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Home , Battle of Derby, Blood eagle, Ivar the Boneless, Sigfred, Skiringssal

Tbe Mopemcnt Soatb and Soath-Wett t0 954 zos which, helped by a civil war instigated by the priest-king of Mun- srer, he spread his elbows to good effect throughout Ulster. By the capture of Armagh, at once a chief town of the north, the most important ecclesiastical centre oflreland, and one ofthe holy places ofwestern Christendom, he acquired wealth, power, reputation, and his place in Irish tradition. To him and his kind is attributed the esta^blishment of harbour-strongholds at Anagassan, Dublin, Wex- ford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, with important consequences 3. The Movement South and South-T7est for the subsequent history of both Norse and Irish Ireland. He is to 9542 the British Isles, the Frankish Empire, the Mediterranean .r Io ror,r-ow rN DETATL THE vrKrNG oNSLAUGHT oN Europe whether nation b1' nationr decade, ninth-century r -decade.by or under thl fou.^ generally accepted heads of individual raids for plunder, expeditlons ol political significance and intention, colonial venture; seeking new land for settlement, and enterprises whose main concern was mercantile and commercial, would be a bis task-and in terms of this book a distorting one' It must be en"ough to trace it in general though one hopes indicative outline' We biein with Ireland in the 83os. thJ Irish coast had suffered sporadically from Norwegian plunderers ever since the first raid on Lambeyin Tg5rand sometimes ihe raiders had penetrated far inland. These were painful depreda- tionsrl but bearable, and left the character of country.and-people unchaneed. But nothing could ever be the same again after the arrival6f the famous Tuigeis from shortly before 84o' Our knowledge of him, unfortinately, is at once inflated and diminished bv the leEendary material associated wjth him several hundred years aiter his"death, when he had become a favourite receptacle for Christian.indignation and alarm. But we can accept that he held command of a"fleet, had ambitions and the energy to put them in irain, came to Ireland at the right moment' and intended a.pro- longed stay. We first hear of him in the north, where he is said to hav"e ass,rmed the overlordship of all the foreigners in Erin, after for 8zo: sea r And rhetorically recorded as such in the Annah of .ulsur 'The ro.*.J for,t, floohs offoreigners over Erin, so that nb haven, no landing-place, n'o stronqhold, no fort, no-crstle might be found, but it was submerged by waves ofvikings and pirates.' lrap 6. IRELAND AND THE rRrsH sEA zo1 A llistorl of tlte ltikitgt Thc Mopement South and Soutb-|,lett to 954 2oj reported to have intervened for gain in the civil war to the south of Unless Ireland was to be left to the Irish-an unthinkable pro- him; to have entered the Shannon and reached Lough Ree; the posidon for another thousand years-it was time for renewed sack of Clonmacnois and ClonGrt has been laid at his door, and the ioreign intervention. It was made by the , and not out of love dispersal of their monks. Various of the Irish_are charged with for their brothers the Finngaill, to whom they immediately offered joining him, opportunists who reneged on_ Christi^anity and.as c. 85o their fleet put in to Carlingford Lough, on the ;Ihor'i war. In men trooped into heathen temples which belore Turgeis's southern edge of County Down; the following year they overran time had been monasteries, churches, and abbeys' Few things in the Norwegian base at Dublin, rnaking a big haul of treasure and viking history sound less likely. These were the Gall-Gaedhil, womenfolk. The Irish preferred the newcomers to the old, but with Forei[n Gaed or Foreign Irish, of whom the Irish complained that a plague on both their houses. In 852 the Norwegians mustered for wgie thoug:h the Foreigne.J*.re bad enough, the Foreign .Gae! revenge and attacked the Danish fleet in Carlingford. St. Patrick *o.ri.t Christian witness against Turgeis is unsparing for his favoured the Danes; a mere han1ful of Norwegians survived the desecration of holy places. Hlving .*p.ll".d the abbot ofArmagh, three-day slaughter. The Danes, prudently, rEwarded the saint he sat himself downln the abbey as its heathen high priest, and at with gold and silver; and the Irish, mistakenly, saw piery in the the altar of Clonmacnois his wiG Ota (Aud) chanted spells and Danes. Ifso, it aided them little and not long. In 853 the Norwegians oracles. Possibly this was the way Turgeis chose to Present himself made a re-entry into Ireland with a royal fleet under the command to his people as leader, sustainer ofsacrifices, andguarantor ofgood of Olaf (Amlaibh), son of the king of Norway (), though ,.rroni, on the Norwegian model. More probably it is monkish which son of what king is hard to determine.'The Danes and Nor- invention. However, foith. comfort of the Christiin devout, there wegians, we are told, quickly recognized his authority and vari- had been an ancient prophecy that Gentiles, Foreigners, would come ous of the Irish paid him tribute, including wergeld for Turgeis. from across the sea io ionfound the Irishmen for a period ofseven Those Danes who had no stomach for a Norwegian master left years, and one of them would be abbot without Pater and credo, for , whence they had probably come in 85o, and Olaf without lrish, too, but only a foreign tongue.z The seven years settled into Dublin. He then returned to Norwav for reasons which were evidently now up, forin 845 he was taken prisoner by Magl can only be guessed at, leaving his brother in charge in Ireland. Seachlainn, king ofMeith, arrd drowned in Lough Owel, Westmeath. ln 856-7 he returned to his Dublin kingdom and ruled it till 87r, A bad time iollowed for the Norwegians. By widespread raiding they still exacted a toll ofmisery and spoil, but a succession ofdeftats 1 He has often, indeed generally, been identified with Olaf the White of reputation. Icelandic sasa tradition. The identifcation is invitins but difficult, It rests in ihe field reduced their strength and smirched their "have mainly on tlie cir.umstance that each Ola[was said to conquered Dublin r The Gall-Gaedhil would grow to considerable importance by 85o, with tleir and its neighbouring territory at more or less the same time. Oiherwise their own social orsanization anl their own armies under their own leaders. They parentage is different, their wives are different, and their deaths are different. besan as a bo?v otlrishmen who renounced Christianity and thrcw in their By way of complication Olat-Amlaibh's brother Ivar-lmhar is sometimes been fostered lot"with the heathen Norse; but some are described as having equated with (see p. zr9 below), no Norwegian but a no in Norse homes and so inducted into a Norse way of life. There can be prodigy among the Danes. It makes the best of a badjob to postulate con- doubt that a proportion ofthem were ofmixed Norse-Irish parentage, sharing fusion in the Icelandic Landndmab6k's account of Olaf the White, to hold the culture, and'blending (or muddling) the beliefs otViking and Celt. This tentatively to Olaf-Amlaibh, whether he was at some time nicknamed the them to mongreldom o[race, culture' religion, and political interest endeared White or not, and to recognize lvar-Imhar as his brother and a person dis- the Norwegians, against nobo?v. Durine the Ssos they lought battles against tinct from lvar the Boneles. lThe R"gtr"r-complex has now been ie-explored they the lrish, and igainst thc Norwe[ians and Iriih combined' Expectedly by A. P. Smyth, Scardinavian and Dublin, l, rg71, II, rg78, and power declined after were earnest an? heartless mara,Iders' Their political Scandinauian Kings in the British lsles, 85o-80, rg77, who argues ingeniously for was a 86o. but thev continued to contribute to the miseries of Erin. There a military and dynastic presence and reality; and by R. McTurk, 'Ragnarr Scotland later, in prrrll.l gtoup of Gall-Gaedhil, Gall-Gael, Foreign Scots, in Lodbr6k in the British Isles', Proceedings of the Seuenth Viking Congress, Dublin, ballowa!, which received its name from them. t973, and reviews of Smyth, -Book, t977 and r98o, who argues, as I 21. H. Tbdd, Tbe War of tbe Gaedbil oitb tbe Gael,t876,p. tr. think, convincingly against.) 2o8 A Historl of tbe Vikingt was again recalled to Norw-ay-1nd died in battle there' It when he "" VTKING RAIDS a restless"reign, marked by shifting P9t-t.Y was -alliances, -yltt' 2 ON t".*inst in Irela# which spared neitheithe homes of the living ENGLAND,793-860 ;;ii;?t;t; oith. d."d, in the period 865-7o by profitable \, "nd Welsh in Scotlancl' exoeditiJns against the Picts and Strathclyde I n-Gl i"It i"tJ i?*erick supported his brothet oltf in Ircland' and in "f Britannie' 8zr succeeded him as ,ri'Nord,on*rum Totiut Hibernie et to ;hi;h;;;;.tts that the Dublin kingdom had clairns -authority ';;;ffi;.gi.nt *ho had settled"in the north-west ofEngland' iit","riit-Uo#* .igh? ."pfd" Ivar's quarrels with^the Danes of neigh- n.irr1 *hi.h were offerei as the justification for the attack ii"Bfi-;"'Vl by Halfdan (we think) and the Danes of that ""ti"*a"*. riir.lifril.d and cbst Halfdan his life up in Strangford principal Norse actors norv offstage Ireland grew 1""?ft--w;,tt'.fr. the z ;;i;?.;. and mor. Irish^. There was a -off in reinforcements d;nil;;"na r..una was a new magnJt.in the west' An Irish [irn. i.".Ufl;[ of Leinster, Ivar's one-time ally' took vhat fortune \ he ;tr ?;d. i;r"; he seized Dublin from the Foreigners, and though 2 -afterwards tor the died soon Ireland enjoyed comparative peace r next twelve Years.

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MAp vrKrNG ATTAcKS oN ENGLANo' 793-86o 3I. AT 7. in the last Continent. [n Celtic Ireland the Norse incomers were predominantly our reference to the Danish kingdom of or** ninth century recailI us to England, the scene of the Norwegian, in Teutonic England they were Danes. Under the year to the 835 (corrected from the Cbronicle'r 834) the Anglo-Saxon Cbronich dtri "iifi.t.ids c. z8g 793, and even more pressingly "if.i"g ^nd 2IO A Historl of the l/ikings Tbe Mopement Soutb and Soutb-ll/est to g54 2rl (In ushers in a new phase ofEnglish history with the short notice that viking. policy which sent the same fleer shuttling between them. this year the heathen devastated Sheppey'. It was in 834 after the Then in 844 the Norwegians made a well-documented appearance temporary deposition ofLouis the Pious by his unfilial sons that the in French waters.l It would not be quickly forgotten. Sixry-seven Danes had moved against Frisia. The most recent Danish attacks ships of Westfaldingi, men from Veitfold, the"historic region of against any part of the Empire had taken place in 8zo. These were Borre, Oseberg, Gokstad, and Skiringssal, but in all pro6abiliry minor and isolated events) but after 834-5, v'e appear to observe a come now from Ireland, appeared unheralded off the Loire. Its sinister entelprise taken firmly in hand. In England, as in Frisia, the horrors long past, raid may be -this studied as a classic example of size and frequency ofthe raiding parties were stepped up; attacks viking tactics and the conditions which ensured their suicess. present a less haphazard pattern, sometimes concerted, sometimes Aquitaine was part of Charles the Bald's West Kingdom, but the alternated, and from time to time the same leaders and fleets were rebel Count Lambert was ambitious to secure Nanies for himself. in action either side ofthe English Channel. Between 836 and 842 It is said that the vikings came at his invitation, and that it was strong Danish flotillas tested the deGnces, and in the case of French pilots who conned them through the sandbanks, shallows, Cornwall the loyalty, of the south-west coast of England with only and uncertain watercourses, which in high summer were judged an moderate success; the next year they switched to and East ab.solute protection from naval assault.-The day was z4;uie, St. Anglia. Across the water they were still busier. in 834 they laid John's Dayr and the town was filled with devout;r merry celebrants waste the important trading town of , situated at the of the. Baptist's Gast. The Norwegian assault *"s of surpassing iunction of the river Lek and an arm of the Rhine. It had the brutality. They slew in the streets, they slew in the house's, the! reputation of being the biggest mart in northern Europe, had a slew bishop andcongregation in the chuich. They did their will tiil much-prized mint, coins from which were freely copied in Scandin- nightfall, and the ships they rowed downrivei were deepJaden avia, and was protected by water, palisades, and a Carolingian with plunder and prisoners. This was maybe more rhan the Count fortress. None availed. When the hand of the Carolingian grew too had. bargained for, but he did acquire Nantes. The Westfaldingi weak or too preoccupied to defend it, the town lay at the mercy of withdrew to Noirmoutier, whose monks had bv now abandoned iI. the Danes, and it was pillaged systematically for a generation before and contrary to Norse practice sertled in for the winter. ,As if thei nature finished what man had begun when the tidal inundations of meant to stay for ever', says the annalist ruefully, The island hai 864 overwhelmed large areas ofthe Low Countries, and by divert- much to recommend it. For a start jt pat an island, and therefore ing the course of the Rhine in the direction of Utrecht destroyed impervious to assaulr. It provided shelter for men and a haven for once and for all the means of Dorestad's survival. After Dorestad it ships, where they could-mend their wounded and ransom rheir was the turn of Noirmoutier at the mouth of the Loire, a monastic prisoners. Further, Noirmoutier was a centre of the salt trade for the site and centre ofa flourishing trade in salt and wine; and in 836 whole of western Europe, and to Noirmoutier came merchants for Frisia again, and again in 837. In 84r it was the turn of Rouen, when the good Loire wine. To it therefore, as wasps to honey, came the Asgeir appeared from nowhere off the mouth of the Seine, headed Norsemen. upriyer, sacked and burned the town, took a quick tribute of This is the first time we hear of a viking force employing a destruction and money from the countryside, and had his ships out winter base. Hitherto the leaders of expeditiois had led ih.it ttr'.n and away belbre the gathering defenders could lay hand on him. out in late spring or summer and fetched them home in the autumn. The following year, 842, saw a combined operation against both Vlk-ingwas seasonal employment: the winter did not lend itself so England and France. 'In this year there u/as great slaughter in well to war and travel, whether by sea or land. So a man went home , in Quentowic, and in Rochester.' Quentowic, directly with his earnings to his parents,'wife, and children, and if he was across the Straits of Dover, rivalled Dorestad as a merchant town, L Chroninn btgolimene (Pertz, MGH, SS X\T, 486); Chronicon A{uatanieu, and like Dorestad it had a mint.Its trade connections with England Q'ertz,.II,.z53);_both sub anno 843. See F. Lot and i. Halphen, I_e Rlgne dc were close and profitable, and it was a bold and shrewd stroke of Cbarh lc Cbauve,Paris, tgtogrlrTg ff, 212 A Hi.storl of tbe likings Tbe Mopement Soutb and Snatb-West to 954 213 a bondi or a bondi's son saw to the roof, scratched the boar's back, and take his plunder with him. To anticipate a later term, this was whittled a toy sword, begat a new baby, and waited on the next call the first 'danegeld', and Charles has been much castigated for it. to service. But to stay abroad for the winter, as now in France and But he is not without excuse. In theory Charles, like his brothers, in 85o for the first time in England, gave viking a new emphasis' could raise armies, build fleets, garrison towns, fortify coasts, bar Ifone winter, why not two, and if two why not three? The winters rivers, and manhandle all vikings out of his realm-and who can were warmer down south, the seas never froze, the land was good, doubt that he would have liked to? But theory and fact are different and was there to be taken. Why go back home at all? The small things. Charles had much to contend with: thrusting foreign foes, man got a smaller cut than his leader, but in kind it was the same' rivalrv and enmiw from his brothers. the veiled disaffection of The frorwegians sailing west had occupied and farmed from the great nobles, and tLe open rebellion ofgreat provinces. He could be beginning. In where there was more cultivable land the confident neither of the fighting spirit of his soldiers nor the same desires showed two generations later' Their wintering in patriotism of the counts who hung back from leading them. The Thanet, 85o, and Sheppey, 855, was a Portent. The year 845 was vikings were a squalid nuisance, but their incursions must be seen notable for a further development in northern tactics or strategy. in perspective. At times it must have appeared to Charles as though The destruction of Hamburg that year was a royal undertaking he was a man with a wolfat his throat and a wasp in his hair, and in (see p. ro7 above), and not by the widest interpretation ofthe laws this menagerie of menace the Danes were the wasp. To get rid of and Customs governing international relations to be explaine4 them, theoreticaliy for good, in fact for six years, by payment may "*"y^ as mere prracy or prrvateering. In the same y€ar the.lirr'ng-of well have looked an act of statesmanship in 845, with trouble in the Ragnar's raid up the Seine to Paris and the helplessness ofCharles north and a Breton war looming in the west. Payment bought time, thtBald led to a third and hurtful innovation. Ragnar, whom it is and time brought hope ofamendment. Little enough time and little unnecessary to equate with his hairy-breeked namesake Ragnar enough hope they seem to us now, but Charles was looking forward, Lodbrok QoAbrdk)] entered the Seine in March, which it is fair to not back. The sums paid out were weighty, on occasion enormous, say was unexpectedly early, and made confidently for Paris. Charles but they came mainly from taxes, and the peasant taxpayer who coilected an irmy against him, which he divided in rwo 9 guard carried the heavy end was in no position to protest. Berween collec- both banks of the river. A viking operating in a partitioned empire tion and payment there could even be a profit for the king.r knew how to deal with a divided army. Ragnar attacked the smaller Another development of these same years was the viking contact Frankish force, heavily defeated it, and took lrr prisoners. These as with the Moors in Spain. This was ushered in by a raid by a fleet a deliberate exercise in 'frightfulness' he hanged on an island in the said to be r 5o ships strong which entered the Garonne and plundered Seine in full view of the second Frankish division. Beaten in arms and upriver almost as far as Toulouse. The area was in a state of civil spirit, they could make no effective opposition. Ragnar w-ent on war, the protagonists Charles the Bald and that young Pepin who upriver, and with the same cruel timing shown by the Westfaldingi sought to make himself an independent king of Aquitaine. Possibly ai Nantes entered and plundered Paris on Easter Sunday, March 28. the raid was made in support of Pepin; at any rate, Pepin's town of He was now more than zoo miles from his element the sea, and it Toulouse vas not assaulted, and the intact fleet'ilrent back down the would not seem past man's devising to have hindered his return. river and is next heard ofoffthe coast ofthe kingdomoftheAsturias, Instead Charles paid him 7,ooo pounds ofsilver to depart in peace in northern Spain. Opposition here was resolute and effective, the invaders were mauled by land and sea, and it was a depleted though r It is difficult to prove a negative, but there is little evidence ofthe existence still formidable fleet which escaped round Cape Finisierre and held of a historical Rignar Lod6rok, True, he suffers more than most from the numbing disadvantages ofa mythical saga and use as a heroic symbol, but r The first recorded English paymenr rvas that promised to the Danes by the eyen when these are set aside he is hard to locate in place or time. On a cautious men of Kent in 865. Of*the t'hiit..n Danegelds ievied in France we know the estimate he must have been at least r5o years old when he died in his snake- details ofseven. These amounted to almJst 4orooo pounds ofsilver plus, on pit and prime at York in the 86os. (And see p. 2o7, n. r, above.) occasion, meat and drink for the raiders. 214 A Hhtorl of tbe Vikings Tbe Mopement Soutb and Soutb-Wett to g54 '.r7 south for Lisbon. After a fortnight's skirmishing and piracy there were too enlightened for jealousy and that northern ladies w. they pressed on to the Guadalquivir, and with a daring verging on to leave their consorts at will. If the embassy had politic. folly went up the river and attacked the city ofseville. Except for economic consequences, we are not informed of ihem, but it sec assume thecitadel it Gll into their hands for a week; its men were put to the safe to that its main purpose was to encourage trade, mor sword, its women and children carried off as spoils of war to the particularly in furs and slaves.l viking base on the island of Qubtil, today's Isla Menor, near the These decisive years were followed by a long tale ofdepredation river's mouth. From here they raided the neighbouring country for in Frisia and the West Kingdom, which need not be separately the next six weeks. But the Moorish kingdom of Spain under Abd recorded, but is eloquently recalled by Ermentarius of Noirmoutier the al-Rahman II was a different proposition from France under Charles writing in 86os. He exaggerates, no doubt, but who looks for theBald, and once the periodofsurprise and unpreparedness was over measure in the cry of the toad under the harrow? the vikings for all their huddle oftreasure and captives were in a The number of ships increases, the endless flood of vikinqs never position of much peril. To leave their headquarters was to invite ceases to grow bigger. Everywhere Christ's people are the"victims ittack by land and water; raiding parties were cut off and several ofmassacre, burning, and plunder. The vikings over-run all that lies oftheir ships fired by a discharge ofnaphtha; and worst ofall, the before them, and none can withstand them.-They seize Bordeaux. Pirigueux, Limoges, Angoul€me, vikings lost thirty ships in a naval engagement at Talayata. The Toulouse; Angers, Tours, and Orleans are made deserts. Ships past counting voyage up Seine, Moori took so many prisoners that the gallows of Seville did not the and throughout the entire region evil gro*s-rttonf. Rouen is laid suffice for them, and the ciry's palm trees bore strange fruit. Report vaste, looted and burnt: Parisr.Beauvaig Meaux arJtaken, Melun's victory was not entrusted to mouth and quill alone: of the Emir's stronghold is-razed to the ground, Chartres occupied, Evreux and he sent the severed heads ofzoo vikings on a dumb but eloquent Bayeux looted, and every town invested. embassy to his allies in Tangier. However, the vikings had one From this welter of harassment and destruction we pick one name, asset left, their prisoners. The Moors wished to ransom them, and that of Bjorn lronside, the Bier co$ae of William ofJumidges, the captors struck a bargain. There was to be no more fighting, and ferreae son of Lothrocus king of Dacia (benmark), otherwise the piice should be worked out in food and clothes, not gold. n^g"nai Lodbrok. Like his father, he is bemer known to legend Evidently the invaders had for some time been sealed off from thai to history, but-his day of glory (and he must have had Jne) extended sources ofsupply. from the mid-5os to 862. During the years 8S6V he was on rhe Some less martial conversation than this must have taken place Seine, and some of the ill deeds listed bv Ermentarius can be set berween Moors and Norsemen, for the next year, 8+S, Abd al- to his credit. His name is associated with ihe vikings who established Rahman sent an embassy under Al-Ghazal to the king of the Majus, or took over a base on the island of Oissel (Oscellus), where thev with choice gifts for him and his queen. If the vikings of the were at last strictly beleaguered by Charles th; Bald. But as so often, Guadalquivir were Danes, we judge that the embassy was to Horik the treachery of his noblemen, who invited Louis the German to in Denmark, if Norwegians io futg.is in Ireland.'The northern enter the West Kingdom and 'help' his brother, an invitation too king, whoever he was, dwelt on a big island in the ocean, gracious gpod be declined, worked to tht vikings' advantage and led to with gardens and flowing waters. Near by were other islands 1o the raising of the siege after twelve weeksl The next?evelopment inhabited by Majus. and three days' journey avay was the main- was the arrival of another viking band under the commind of land or contineni, and here, too, the king held porirer' The king's Weland, to whom Charles eventually offered 3,ooo pounds of silver wiG was named Nod, or Noud, and the gallant, graceful, and 5o- to rid him of their Oissel compatrioti. For reasons piofitable to both vear-old Al-Ghazal was delishted to find his wish for a beautiful Charles and Weland the sum took a long while collecting. It iriendship received in the sarie amiable spirit as it was offered. And I For how gratefully there must have fallen on an ear grown wary for an -a translation o[, and commentary upon, Ibn Dihyat account of this poa inrushing husband's unreason Noud's assurance that the Majus episode, see W. E. D. Allen, Tbc anit tbi Spu-Wifc,Viking Sociery, 196o.

\ 216 A History of tbe Vikingt The Mopertent Soutb anl Soutb-Wett t0 g54 zr7 involved a graduated tax on farms and land, on churches, and on were in the Balearics, which for the first time felt the northern southern merchants great and small. Eventually Weland received not 3rooo scourge. Thence they held for France, put ashore at will in and possibly sacked Narbonne. It was getting time to but J,ooo pounds ofsilver, and provisions ofcorn and cattler toor and Roussillon even then the royal accounts showed a balance. Weland kept his seek winter quarters, and these they found in accordance vith word, and the Oissel vikings were besieged a second time. They viking practice on an island in the Camargue in the Rh6ne delta. 'were not short of money, but soon ran out of food and paid Welan! It had been a wonderful summer of sunshine and blue water, of 6,ooo pounds of silver io let them get away.l If they were Bjorn's fabled coasts and storied islands. They had sailed by two great men, ihey were released in time for one of the more spectacular kingdoms, passed the Pillars of Hercules, and sojourned in classical enteqprises of the century, the four-year cruise ofBjorn and Hastein Africa. They had a vast booty and many captives, their losses in with sixty-two ships to Spain, Nortl Africa, and Italy, and possibly men and ships had been light. They had shown the dragon-head still farther into tlie Mediterranean. That they proposed to be out and shield-wall in new havens, and were poised for fresh adventures. so long is unlikely: the two of their ships which were captured by Meantime they were en-isled and safe. the Moors off the coast of Spain were already laden with gold, Not so their French neighbours. Before they made the country- silver, and prisoners. That the Norsemen would enter the Mediter- side too hot to hold them they had pillaged inland as far as Arles, ranean eventually we see to be certain; Bjorn and Hastein were Nimes, even Valence, more than a hundred miles to the north. Then among the most-famous of ninth-century captains and heedful of they took a beating from the andjudged it prudent to move reputation; they may for some time have been considering a on, so sailed east along the C6te d'Azur and Ligurian Riviera. Their penetration of the Middle Sea in terms of glory as wetl as Drofit, or movements from there on are largely unknown, but they found maybe their adventure grew in the undertaking. That_ they had time to sack Pisa before heading farther south. They arc spoken ofas begun to plunder at the earliest opportunity-well, what pirate traversing the eastern Mediterranean as far as Alexandria; and preserved ever passed by the prospect ofeasy gain? Dudo of St. Quentin and Benoit of St. Maur have the We next hear of them at the Guadalquivir' where they seem not story of Hastein's 'Sack of Rome'. Naturally enough-the man who to have prospered. It is doubdul whether, as some Moorish sources regarded himself as the world's foremost viking was ambitious to say, they proceeded upriver as far as Seville. Soon they- had passed sack the world's foremost city. So from the Rh6ne delta Hastein thiougtr the Straits ofGibraltar, put in at Algeciras, plundered it, sailed on till he came to a city so big, so white, so splendid, so then made for the North Alrican shore in the region of Cabo Tres marbled, that what else could it be but Rome? But its defences were Forcas. The local deGnce force panicked, and the vikings spent an so strong that Hastein judged it impervious to assault. So the unharrassed week rounding up prisoners for ransom, though some, vikings hit on a ruse: they sent messengers to the city to tell how probably negroes, they kept as soupeni'rt de voyge. These poor Hastein and his following were good men expelled from their ou'n rvr.t.ho, fr"g**, bl,te m"n, bldnenn, black men (or merely men country and sea-tossed to this distant coast. They were weary and with dark skins), for the most part ended up in Ireland. The western hungrf: needed peace and provisions, and their sick chieftain iay at Mediterranean was empty of irmed Moorish ships, so they crossed death's door. When next they came to town that door was passed; back to Spain and harried the cost of Murcia. Their next landings all he now required of this vale of tears was a Christian burial. The townsmen agreed to provide one; a long procession of sorrow- l turn on his lellow Norse- Weland was not the first viking leader known to ing men for money, and would not bE the last; but he clearly improved the rate vikings followed the coffin to the graveside, where at the lor the job. H. *tt very much a businessman, and made no.move against moment ofcommittal the'dead' Hastein rose in his coffin, drove his Oissel till his money wis in hand. He filled in the intervening season by srvord through the officiating bishop, and led his men on a riot of raidine in the south'of England, in ' Shortly after getting rid of the slaughter through the city streets.l His exultation knew no bounds, Oissel he entered ihe service of Charles the Bald and was baptized *.n o-n r (and along with his family. It availed him nothing: he was challenged to fight by A similar similarlv unlikelv) ruse is recorded of Harald Hardradi and his one ofhis pagan followers and killed. Varangians ( Haralds iaga ttarlrhda. ro). 2r8 A Ili$or1 of the Vikings Tbe Moyentil Soutb and Slu/l)-14/ctt t0 g54 219 till somewhat late in the day he discovered that the ravished city suess of joo-rrooo mcn, arrive.l in England to initiate a more was not Rome at all, but Luna, whereupon he gave orders for the iustained and coherent assault than had y"et been attempted. Their town to be fired and its menfolk massacred. Its women they spared' leaders were Ivar (Yngvarr) called the Boneless, Ubbi, and Halfclan. Thev would, thev thought, havc use for them elsewhere' Legend tells us that they were come from Scandinavia and Ireland hi Aor thiy *it ba.[ in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, where ro avenge the death oftheir father Ragnar, about whom we know thev were defeated by a Moorish fleet. The survivors escaped away nothing very much after his rvithdrawal from the Seine in 845 with norih, th.i, appetite for pillage unsated, and when they reached 7,ooo pounds ofsilver and the seeds ofplague in his army, save thar N"u"ir. *eni inl"nd and cap"tured Pamplona' They collected an he was rgputed tohave come to England with two shipi' crews and immense ransom for its prinie, sailed north again, and next year been deGated by king Ella of Nort-humbria, who had him thrown back in the mouth of a and stung one-third of their sixty-two ships were saGly (at into pit to death by snakes.r Before he died he was the Loire. In saga-phrase theiis had been an enterprise once heard to say prophetically: 'The piglings would be srunrine if profitable and h&oirable'. But without political consequence, and, they knew the plightof the boar!' And suddenly here"they wfre, '.o..t fro* the'blue men' in Ireland we know nothing of the fate of snouting and tusking in England. First they got ihemselvei hors.t tileir captives. Some had been ransomed, others less lucky had no in , and the next year marched upon Vork. Northumbria doubt been disposed of to the Moors' was in its.customary-stare of civil war; its-people had just driven out their king Osberht and accepted Ella, i king not of the royal This was in 862. we have already seen the nuisance raids of indivi- line. Too late the two kings joined forces, marchi-d on york, vhich dual leaders develop into big, well-organized expeditions which was by now in Danish hands, and suffered there an overwhelming exoloited local diviiions and lived off the invaded country tor defeat (867). Both kings were killed. The same legends which puI lenethenine periods of time. A new stage, that of conquest and R_?g-nqr in the snake-pit now let his sons carve thi blood-eagle on ,.rii"n.., ioi follo*"d' In 865 a big heathen host, or horde,l at a Ella's back.z The kingdom of Deira passed into Danish keepi"ng.

L nncel heden bere. The Ando-Saxon Chronicle customarily dcsignates a viking 882 Alfred fought 4 ships; z captured and z surrendered. raidi,"iilnnr:iiins o"ttuoartv or xrmvermy t7rre. The term was thatthet applied in ihethe Laws olof IncIne 88J Alfred's flect encountered'and captured 16 ships, later bodyDoclyol otthieves.'We^,^s tnleves' "'hrrr. wc useusc theLlrche termrErur "ihieves" rru\ iftheif the number of but was iotoasubstantral r,iUu,.nii"t defeated by'a larqe force'. nnren .n" do.tdoes not seven, "band of marauders" (hlop) tor a number between "xceed ,Qltil,!::,^ 1u,9ler,be1w.een 892 The bere.iossed Fom Boulogne 'in one journey, horses and all,' in seven and thirty-6ve."*...d Anything bcyond this is a "raid" (Dare)'' (F' L' Atten' 2oo,2So, or 35o ships according to different u.irionr ofthe annal. The LLps of tbe urliesT tngti,h xingt,7922,-PP. ao-r)' rhe term used torouel,, 892 Haesten came with 8o shios. ior the"English force's was usutlly fyd(ferdl,atmy, force, levies'. ,some ibie*h"rtfr"n big' 893 Northumbrian and East Anglian Dancs collected hundred i" tn1 fisht of this definition'a horde' need not be all that ,and ships and went south round t-he coast'. One version a

complete runic ABC on the Latin model. Where and ho'iv the runic alphabet originated is stil debate. That roughly a third of the long futbark derive capitals is self-evident; but other alphabets, Greek, E

horizontals and curves, suggests this was an alphabet desi ished by the treaty made shortly after 886 between king use on wood. The earliest dateable runic inscriptions and Guthrum of East Anglia. It followed the estuary of the found in Denmark, but this does not disprove a upstream to the confluence of the river Lea, just east of usage among the Goths north of the Black Sea. A_ maj a tov/n which remained in English hands, then up the scholars streis the magical significance of runes, and run to its source near Dunstable, whence it led north to Bedford. undoubtedly used in a most special way.for spells and ma Bedford it followed the Ouse westwards to vhere it was runes were an all-puqpose alphabet and were used increasi by Watling Street at Fenny Stratford. Northwards of this non-magical (i.e. gnomic, commemorative, recording, i .r line lay English Mercia and the territories won by other pu.por.i. The range and number of runic inscriptions armies. The effect of the treaty then was to bring about the iron and Viking Ages is impressive: from Greenland to t division ofEngland into Wessex, English Mercia, and the Sea, from the Isle of Man to Athens; they are rare in ; and though the Danelaw's political independence lasted plentiful in Denmark (about 5oo) and Norway (about 7 years at most, its separate, i.e. Scandinavian, quality was most abundant of all in Sweden, vrhich has some 3'ooo' il nized not only bv Alfred and his Enelish successors. but 6v the r,ooo or more in the province ofUppland' BriefBibliography; of Knut in the iarlv eleventh ..niu* and bv Norman'law- Friesen in Nordkk. Kultur, VI, I gl : ; A. Beksted, Runerne, deres after the Conquesi. og Brug, Copenhagen, 1943; S. Bugge, Norgu Indskrifter,med rDanelaw (its name had no currency before the time ofKnut) {rrrr,'Chrittianil I89r-r 94; M. Olsen, Norges Innskrifer' we suspect, at no time fully homogeneous, but internal yngre Runer, Oslo, r94r-5r; L. Jacobsen and E. Moltke, l lons rn respect of race, density of Norse settlement, political Rineindskrifter, Copenhagen, rg42;S. Soderberg, E. Brate, E' a1d social organization, counted for less than its s.p"r"t.- R' Irom.English11ce R. Kinander, ,t .) Srrrigtt Runinskriftet, Uppsala, rgoo-' England, The evidence of personal coins and "o..1 Elliott. Runes, an Introduction, Manchester, I959; L. Musset, Yersers is indicativerindinlic"ti.r. thattlor oflanguage,.tnf l.--,,.-- ,,^^^k,,1^-, o&buhry ^-Jand ^t^^-place- 'Rt tion ila Runologie, revised ed. Paris, 1976; R. I. Page, compulsive, that there was a rapid and heavy slttlemint of oftn.i.ol*fr* ir.pr.r.nting and ', inJ. Graham-Campbell, The VikingWorld' U.y i."rA*"i"n, tittl. less rhan Tti-l' ({. Cameron, Scandinapian Sittlenent ii the Territory of hroughr fie Placi-Naru Evidence, r96j, p. ro), and reieni 422 Tbe Danelap The Danelao attempts to minimize the Norse element have been u Scandinavian vocabulary penetrated every domain of the following groups of words indicate: Iaw, byJao, outtil oapentaftei buband,fellow, buting; awkmard, bappy, ill, loorc, odi ugly, aeak, orong; ca$ leg, skin, shull; bull, egg, kid; bauf. bootb, down birds' knife, race, (i.e. down), rift, tbrrft, trux, 7 tbe1, tbem, their, (and the pronominal adjectives botb and fi$er; to call, crawl, cut, drown, h.ft, reef, rcare, take, want; birtb a1n Ddnsk tanga was spoken in parts of England long after the Danish rule there, and in parts ofScotland even later. But intelpenetration of tongues had taken place before the '- tagreement', Knut. The evidence is so abundant that, reinforced as it is lahupr 'purchase of law', vnmeler botleatr'unaton- ;, tinnocent', place-name elements as -b1, -beck, -breck, -fell, -gil\, -keld, ynitr,*n, 'surefy', ,ycleaq and the like, bear +cale, +oagb, +keitb, -tbwaite, -tborpt and +oft, it points to a ,s"s to concept as well as vocabulary; but the notion of law able number of northern speakers in the Danelaw. was at times distinct from that of England. Thus, a Danelaw Of place-names those in .-b1 and -tborp are the most :ld was related to the dead man's rank rather than his lord's. Cameron calculates that of the 3o3 names in -/7 recorded in offences against the king's peac€ were more sternly penalized day Book as being in the territory of the Five Boroughs, in England. Bu.t the most striking example of Danelaw legal 87 per cent are Scandinavian compounds. The evidence p will be found in the Wantage code of Ethelred the UnreaJy, -tborp names (they number ro6) is likely to prove not less d r describes the legal assemblies or courrs of the Five Boroushs: Yorkshire and Lindsey in Lincolnshire show a Scandinavian r the court of the Five Boroughs considered as a unit, pr.ri"d.d into'ridings' (i.e. thridin gs, thridin g, ON. pri 6jangr,'a third l by an ealdorman or king's reevel second, the court ofeach Yorkshire and the counties of the Five Boroushs were subd ate Borough; and, third, the wapentake court. All this is not into English hundreds but into wapentakes, a curious reminiscent of.the supra-Things and local Things of ment from the ON. vipnatak, the 'weapon-taking' or brandi 'ia and Iceland; but the resemblances do not end theie. In weapons which denoted approval of decisions made at the wapentake there were twelve leading men, thanes, with a not that the word was ever used in Scandinavia for a il responsibilityresponsrbrhty fortor law-thelaw-rhe so-caflejso-called juryiurv of presentment. administrative unit. In the Five Borouqhs arable landwas twelve uere required to take oath on"hoiy relics rhat they divided not into English hides but into ploughlands, which neither accuse the innocent nor shield the guilq,, after whicir were subdivided into eight oxgangs-a ploughland represt were empowered to arresr any ofill fame the"n at;dds with the :.In tThe unit of land which could be worked by an eight-ox plough- Stenton's words : sworn jury is unknown to pure Old one year. Norse words for classes of men persisted in the :h i;;,';;i ; ;,;G,i f;"#Ti'. :ff::JJ"':#ffii: nave t; after Domesday Book, including the hold (ON. bdldr) or r.:nseen in the{he rwelvefwetye leadingleadrng thegns ofof-the the wapentake rtutron:.:::.". .rn an ov/ner, who in Norway could be buried next to the /a derived from the juriei of"twelve familiar in the hersir, and in Northumbria had a wergold of tufate of the suspects was.sertled 4,ooo lft|l#,"::* -11-,[:gi double that of a thane, equal to that of a king's high-n 'ordeal, and not by ?i'e i"asr."i ;irh.'rhei"s who had ted them, half that of an earldorman or bishop; the sokeman or there is reason io think that these tf,egns formed T)1\r ka landowning peasant, owing fair duty to his lord's e :iy * called^^ll^l an- upper bench of doomsmen within their participant in that highly relished privilege of free men e' passage in the codex- runs: "Let the judgment onIiii.l-l,,t-t,.. which for the payment of his own taxes to the th. ihegtis are agreed; if ti,.V aif.r, Lt that stancl -responsibility 424 Tbe Darclap which eight of them have pronounced, and let those who are pay six half-marks." On general grounds it is highly probable t[4 of this passage are identical with the thegns on whom the w for the presentment of evil-doers. In any case, the passage is i illustration of the climate of thought which lay behind the Danelaw courts. It is the first assertion in England of the principle opinions diller that of the majority must prevail' (Anglo-Saxon I 5o3-4. For the Danelaw in general see the same work, pp. 494-5 there are the lawmen (lagemannfl, familiar to us from Scandinavia. A Rus Ship'Burial on the Volga especially lceland, mentioned in connection with Cambridge, Lincoln, York, and Chester, where they appear to have constituted ...i.o rhe years g2r-z the Arab Ibn Fadlan served as secretary of body (normally of twelve) who gave verdicts in appointed cases. fionr the Khaf Baghad to Bulgars of the Despite the basic research of Cameron and in place-name irl?rry lof :ldgl: Jensen srui Abbut one-fifth of his account of"the his journey (the Riwla) of Dolley in numismatics, problems remain. But there is no need to r to the Rus whom he met at the canP and trading-post, later general conclusion regarding the Danelaw. 'The Scandinavian 'We of Bulgar. have already noted his witness to certain England resulted in a thorough enrichment of the community. iown, and trading habits (pp. 164-5, rg7 and n. z above)' His of agrarian effort brought it about that by ro66 Lincolnshire, ,.ir social funeral is the most celebrated part of the Riwla. Suffolk ranked high among the prosperous shires of England. of a Rus quoted in the version ofH. M. Smyser, which takes account contribution to the political life ofthe country had been great at all here th.e monarchy itself, where Cnut ranks as one of the most successful he translation into German of Ahmed Zeki Validi Togan and rulers, to the minor administrative divisions of the Danelaw and the into French of M. Canard. The passages in roman tyPe are and courts of doomsmen of London, York, and Chester. The openi I on.the manuscript of the Risala, probably of the eleventh the North Sea to regular commerce proved permanent and was not , discovered at Meshed in Iran in r9z3 by Zeki Validi. Those by the Norman Conquest. Above all the impact of these active seafari s are based on Amin Razi's version of the Risala (AR), of erners on the early life and stabilization of the towns of north , which is thought to derive from a good early MS. and to England was tremendous. York appears in saga stories as an many valuable details not found in the Meshed MS. (see where the Scandinavian language and institutions were fully references to A. Zeki Validi Togan, Canard, and Smyser on York see A. Hall, Viking York and the North, 1978; and the York'The n. z above).] in England' Catalogue, r98r-2.1 The importance of the Scandinavian in London has probably been underestimated.' When to rhis we Ihad heard that at the deaths oftheir chiefpersonages they did .was blending ofEnglish and Scandinavian art, especially the sculpture in ty interesting things, of which the least cremation, and I the Scandinavian share in the English language, the historian's final interested to learnmore. At last I was told of the death of one a just one. 'Regionally and generally the influx of the eir outstcnding men. They placed him in a grave and put a roof vital contribution to the inner nature of the English communities of .tt tor ten days while they cut and sewed garments for him. Ages.' (H. The R. Loyn, Vikings in Britain, pp. 136-7.) f the deceased is a poor man they make a lit"tle boat, vhich they The importance of the new Danelaw to the Norsemen back home, him in and burn. Iihe is rich, they collect his goods and divide temporary outlet of population, awaits a full determipation: i.e. r into , three parrs) one for his family, anoth; to pay for his christianizing first Denmark and then Norway its and lceland; tng'_ and a third for making nabid intoxicating drink, visual art in Scandinavia; on coinage and currency, and on such fan tpsPs...b.eer], beerl, which thevthey drink until thi davday when hii Gmale quasi-political institutions es the leidangr and hird; and on the vill kill-herself and bL burned with her master. They stupefi, monarchy itself Its influence may well have been in considerable by other spheres. ]tlu:: drinking this nabid night and day; sometim.r'on'. dies iup in haid.