intruders.
Though Eudes had triumphed over the pirates, the next time they assailed
that capital he was glad to purchase their retreat. Descending the river
to its mouth, they next assailed the fortress of St. Loo. It was
compelled to capitulate; but no conditions were binding on these
wretches, who regarded oaths as vain formalities: instead of security
for their lives, the inhabitants found a grave. Bretagne was now
ravaged; but duke Alan was braver and more, fortunate than Eudes. Though
the invaders were 15,000 in number, he assailed them, at a moment, too,
when they were flushed with victory over a rival duke. His success was
splendid; thousands were left dead on the field; the rest were put to
flight. But even this success was scarcely a check to these wild sons of
the deep. Driven from England by the genius of Alfred, they came in
fearful numbers to France. They occupied both the coasts and the centre;
and they traversed every part of the kingdom with an impunity surprising
to posterity.[290]
[Sidenote: 896 to 909.]
In how many of these embassies Rollo was an actor, we shall not venture
to decide. Whether he was not much in England, as well as in France;
whether he was not alternately engaged in both kingdoms, must be left to
the reader’s own inference. This, at least, is certain, that from the
year 896 his name and exploits fill the page of French history, to the
exclusion of many other names which had before occupied it. From that
year, too, must be dated those rapid and decisive successes which
insured his future greatness. The banishment of so many pirates from the
north by Harald Harfager now sent larger swarms to the south. The first
care of Rollo was to strengthen the fortifications of Rouen, which had
been destroyed in his absence (whether that absence were in England, or
the interior of France, we will not decide), and which he now made
formidable. Next, both sides of the Seine felt the vigour of his genius.
The forces which were sent to oppose him he defeated. But we cannot
follow his steps. Let it be sufficient to observe, that he was almost
uniformly successful; that in several battles he was the victor; that
Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, and many places of inferior note were taken by
him; that he partitioned the lands which he subdued among his warriors,
to be held of him as the liege head, under the usual feudal conditions.
From this policy and this success, we should infer that he was in one
respect the counterpart of his countrymen—that he protected, instead of
destroying, the peasantry—that he encouraged, instead of abolishing,
Christianity. Probably much of his moderation was owing to the councils
of Franco, archbishop of Rouen, his chief vassal. Alarmed at the
progress of his arms, Charles the Simple applied through Franco for a
truce, which was readily granted. There can, indeed, be little doubt
that the success of Hastings was before the eyes of Rollo, and that he
aspired to a lordship much more ample than Chartres,—one which he should
compel the French king to cede to him, and thereby give him a proud seat
amongst the princes of Europe. Hence the readiness with which he
listened to Franco, especially when assured that Charles had already
contemplated his investiture with some portion of his new conquests. The
truce, indeed, was not agreeable to some of the French peers, and
hostilities were recommenced, much to the injury of France. There was
not a province which some of his bands did not traverse; there was
scarcely one which he did not plunder; and though frequently repulsed,
they always returned to the charge. The French began to murmur, and
Charles to apply himself still more seriously to a permanent
understanding with Rollo. Hostilities had availed nothing; France had
lost many thousands of her bravest defenders, and hundreds of thousands
of her peaceful inhabitants; and if the invaders had also lost many
considerable detachments, their ranks were speedily replenished by new
immigrations from the north.[291]
[Sidenote: 910 to 912.]
About the year 910, or perhaps the year following, Franco, at the
command of Charles, opened the important negotiation with this
adventurer. The offers were—Neuctria with the ducal title, and the hand
of Gisele, a natural daughter of the king, provided he would embrace
Christianity, and become the liege vassal of the French crown. This
prelate was an eloquent, persuasive man, and had already considerable
influence over the mind of Rollo. But that chief objected to one of the
conditions as not sufficiently liberal. Neuctria he had already; and
there was no great generosity in recognising his title to that which
nobody could wrest from him. Besides, it was, he alleged, barren and
half-peopled; but he forgot that this result was his own work and that
of his countrymen. Franco then offered a portion of Bretagne—perhaps the
whole—as an arriere-fief; and Rollo no longer hesitated. He had a wife
already, Popa, the daughter of a French count; and her he repudiated,—on
what ground is matter of dispute; but surely there need be none. Rollo
was not yet a Christian; he had not been married in any Christian
church; how then could the church recognise the union? Gisele,
therefore, was to become the bride of the chief. A meeting of Rollo and
of Charles was appointed at St. Clair-sur-Epte, a place on the frontier
of Normandy. In 912, both repaired to that town,—Charles with a splendid
retinue of nobles and prelates, by whose advice he had entered into a
treaty with the new vassal. Here the investiture took place; Rollo did
homage to the sovereign, and both acts were witnessed by the French
nobles. To kneel before the monarch, hold up his hands between those of
the superior, and repeat a certain formula called an oath, were no great
acts of degradation; and to these Rollo had no objection. But the homage
was not complete until the regal foot was kissed. To this humiliation he
would not stoop, and he was allowed to perform it by deputy. A warrior
of his suite was accordingly brought forward; but he was no less proud
than his master; and on the royal foot being somewhat raised, he raised
it still higher, and threw the poor monarch on his back, amidst the
suppressed laughter of the assembly.[292]
[Sidenote: 912.]
Thus was a fierce, an obscure pirate invested with one of the most
important fiefs in Europe. His successors were, like him, valiant and
politic; and by their means the duchy was raised to a height of power
that rendered it a rival at once to the French and English kings. By
what degrees, however, this progressive greatness was achieved, must be
left to the historian of France. It is sufficient for us to observe that
the new state became a successful barrier against the pagans of
Scandinavia. Not that, both in Bretagne and Gascony, new armaments did
not arrive and do some mischief; but it was transient, and no fear was
entertained that the most powerful cities of France would ever again be
assailed by them. When they did appear in any district, they were soon
repulsed. The policy, therefore, of erecting Neustria into a state, and
confiding it to the government of a race of heroes, was a wise one. A
successor of Charles the Simple endeavoured to dethrone a grandson of
Rollo; but, as we have already seen, Harald of Denmark sailed to the aid
of the young duke, took the French king prisoner, and restored the
relation between duke and monarch to the state in which it was on the
death of Rollo.[293]
3. _Ireland._ At what period the Northmen first commenced their
depredations in Ireland is, like many other points of northern history,
impossible to be established. The Irish annals themselves contain no
record of such transactions prior to the eighth century; yet they must
have happened before. If little reliance is to be placed on the
statement of Saxo, that Fridleif I. and Frode III. conquered and
plundered Dublin, it would be rash to affirm that there was not a very
ancient intercourse between that island and Scandinavia. Whether the
Lochlans, or Dwellers of the Lakes, were Scandinavians, or the Scottish
Highlanders, has been matter of great dispute. We know, however, that,
in the ninth century, the Danes were expressly called Lochlans by the
Irish, and that the term was used at an earlier period to designate some
maritime people with whom the natives had a frequent intercourse. The
term, however, might be applied to both the Gael and the Northmen,—to
all maritime nations. On this subject let us hear the last and most
eloquent of Irish historians:—
In proof of the Danes having been the people with whom this
early intercourse was maintained, the authority of a number of
modern historians has been adduced, according to whose accounts
it would seem that, from a period preceding the birth of Christ,
a succession of invasions of this island from Denmark had been
commenced; and that, for some centuries after, a course of
alternate hostility and friendship marked the relations between
the two countries. Imposing, however, as is the array of
northern authorities for this statement, the entire value of
their united evidence may be reduced to that of the single
testimony of that of Saxo Grammaticus, from whose pages they
have all copied; and it is well known, for all the earlier
portion of this eloquent writer’s history, the foundation is as
unsound and unreal as Scaldic fable and fallacious chronology
could make it. The only circumstance that lends any semblance of
credit to the accounts given by northern histotorians of the
early fortunes of Ireland, is the known fact that the chief
materials of their own history were derived from records
preserved in Iceland: to which island inaccessible as it might
seem to have been to the rude navigation of those days, it is
certain that a number of Irish missionaries of the seventh and
eighth centuries contrived to find their way. We learn, from
more than one authentic source, that, when the Norwegians first
arrived in Iceland, they found there traces of its having been
previously inhabited by a Christian people; and the Irish books,
bells, and holy staves, left behind by the former dwellers,
sufficiently denoted the religious island from whence they had
migrated. The title of Papas, which it appears was borne by
them, has led to the conclusion that they must have been Irish
priests who had adventurously fixed themselves in this desolate
region; and, under the same name, they were found in the Orkneys
when the Norwegians conquered those islands. Unless we were to
suppose, however, that among the books left by those
missionaries in Iceland, there were any relating to Irish
history of which the chroniclers consulted by Saxo might have
availed themselves, the incident, though curious and well
attested, affords but slight grounds for placing reliance on
these early northern annals, whose sources of information are
known to have been spurious, and to whose general character for
extravagant fiction, the few brief notices which they contain
respecting Irish affairs, can hardly be expected to furnish an
exception. Nor is any more serious credit due to them when they
represent Dublin to have been in possession of the Danes a short
time before the birth of Christ, than when they assert that
London was built by these northern people about the very same
period. Fabulous, however, as are these accounts, yet that, long
before either the Danish or even the Saxon invasions, the coasts
of the Baltic had sent forth colonies to the British Isles, is a
fact to which foreign as well as domestic tradition bears
testimony. The conjecture of Tacitus, that the people called
Picts were a Germanic or northern race, is confirmed by the
traditional accounts of this people, preserved in the chronicles
of Britain; and all the early Scandinavian legends concur with
the annals of Ireland in intimating, at some remote period,
relations of intercourse between the two countries. We have
seen, in a preceding part of this work, what almost certain
grounds there are for believing that those Scyths, or Scots,
who, at the time when Ireland first became known to modern
Europe, formed the dominant part of her people, were a colony
from some region bordering on the Baltic Sea which had, a few
centuries before, gained possession of this island. From
whatever part these Scythian adventurers may have arrived,
whether from the Cimbric peninsula, the islands of the Baltic,
or the Scandinavian shores, it may be concluded that with that
region the occasional intercourse was afterwards maintained, and
those alliances and royal intermarriages formed of which, in our
ancient traditions and records, some scattered remembrances
still remain. With respect to those swarms of sea-rovers who,
throughout the dark and troubled period we are now approaching,
carried on their long career of havoc and blood, though known
most popularly in English history by the general name of Danes,
they are but rarely, and not till a late period, thus designated
in our annals. By Tigernach, the earliest existing annalist,
they are invariably called Gâll, or Strangers; while, in the
Annals of Inisfallen, of Ulster, and of the Four Masters, they
are styled indifferently either Galls, Gentiles, Dwellers on the
Lakes, or Pirates; but in not more than two or three instances
are they called Normans, and as seldom Danes.[294]
[Sidenote: 795 to 820.]
We must be satisfied with the general inference that Ireland was visited
by the Northmen as soon, or nearly as soon, as Scotland, and the
Scottish islands. The first visit of which we have any record was in
795, in the reign of Aidan, monarch of the country. Leaving Iona, the
monastery of which they had laid in ashes, the sea kings proceeded to
the north-western coast, landed, and ravaged the country as far as
Roscommon. This was, probably, the work of years: here, as everywhere
else, they would form intrenchments at the mouths of the great rivers,
the banks of which, for twenty leagues round, they would lay waste as
far as boats could ascend. They appear to have been twelve years in the
country before any serious resistance was made. In 812 they were
defeated; but defeat, so long as the sea was open, and communication
with it maintained by navigable rivers, was speedily repaired. In 815, a
Norwegian chief named Turges, or Thorgils, arrived with a more powerful
armament, and, during thirty years, was a dreadful scourge not only to
the northern, but to the eastern and southern districts of the island.
Their fury was peculiarly directed against the holy places, especially
the monastery of Banchor and the cathedral of Armagh, which they
revisited and destroyed every time they heard of their restoration.
Every cell, every chapel, every holy place to which the superstitious
piety of the age resorted, naturally attracted their notice. But in the
atrocities which they committed, and which the unanimous voice of every
kingdom they visited—from Greece to Ireland—has immortalised, they must
have been actuated by other motives than the hope of gain. If they were
savage to the laity, they were demoniacal to the ecclesiastics. Probably
their superior ferocity in the latter case may be explained by the deep
hatred which the persecutions of Charlemagne had produced (as we have
before intimated, under the term _Saxons_ must also be included the
Scandinavians, and perhaps some tribes of the great Slavonic family).
But against that great man, we are not disposed to join in the hostility
of some modern writers. The men with whom the emperor had to deal were
without honour, without virtue of any kind, men who regarded the most
solemn oaths as empty sounds, who loved war as much for the plunder
which it brought as for the gratification of shedding blood. But were
not the Saxons and Danes fighting for their liberties? True, and the
greatest of them was the liberty to plunder the rest of the world,—to
trample under foot all humanity, all moral virtue,—to be the tyrants of
Europe. Charlemagne triumphed over them, and we rejoice at his success;
nor, had he exterminated the whole people, should he be censured by
posterity.[295]
[Sidenote: 820 to 848.]
The desolation which, at this period more than any other, afflicted
Ireland, might easily have been averted, had there been a central
government strong enough to rally around it the hearts and arms of the
people. But the monarch was merely a titular one, and less powerful than
his vassals. Instead of harmony there was dissension only among the
members of the body politic; and this evil was aggravated a hundred fold
by the mischievous practice of hiring the aid of strangers. When, in
837, another powerful reinforcement arrived from the north, and
commenced its depredations on the banks of the Liffey and the Boyne, the
evil which, since 795, had afflicted the country, was increased a
thousand fold. There was not, says the eloquent historian of Ireland, “a
single spot of renown in the ecclesiastical history of our country, not
one of those numerous religious foundations, the seats and monuments of
the early piety of her sons, that was not frequently, during this
period, made the scene of the most fearful and brutal excesses.” Let it
not be forgotten that this frequency of destruction evinces the zeal of
the Irish in rebuilding their holy places, and the intrepidity with
which they repaired to them, even when assured that they should be there
met by incarnate demons, and sent to aggrandise the “noble army of
martyrs.” In general the higher dignitaries were spared for the sake of
the ransom. The mischief was, that the head quarters of Turges always
presented a rallying-point for the defeated Northmen, and for such new
comers as arrived on the coast. The way in which this veteran chief at
last met his fate, is romantically told by Giraldus de Barri. He had
fallen in love, says that amusing Welchman, with the daughter of the
king of Meath, and he made known his love to the father. Pretending to
comply with his suit, a day was appointed on which Turges, attended by
fifteen followers, was to meet his bride, accompanied by as many
maidens, on a small island of Loch-Var. To the place of meeting,
however, the Irish lady was escorted by fifteen young men in the female
garb, and they destroyed the tyrant. Probably the relation of the native
annalists, that he was drowned in that lake by the king of Meath, is the
true one. However this be, his death was a fatal blow to the
Scandinavian power in Ireland. From this period (844) we read, indeed,
of their depredations, of their formidable combinations, even of their
victories; but there was no longer the same hope, the same confidence in
their invincibility.[296]
[Sidenote: 849 to 872.]
In 849, another powerful armament arrived from the north. Their policy
was not merely to plunder, but to take advantage of the civil wars which
desolated Ireland, by hiring their services to the highest bidder. In
850, they were employed by the monarch in his contest with a native
king, and the example was speedily followed by his royal subjects. In
this year, too, we perceive that Dublin was in the power of the
Northmen, and one of their chief seats: probably it had been so for half
a century, or longer still. It was fortunate for the Irish that the
different Scandinavian people who thus harassed them were often the
enemies of each other. Sometimes they fought under the banners of
Christian princes; at other times they contended alone. Thus, in 850,
the Dubh-Gals, or black strangers, assailed the Fin-Gals, or white
strangers, of Dublin. Who were they? Were they Scottish Highlanders? or
were the former Slavonic, the latter Scandinavian, pirates? This
question can never be answered to our entire satisfaction; but we cannot
easily believe that any chief of the Highlands could equip so powerful
an armament as that which assailed the establishment of Dublin. Three
years afterwards, Anlaf, Ivar, and Sitric, all brothers, and princes
from Scandinavia, arrived with a great armament, and seated themselves
in three great stations,—Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford. Probably the
last-named city was founded by Sitric. His two brothers considerably
extended their frontiers. They appear, too, so far to have acted in
concert as to compel the Irish princes to pay them an annual
tribute,—something like the Danegelt, which was so oppressive to the
English. Anlaf, indeed, was a remarkable character; but if the
chronology be correct, which places his arrival in the year 853, he must
not be confounded with the prince whom, in 924, Athelstane defeated. His
kingdom of Dublin, which comprehended the county and much of its
neighbourhood, was amplified no less than defended by him, with success.
Not that advantages were not sometimes won from him. On one occasion he
was pursued into his capital, and his territory wasted to its very
gates. But this, at such a period, when everything depended on a
surprise, was a very ordinary result; and that very month he might be
able to extend his ravages to the centre of the island. That he
frequently did so, we know,—sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction
with his brothers, at other times as the ally of the native princes. But
that they were always in the country does not appear probable. If this
Ivar be the man who was also king of Northumberland, his territories in
England must have frequently required his presence. Anlaf, too, had a
principality on this side of the channel; for he is styled king of all
the Northmen in Ireland and Britain. But connected with him, with his
royal brothers, and their reputed father, Ragnar Lodbrog, are so many
chronological difficulties, that we can never reconcile them. One of
these princes, according to the Annals of Ulster, died in 874; as all
came in the middle of the century, none could long survive that period;
even then, if they were the sons of the Ragnar who was killed in 794,
and who immediately afterwards descended on the Northumbrian coast, they
must have reached an age nearly centennial. That there has been a sad
confusion of names—for all were common in the Scandinavian annals—is
undoubted. Then the confusion in the orthography of proper words—Anlaf,
for example, being written Alaf, Olaf, Amlain, Amlaiph, &c.—must add to
the hopelessness of the historian’s task. Three kings of this name, all
celebrated during the first half of the ninth century, could not be the
princes who, under the same names, obtained so much celebrity during the
first half of the tenth. Either, therefore, the chronology is wrong, or
the events are for ever confounded. In this, as in every other case,
historians have adopted the same mode of solution,—that there were two
individuals of the name existing at periods considerably removed from
each other.[297]
[Sidenote: 872 to 1000.]
For many years after this period, we read that the Northmen were in
possession of Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, the chiefs of which had
the regal title. Early in the tenth, indeed, they were expelled from the
first of these cities by the people of Leinster; but the misfortune must
have been soon repaired: for in a few years afterwards, we find Godfrey,
grandson of Ivar, reigning there, and forcing tribute from most of the
princes in the south. In 926, however, the pirates were signally
defeated in Ulster, and eighty of their chiefs slain. The moral effect
of these victories could be no other than to inspire the natives with
new hope, and to procure them new successes. In 936, a greater loss was
inflicted on the Scandinavians of Dublin. Five years afterwards, a
similar advantage was gained over them; but either they must have had
speedy means of reinforcing themselves, or their losses must have been
grossly exaggerated. Nor could they be very unfortunate, if it be true
that after their partial conversion to Christianity, in 948, they
erected the great abbey of St. Mary, in the vicinity of Dublin. Yet they
were sometimes tributary to Murkertach, one of the native kings, and the
most celebrated hero of his age; and Dublin was frequently in the hands
of the Irish; but it was as frequently retaken. These alternations of
success and disaster comprehend the history of the Northmen in Ireland.
But after the accession of Brian, surnamed Born, or the exacter of
tributes, the decline which had for above half a century been visible in
the affairs of the pirates, became signally rapid. Many were the
successive engagements in which that heroic chief had the advantage. In
969, he took and destroyed Limerick; in 972, he recovered the island of
Iniscathy, to which the natives attached no ordinary sanctity; in 980, a
great confederation of the pirates who had penetrated into the heart of
the country, were defeated by Malachi, the monarch of Ireland. This last
victory deserves more than ordinary remembrance, from the fact that it
gave freedom to some thousands of Irish captives. In 989, Dublin was
besieged during twenty days by the monarch of Ireland; and being forced
to capitulate, it agreed that every house should annually pay one ounce
of gold to the native hero. Probably this convention was ill kept: for
in 994, he was again before that city. The success over the common enemy
would have been more signal, had not Brian and the titular monarch been
frequently at war with each other. But in 997, they united their forces,
and marched on Dublin. Three years afterwards, we find the Danes as
vassals in the armies of Brian.[298]
[Sidenote: 1000 to 1014.]
But we must hasten over the obscure battles of the period, and come at
once to that which for ever broke the Danish sceptre in Ireland. In
1014, the Danes, having collected reinforcements from all parts of
Europe, and concentrated their strength on the plain of Clontorf, fought
a battle memorable in the Irish annals. Fortunately for the natives, the
same necessity of combination made them for a moment suspend their
private feuds, and march to resist the common enemy. Splendid was the
victory which awaited Brian; but he fell, being treacherously
assassinated in his tent in the hour of success. From this moment may be
dated the destruction of the gigantic enemy. Dying struggles it
exhibited, and struggles such as became a giant; but the blow was
struck; and, however lingering the disease, the end was sure to be
fatal.[299]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX
------------------
A.
KING OLUF THE SAINT.
(_Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XI._)
1.
“King Oluf and his brother bold,
’Bout Norroway’s rocks a parley hold.
2.
“‘The one of the two who best can sail,
Shall rule o’er Norroway’s hill and dale.
3.
“‘Who first of us reaches our native ground,
O’er all the region shall king be crown’d.’
4.
“Then Harald Haardrode answer made:
‘Ay, let it be done as thou hast said;
5.
“‘But if I to-day must sail with thee,
Thou shalt change thy vessel, I swear, with me:
6.
“‘For thou hast got the Dragon of speed,
I shall make with the Ox a poor figure indeed.
7.
“The Dragon is swift as the clouds in chace,
The Ox, he moveth in lazy pace.’
8.
“‘Hear, Harald, what I have to say to thee:
What thou hast proposed well pleaseth me.
9.
“‘If my ship in aught be better than thine,
I’ll readily, cheerfully lend thee mine.
10.
“‘Do thou the Dragon so sprightly take,
And I with the Ox will the journey make.
11.
“‘But first, to the church we’ll bend our way,
Ere our hand on sail or on oar we lay.’
12.
“And into the church Saint Oluf trode,
His beautiful hair like the bright gold glow’d.
13.
“But soon, out of breath, there came a man:—
‘Thy brother is sailing off as fast as he can.’
14.
“‘Let them sail, my friend, who to sail may choose,
The word of our Lord we will not lose;—
15.
“‘The mass is the word of our blessed Lord.
Take water, ye swains, for our table board.
16.
“‘We will sit at board, and the meat we will taste,
Then unto the sea-shore quietly haste.’
17.
“Now down they all sped to the ocean-strand,
Where the Ox lay rocking before the land:
18.
“And speedily they to the ocean bore
The anchor, and cable, and sail, and oar.
19.
“Saint Oluf he stood on the prow when on board:
‘Now forward, thou Ox, in the name of the Lord.’
20.
“He grappled the Ox by the horn so white:
‘Hie now, as if thou went clover to bite.’
21.
“Then forward the Ox began to hie,
In his wake stood the billows boisterously.
22.
“He hallooed to the lad on the yard so high:
‘Do we the Dragon of Harald draw nigh?’
23.
“‘No more of the pomps of the world I see,
Than the uppermost top of the good oak tree.—
24.
“‘I see near the land of Norroway skim
Bright silken sails with a golded rim.—
25.
“‘I see ‘neath Norroway’s mountains proud,
The Dragon bearing of sail a cloud.—
26.
“‘I see, I see, by Norroway’s side,
The Dragon gallantly forward stride.’
27.
“On the Ox’s ribs a blow he gave:
‘Now faster, now faster, over the wave.’
28.
“He struck the Ox on the eye with force:
‘To the haven much speedier thou must course.’
29.
“Then forward the Ox began to leap,
No sailor on deck his stand could keep.
30.
“Then cords he took, and his mariners fast
He tied to the vessel’s rigging and mast.
31.
“‘Twas then—’twas then—the steersman cried:
‘But who shall now the vessel guide?’
32.
“His little gloves off Saint Oluf throws,
And to stand himself by the rudder goes.
33.
“‘Oh! we will sail o’er cliff and height,
The nearest way, like a line of light.’
34.
“So o’er the hills and dales they career,
To them they became like water clear.
35.
“So they sail’d along o’er the mountains blue,
Then out came running the Elfin crew.
36.
“‘Who sail’s o’er the gold in which we joy?
Our ancient father who dares annoy?’
37.
“‘Elf! turn to stone, and a stone remain
Till I by this path return again.’
38.
“So they sail’d o’er Skaaney’s mountains tall,
And stones became the little Elves all.
39.
“Out came a Carline with spindle and rok:
‘Saint Oluf! why sailest thou us to mock?
40.
“Saint Oluf, thou who the red beard hast,
Through my chamber wall thy ship hath pass’d.’
41.
“With a glance of scorn did Saint Oluf say:
‘Stand there a flint-rock for ever and aye.’
42.
“Unhinder’d, unhinder’d they bravely sail’d on,
Before them yielded both stock and stone.
43.
“Still onward they sail’d in such gallant guise,
That no man upon them could fasten his eyes.
44.
“Saint Oluf a bow before his knee bent,
Behind the sail dropp’d the shaft that he sent.
45.
“From the stern Saint Oluf a bark shot free,
Behind the Ox fell the shaft in the sea.
46.
“Saint Oluf he trusted in Christ alone,
And therefore first home by three days he won.
47.
“And that made Harald with fury storm:
Of a laidly dragon he took the form.
48.
“But the Saint was a man of devotion full,
And the Saint got Norroway’s land to rule.
49.
“Into the church Saint Oluf trode,
He thank’d the Saviour in fervent mood.
50.
“Saint Oluf walk’d the church about,
There shone a glory his ringlets out.
51.
“Whom God doth help makes bravely his way:
His enemies win both shame and dismay.”
------------------
B.
SAINT OLAUS OR OLAVE, KING OF NORWAY, M.
(_From Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints._)
HE was son of Herald Grenscius, prince of Westfold in Norway, by his
wife Asta, daughter of Gulbrand Kuta, governor of Gulbrand’s Dale or
Valley. He delivered his country from the tyranny under which the Swedes
and Danes had for some time held it, whilst Norway was divided between
Sweno, king of Denmark, Olave Scot-Konung, son of Eric king of Sweden,
and Eric, son of Hacon, earl of Norway. In 1013, he sailed to England,
and successfully assisted king Ethelred against the Danes after the
death of Sueno, or Sweyn, their king. He afterwards waged war against
Olaus Scot-Konung, king of Sweden, till, making an advantageous peace,
he took to wife the daughter of that king. These two princes about that
time introduced the Romescot, a small annual tribute yearly to be paid
to the apostolic see. St. Olave brought over from England several pious
and learned priests and monks, one of whom, named Grimkele, was chosen
bishop of Drontheim, his capital. The holy king did nothing without the
advice of this prelate, and by his counsels published many wholesome
laws, and abolished such ancient laws and customs as were contrary to
the Gospel; which he did not only in Norway, but also in the isles of
Orkney and of Iceland; though the entire conquest of Orkney was reserved
to his son Magnus, who also subdued the isle of Man, as Cambden relates
from the ancient Chronicle of Man.
Our religious king, having settled his dominions in peace, set himself
to extirpate out of them the abominable superstitions of idolatry. He
travelled in person from town to town, exhorting his subjects to open
the eyes of their souls to the bright light of faith. A company of
zealous preachers attended him, and he demolished in many places the
idolatrous temples. The heathens rebelled, and with the assistance of
Canutus the Great, defeated and expelled him. St. Olave fled into
Russia, whence he soon after returned, and raised an army in order to
recover his kingdom, but was slain by his rebellious and infidel
subjects in a battle fought at Stichstadt, north of Drontheim, on the
29th of July, 1030, having reigned sixteen years. These rebels seem to
have been in the interest of Canute the Great, who arrived from England
in Norway, took possession of that kingdom, and left his nephew Hackin
viceroy; but he being soon after drowned at sea, Canute made his son
Sweno viceroy of Norway. St. Olave’s body was honourably buried at
Drontheim, and the year following bishop Grimkele commanded him to be
honoured in that church among the saints with the title of martyr. His
son Magnus was called home from Russia in 1035, and restored to the
throne. Sweno, who saw himself entirely abandoned, fled into Sweden.
Magnus exceedingly promoted the devotion of the people to the memory of
his father, the martyr, who was chosen titular saint of the cathedral of
Drontheim. This church was rebuilt with such splendour and magnificence
as to have been the glory and pride of all the north. Munster has given
us a minute description of it, after Lutheranism was introduced; but it
was soon after burnt by lightning. The body of St. Olave was found
incorrupt in 1098; and again when the Lutherans, in 1541, plundered the
shrine, which was adorned with gold and jewels of an immense value, a
treasure nowhere excelled in the north. The ship which carried the
greatest part of this sacrilegious booty perished at sea in the road to
Denmark; the rest was robbed at land, so that nothing of it came into
the king of Denmark’s hands. The Lutherans treated the saint’s body with
respect, and left it in the same place where the shrine had stood, in
the inner wooden case, till, in 1568, they decently buried it in the
same cathedral. A shirt or inner garment of St. Olave’s is shown at St.
Victor’s in Paris. His shrine became famous by many miracles, and he was
honoured with extraordinary devotion throughout all the northern
kingdoms, and was titular saint of several churches in England and
Scotland. He was called by our ancestors St. Olave, and more frequently
St. Tooley; but in the Norway Chronicles Olaf Haraldson, and Olaf Helge,
or the Holy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTES
-----
Footnote 1:
Joannis Magni Gothorum Suenonumque Historia, lib. i. and ii. p. 18. to
74. edit. Rome, fol. 1554.
Native kings of Sweden who, according to the archbishop, Joannes
Magnus, flourished before Christ.
Noah.
Japhet.
1. Magog.
2. Sweno.
3. Gothar, or Gog.
4. Ubbo.
5. Siggo.
6. Eric.
7. Uddo.
8. Alo.
9. Othen (Query Odin).
10. Charles.
11. Biorno.
12. Gothar.
13. Siggo.
14. Berico; in whose reign began the mighty Gothic or Scythian
empire, independent of the northern one.
15. Humulf.
16. Humble.
17. Gothilas.
18. Sigtrug.
19. Scarin.
20. Swibdager.
21. Asmund.
22. Uffo.
23. Hunning.
24. Regner.
25. Hodebrod.
26. Attil.
27. Hoder.
28. Roder, or Roderic, or Ruric, surnamed _Slingebond_, or the
Slinger.
29. Attil.
30. Botwild.
31. Charles.
32. Grimer.
33. Tordo.
34. Gothar.
35. Adolf.
36. Algoth.
37. Eric.
38. Alaric.
39. Gestil.
40. Eric.
“In the reign of this prince, says the archbishop,—who even
fixes the year, the thirty-fourth of his reign,—our Saviour was
born!” Swedish kings subsequent to our Saviour’s birth, _yet
prior to the introduction of Christianity_, according to the same
archbishop.
41. Godric.
42. Haldan.
43. Wilmer.
44. Nordian.
45. Siward.
46. Charles.
47. Eric.
48. Haldan.
49. Eugin.
50. Ragnald.
51. Asmund.
52. Hako.
53. Siward.
54. Ingo.
55. Neark.
56. Frode.
57. Urbar.
58. Ostin.
59. Fliolm.
60. Swerker.
61. Walander.
62. Wisbur.
63. Domalder.
64. Domar.
65. Attil.
66. Digner.
67. Dager.
68. Alaric.
69. Ingemar.
70. Ingell.
71. Germund.
72. Haquin Ringo.
73. Egill.
74. Gothar.
75. Fasto.
76. Gudmund.
77. Adel.
78. Ostan.
79. Ingermar.
80. Holstan.
81. Biorno.
82. Rawald.
83. Swartman.
84. Tordo.
85. Rodolf.
86. Hathin.
87. Attil.
88. Tordo.
89. Algoth.
90. Gostag, or Ostan.
91. Arthus.
92. Haquin.
93. Charles.
94. Charles.
95. Birger.
96. Eric.
97. Torill.
98. Biorn.
99. Alaric.
100. Biorn.
101. Bratmund.
102. Siward.
103. Herot.
104. Charles.
105. Biorn.
106. Ingenal, or Ingel.
107. Olaf Tretella.
108. Ingo.
109. Eric.
110. Eric.
In both lists, many of these names the reader will perceive to be
identical with the Danish kings given by Saxo Grammaticus. That the
two lists have been confounded there can be no doubt. And it as
equally certain that many of these kings are unnecessarily
multiplied,—those allowed to have reigned before, as well as after,
the Christian era. Perhaps, however, none of these princes reigned
before Odin; probably all are more recent still; and as so many were
contemporary with each other, ample lists have easily been formed.
The compilers of our Universal History begin their list with the
following:—
1. Eric.
2. Gylfo.
3. Odin.
4. Niord.
5. Frode.
6. Sigtrug.
7. Swibdager.
8. Asmund.
9. Uffo.
10. Hunding.
11. Regner.
12. Holward.
13. Attil I.
14. Hoder.
15. Roderic, or Ruric.
16. Attil II.
17. Hogmor and Hogrin.
Footnote 2:
See the work, part i.
Footnote 3:
Torfœus Historia Norvegiæ, tom. i. p. 111–150.
Footnote 4:
Wheaton, History of the Northmen. Mallet, Histoire de Dannemarc, tom.
i.
Footnote 5:
Vetustissima Regum Septentrionis Series Langfedgatal dicta. According
to this “Series,” the list of Danish kings prior to Odin is as
follows:—NOAH, Japhet, Zechim, Ciprus, Celius, Saturn of Crete,
Jupiter, Darius, Erichthon, Troes, Ilus, Laomedon, Priam of Troy,
Memnon (the son-in-law of Priam), Tror or Thor, Lorith, Einrith,
Vingethar, Vingener, Moda, Magus, Seskef, Bedoig, Athra, Iterman,
Heremotr, Scealdna, Beaf, Eat, Godulf, Finn, Frealaf—ODIN.
Here is a precious list, and we should vainly inquire where it was
originally procured. One thing, however, is remarkable,—that of the
immediate predecessors of Odin, most are the same as those contained
in the Saxon Chronicle, in the genealogy of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Let
us now transcribe that of Saxo Grammaticus, who flourished in the
twelfth century, and is content with making Dan the ancestor of the
Danes, about a thousand years before Christ.
DAN I., Humble, Lother, Skiold, Gram, Swibdager, Guthrum, Hadding,
Frode I., Haldan, Roe and Helgo, Rolf or Rollo, Hoder, Ruric, Wiglet,
Guitlach, Wermund, Olaf I., Dan II., Hugleth, Frode II., Dan III.,
Fridleif, Frode III. According to Saxo it was in the reign of Hadding
that Odin first appeared in the north. In this case, the reader may
say Odin must have flourished long before the period usually assigned,
viz., A.C. 70. But most of these princes, doubtless, reigned _after_
the birth of Christ, notwithstanding the positive assertion of Saxo
(who is supported by some other chroniclers), that the Redeemer of
mankind assumed our nature in the reign of Frode III. Sweyn Aggo is
more rational than his contemporary Saxo; he rejects all the
sovereigns prior to Odin, and commences his list with Skiold, a son of
that deified hero. Undoubtedly Denmark, like the other states, had its
kings before that period; but they were mere reguli, perpetually at
war with each other in struggling for the ascendancy; and small
reliance is to be placed on their alleged actions, or even their
names. Saxo, in taking as authorities the popular songs of his
country, followed the worst of all guides.
Footnote 6:
The list of Norwegian sovereigns prior to Odin is, according to the
Landfedgatal, the same as for Denmark. These sovereigns, however, in
neither case reigned in the north; they were regarded as Asiatic: it
was Odin who first left the country of his ancestors, and established
his empire in Scandinavia. In this view there is no inconsistency
between that record and Saxo, who does not enumerate the Asiatic
monarchs, and who confines himself to the native princes that held the
country for ages before Odin was known. These, we have strong reason
to infer, were _not_ Gothic, but Finnish, or Jutish, or Lapponic, or
whatever else was the denomination of the people who originally
possessed the north. Sweyn Aggesen, therefore, by rejecting them,
evidently confines himself to the foreign or Gothic dynasty—the
dynasty of the conquerors.
Footnote 7:
Langebek, Scriptores, tom. i., passim.
Footnote 8:
Pinkerton, Dissertation on the Goths. Turner, History of the
Anglo-Saxons, vol. i.
Footnote 9:
Tacitus, Germania, cap. 34.–40. Wheaton, History of the Northmen,
chap. i.
Footnote 10:
Mallet, Histoire de Dannemarc, tom. i. Pinkerton, Dissertation on the
Goths, passim.
Footnote 11:
Saxonis Grammatici Historia Danica; necnon, Heimskringla Snorronis,
passim.
Footnote 12:
Apud Langebek, Scriptores Rerum Danicarum, tom. ii.
Footnote 13:
Wheaton, History, p. 119.
Footnote 14:
Depping, Histoire des Expeditions Maritimes des Normands, tom. i.
Wheaton, History of the Northmen.
Footnote 15:
Saxonis Grammatici Historia Danica, lib i.
Footnote 16:
The poetical dialogues of Gro with Bessus and Gram—dialogues in which
Saxo (lib. i. p. 7, &c.) has put forth all his imagination and all his
knowledge of Latin versification—may amuse the learned reader. We have
no disposition to translate them.
Footnote 17:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i.
Footnote 18:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i.
Footnote 19:
In the Scandinavian superstition every rune was consecrated to some
deity. Nearly all the magic of the north consisted in runes. They
could raise or allay tempests; they could change times, and they could
bring the most distant objects together. They could produce good or
bad seasons; they could raise the dead: in short, they were omnipotent
over all nature,—the invisible no less than the visible world.
Footnote 20:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i. p. 10, &c., edit. Stephanii,
Soræ, 1644.
Footnote 21:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i. p. 10, &c., edit. Stephanii,
Soræ, 1644.
Footnote 22:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i.
Footnote 23:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i.
Footnote 24:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. ii. p. 20, &c.
Footnote 25:
Both Roe and Helge reigned some centuries after the time fixed by
Saxo,—as recently as the fifth century of the Christian era.
Footnote 26:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. ii.
Footnote 27:
Whether there was any other Rolf than the celebrated Rolf Krake, who
is thought to have reigned in the sixth century after Christ, is
doubtful. The best northern writers admit of no other.
Footnote 28:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. ii.
Footnote 29:
Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. lib. i. p. 12., edit. Stephanii, Soræ,
1644. The diffusion of this superstitious notion is a curious subject
of speculation. In Hungary, Russia, Wallachia, Greece, Crete, &c. it
is rife at this day.
Footnote 30:
Ynglinga Saga, cap. i.–v. (apud Heimskringlam, tom. i. p. 1-10., edit.
Hafn., 1777).
Footnote 31:
Ynglinga Saga, cap. v.–vii.
Footnote 32:
Langebek, Scriptores Rerum Danicarum, tom. i. pp. 7, 8. Torfœus,
Historia Norvegica, tom. i. p. 138, &c.
Footnote 33:
S. Rembertus, Vita S. Anscarii (apud Bollandistas, Acta S. S. die Feb.
iii. Adamus Bremensis, Historia Ecclesiastica, lib. i. cap. 12. &c.
Konung Olaf Trygvason’s Saga, apud Snorronem Sturlonem Heimskringla
tom. ii.).
Footnote 34:
Ihre, Dissert. de Institutione Regum Suio-Gotborum, ed. Upsala,
1752.—Geijr, Svea Rikes Häfder, tom. i. p. 432.
Footnote 35:
Suhm, Historie af Danmark, tom. i. p. 81. Critiske, Historie, tom.
vii. p. 474.
Footnote 36:
Jamieson’s Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 444.
Footnote 37:
F. Magnussen, Edda Sæmundi, tom. iii. Rigis-Mál, Intro., pp. 147–159.
Geijr, Svea Rikes Häfder, tom. i. pp. 486–495.
Footnote 38:
See the prose Edda published by Prof. Rask, Stockholm, 1818, ch.
xxiii. But Snorre, in his _Ynglinga Saga_, ch. ix., says that she
married Odin afterwards, and that they had many children together.
Footnote 39:
To this opinion, we do not subscribe. We have no proof of the
existence of two Odins.
Footnote 40:
Münter, Kirchengeschichte, &c., tom. i. pp. 68–95. Wheaton, History of
the Northmen.
Footnote 41:
Wheaton, History of the Northmen, ch. vi. Ynglinga Saga, passim.
Footnote 42:
Saxonis Grammatici Historia Danorum, lib. iii. p. 39, &c.
Footnote 43:
Saxonis Grammatici Historia Danorum, lib. iii. p. 41–43.
Footnote 44:
Edda Snorronis, Hist. 28. Stephanii Notæ ad Saxonem, lib. iii.
Footnote 45:
Edda Snorronis, Fab. 21.
Footnote 46:
Edda Snorronis, Historia, 29. Saxonis Grammatici Hist. Dan. notæ in
lib. iii.
Footnote 47:
The names are mythologic, or rather abstract: Vegtam, _the Spoiler_;
Valtam, _Slaughter_.
Footnote 48: