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Early Cultural Links Between Great Britain and Scandinavia

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Early Cultural Links Between Great Britain and Scandinavia Early cultural links between Great Britain and Scandinavia Autor(en): Kirby, I.J. Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Études de Lettres : revue de la Faculté des lettres de l'Université de Lausanne Band (Jahr): 6 (1973) Heft 4 PDF erstellt am: 10.10.2021 Persistenter Link: http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-870983 Nutzungsbedingungen Die ETH-Bibliothek ist Anbieterin der digitalisierten Zeitschriften. Sie besitzt keine Urheberrechte an den Inhalten der Zeitschriften. Die Rechte liegen in der Regel bei den Herausgebern. Die auf der Plattform e-periodica veröffentlichten Dokumente stehen für nicht-kommerzielle Zwecke in Lehre und Forschung sowie für die private Nutzung frei zur Verfügung. Einzelne Dateien oder Ausdrucke aus diesem Angebot können zusammen mit diesen Nutzungsbedingungen und den korrekten Herkunftsbezeichnungen weitergegeben werden. 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Ein Dienst der ETH-Bibliothek ETH Zürich, Rämistrasse 101, 8092 Zürich, Schweiz, www.library.ethz.ch http://www.e-periodica.ch EARLY CULTURAL LINKS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND SCANDINAVIA Anyone who has merely glanced through an English history book may be pardoned if he assumes that the early relations between Great Britain and Scandinavia had nothing cultural about them In the year 911 the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple, ceded part of Northern France to a Viking army. But more than a century earlier than this the forefathers of these Vikings had descended on Northumbria, laying waste that great centre of European learning and culture, which had produced such men as Bede of Jarrow, historian and father of the Church, and Alcuin of York, scholar and teacher, who in his later life took charge of Charlemagne's palace school. In the course of the 9th century the Viking raids on Britain developed into a full-scale attempt at invasion and conquest. Yet King Alfred the Great of Wessex, who spent the first part of his life campaigning against the Viking armies, and the second part guarding his kingdom vigilantly against further encroachments, was by no means incapable of taking a more general interest in his lifelong enemies. From one of the most interesting passages extant in Old English prose 1 we may reconstruct the scene in Alfred's royal hall when, with his men around him, he listened with rapt attention to a Norwegian named Öttarr, who had undertaken a voyage right round the North Cape of Norway and into the White Sea, and was describing what he had seen on his travels, and what he had learned of the peoples who lived in those areas, their way of life, customs and languages. Alfred's interest in this and similar information about the Scandinavian countries was such that he had it incorporated into his Old English translation of Orosius's World History. Leçon inaugurale, prononcée à l'Auditoire XVI du Palais de Rumine, le 22 février 1973. 1 Found e. g. as extract IV in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader, rev. Whitelock, Oxford 1967. 22 ÉTUDES DE LETTRES Alfred's successors gradually reconquered the north and east of England, which had been ceded to the Vikings by the Treaty of Wed- more, and his grandson, Athelstan, can be regarded as the first king of all England. In Norway, however, he is better known as the foster-father of the third king of that country, Hâkon, nicknamed « the Good ». Hâkon was the son of King Harald Fairhair of Norway and a servant girl. The Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson tells us2 that Harald Fairhair had been insulted by the English king, and that in reply he sent Hâkon (then a child) with thirty of his men to Athelstan's court. On being admitted, the leader of the Norwegians placed the child on the king's knee, thus (as he explained) making Athelstan the nursemaid of a servant girl's child Athelstan, pardonably annoyed, seized a sword to kill Hâkon ; the Norwegian commented that he could of course do as he liked with Hâkon, but he was mistaken if he thought that he could get rid of all Harald's sons as easily as that On reflection, Athelstan allowed the child to live ; and when he had grown up Hâkon returned to his own country to secure the support of his countrymen and seize the Norwegian throne from his brother. Although no specific evidence is available to us, it can hardly be doubted that Hâkon took with him some of the culture of Athelstan's court: he was assuredly the first Christian king of Norway, and it is by no means unlikely that he was the first literate king too, though this honour is usually accorded to Olaf Kyrri, who reigned more than a century later. However, Hâkon's failure to persuade the Norwegians to accept 3 Christianity — the only major failure of his long and mainly peaceful reign — probably explains the silence of the historical records. We may reasonably conjecture that Hâkon took with him priests, scholars and books as a gift from his foster-father, or obtained them at a later date 4 : but of any such there is no certain memorial. 2 See Haraldz saga ins hirfagra chs. 39-40 (found e. g. at pp. 66-67 of Finnur Jonsson's edition of Heimskringla, Kobenhavn 1911, and translated at pp. 80-81 of Heimskringla : Sagas of the Norse Kings, Everyman's Library vol. 847, Samuel Laing, London 1961). 'In a recent article, « The Earliest Missionary Activities from England to Norway» (Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, XV, 1971, pp. 27-37), Fridjov Birkeli argues that Hâkon's missionary efforts had more lasting success in the south and west of Norway than in the area around (and north of) Trondheim. 4 Snorri Sturluson mentions that he obtained « a bishop and other clerics » from England (see, respectively, pp. 78 and 94 of the works cited in note 2); and Birkeli (see note 3) claims that a certain « Sigefridus norwegensis », listed among English bishops in a necrology from Glastonbury, participated in Hâkon's missionary work. EARLY CULTURAL LINKS 23 The cultural contacts between England and Norway in the early part of our period, then, were comparatively limited. When we turn to Iceland, we find a more intimate connection, and with Britain rather than just England. The country's first known inhabitants would seem to have come from the British Isles, for the Icelandic records tell us that when the earliest settlers got there towards the end of the 9th century they found « Christian men, whom the 5 Norwegians call papar » ; and by « papar » they almost certainly meant Celtic monks from Ireland, to judge from the Irish books and other things these people are reported to have left behind them. But there is a closer connection than this. The Norse settlers came not only from Norway but also from the existing Norse settlements in the British Isles ; and these latter took with them to Iceland their Celtic slaves, concubines and wives. Ingolfr Ärnason, traditionally the first to settle in what is now the capital, Reykjavik, went to Iceland with his fosterbrother Hjörleifr. Hjörleifr was killed by the Irish slaves he had picked up on a viking expedition a few years earlier, and Ingolfr took a bloody revenge on them in the islands which still bear their name, the Vestmannaeyjar, or « Westman Islands »6. Relations between the Celts and the Norsemen were not always bloody, however, and there is substantial evidence, historical, literary, linguistic and even anatomical, to show that the Celts were a not insignificant minority in Iceland. And the Norsemen who were their masters (or husbands had in some cases already been influenced by their way of life : some had become Christian, and at least one must be regarded as literate — a certain 0rlygr Hrappsson had with him a plenarium which his fosterfather, an Irishman named Patrick, had given him along with the wood to build a church 7. From the very beginning, therefore, there was a substratum of Celtic Christian culture, reflected in the establishment of a few Christian homes, and a church or two, in different parts of the country. The Icelandic records make particular mention of one Norse family from the Hebrides, of whom the daughter settled in the West of Iceland and set up a cross as a place of worship close to where she lived, while her cousin, the 0rlygr I have just mentioned, settled near Reykjavik and built a church on his farmstead. This church 5 See Islendingabok, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, Reykjavik 1968 Islenzk Forn- rit vol. I, 1 page 5. 6 See Landnâmabôk, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (ed. cit. note 5), pp. 42-45. 7 Op. cit. (note 6), page 52. 24 ÉTUDES DE LETTRES stood quite close to a heathen temple, but seems not to have aroused the hostility of the pagan majority in the neighbourhood : indeed, there is no substantial evidence of religious intolerance until the period of the conversion of Iceland, a century later. This may well be because the Christians among the early settlers did not, apparently, try to foist their beliefs on their heathen compatriots : in fact, Christians and pagans seem to have been content to tolerate each other without establishing closer contact than was necessary. One consequence of this is that clear evidence of direct cultural influence is lacking.
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