112722 pb cover 11/7/03 3:48 PM Page 1 Holman History • Ancient • General Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 11 Rarely has an era evoked the same sense of adventure as the Viking age. For more than three centuries, small but intrepid bands of Scandinavians used Historical longships to launch lightning raids on their European neighbors to colonize new lands in the east and west and exchange furs for wine, spices, and silver. Dictionary Historical Significant changes also occurred at home, as the local kings extended their power, Norse paganism lost ground to Christianity, and new towns and ports Dictionary thrived as a result of increased contact with the world. And this new world was amazingly vast, stretching over the British Isles, much of continental Europe, into the far reaches of Russia and the Middle East, and to an undetermined extent, even North America. of the There were so many expeditions, under so many leaders, to so many places, and for so many purposes that it is difficult to track events. Moreover, much of the information is shrouded in mystery because few archaeological remains Vikings and even fewer written documents corroborate the sagas. This Historical Dictionary of the Vikings helps fill the void by providing information on major historical figures, important battles and treaties, key works, and archae- ological finds. This dictionary not only presents the big picture, but also examines the everday aspects of how people lived and worked. A chronology, detailed and annotated bibliographies for different themes and geographical locations, and an introduction discussing the major events and developments of the Viking age are also included. of the Katherine Holman is pursuing her own research as a freelance historian. She Vikings b has lectured in Scandinavian studies and was assistant director of European studies in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Hull in England. For orders and information please contact the publisher Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Katherine Holman 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 fax 717-794-3803 www.scarecrowpress.com Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras Series editor: Jon Woronoff 1. Ancient Egypt, Morris L. Bierbrier, 1999. 2. Ancient Mesoamerica, Joel W. Palka, 2000. 3. Pre-Colonial Africa, Robert O. Collins, 2001. 4. Byzantium, John H. Rosser, 2001. 5. Medieval Russia, Lawrence N. Langer, 2001. 6. Napoleonic Era, George F. Nafziger, 2001. 7. Ottoman Empire, Selcuk Aksin Somel, 2003. 8. Mongol World Empire, Paul D. Buell, 2003. 9. Mesopotamia, Gwendolyn Leick, 2003. 10. Ancient and Medieval Nubia, by Richard A. Lobban Jr., 2003. 11. The Vikings, by Katherine Holman, 2003. Historical Dictionary of the Vikings Katherine Holman Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 11 The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford 2003 Contents Editor’s Foreword Jon Woronoff vii Reader’s Note ix Chronology xi Introduction 1 THE DICTIONARY 17 Bibliography 303 Appendix: Museums with Viking Collections 379 About the Author 383 v Editor’s Foreword Of the many volumes in this series on ancient civilizations and historical eras, few deal with a topic that exudes as much adventure as this. The Vikings set forth and discovered unknown lands or conquered more settled territories in a huge area stretching from the North Atlantic and North America, in and around the British Isles, through France and into Spain and the Mediterranean, to the vast reaches of Russia. All this was done in an amazingly short period of time by incredibly small, if intrepid, bands of people. Yet, while this is definitely the stuff of adventure for us, for them it was almost just a job, another more promising way of living than was offered at home, with tantalizing but not always realized potential, as well as substantial risk. It is therefore appreciated that Historical Dictionary of the Vikings can convey the awesome achievements (and periodic disasters), sense of adventure, and more prosaic details of Viking life. The adventure does not have to be writ large—it emanates from the dictionary entries on numerous leaders, warriors, and kings, many of whom were warriors not long before, as well as the battles and sieges, discoveries and conquests. Other entries trace the Viking penetration of the many regions where they appeared as raiders, traders, and sometimes eventually rulers. The nitty-gritty appears in entries on their weapons, customs, art and burial practices, and sagas and mythology. Who the Vikings were, where they came from, and what they did is summed up in the introduction. How much they accomplished over a mere three centuries is traced in the chronology. This book is a good reference work, but anyone interested in the Vikings will certainly want to know more, so further resources are included in the bibliography. This volume was written by Katherine Holman, formerly a lecturer in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Hull. In this capacity, she taught both the history of the countries from which the Vikings came vii viii • EDITOR’S FOREWORD (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) and the places they visited, as it were, in modules on the Vikings at home and abroad, and especially in the British Isles. Aside from this, she has undertaken several research projects dealing mainly with runic inscriptions. Dr. Holman has also published a number of articles, again largely on runes, but also on other aspects of the Vikings and Viking Age. Her specialization requires method and precision, something perhaps a bit remote from adventure, but fortunately providing a stronger foundation for any interpretation or conclusions. Jon Woronoff Series Editor Reader’s Note A dictionary is, of course, organized alphabetically, but when it comes to the Vikings, this is not as easy a task as it may sound: there are a num- ber of additional characters in the Scandinavian and Icelandic languages, å, æ, ä, ö, ø, ð, þ, which have to be included. As this dic- tionary is primarily designed for an English-language audience, which may include people unfamiliar with the conventions of the Scandina- vian and Icelandic languages, I have chosen to anglicize these charac- ters. Thus, å and ä, are treated simply as the letter a; æ as the letters ae; ö and ø as the letter o; sometimes I have replaced ð and þ with the let- ters th, which corresponds to the sound represented by ð and þ; how- ever, where a spelling with the Icelandic characters is very well known, I have kept the original letters but treated them as th for the purposes of alphabetizing. The length markers over vowels (´) have been retained in spellings where there is no generally accepted anglicized form but ig- nored in the alphabetical ordering of entries. Hooked o has been nor- malized as ö and hooked or nasal a as ã. The forms of personal and place-names are a further source of headaches for the person seeking to provide a work of reference such as the Historical Dictionary of the Vikings. In this book, I have used an- glicized spellings of place names where these exist and are presently well known (e.g., Copenhagen not Danish København; Reykjavik not Icelandic Reykjavík), but otherwise I have used the form found in the relevant country of origin (e.g., Swedish Skåne not archaic anglicized form Scania; Danish Sjælland not archaic anglicized form Zealand). Personal names are tricky because all original forms are, to some extent, normalized, sometimes according to different conventions; and many also exist in different, more modern forms, as well as in a variety of an- glicized forms. It is hard to be consistent, but I have generally used anglicized or modernized English and Scandinavian forms where these ix x•READER’S NOTE exist and are well known in English-language historiography; otherwise I have used the standardized Old Norse forms. The names of people from other areas—particularly Arabic and Byzantine figures—are given in the form most commonly found in modern works on the Vikings. In order to help the reader, I have also cross-referenced entries with a number of different forms. For example, the entry for King Cnut the Great is found under CNUT, but people who look under CANUTE or KNUT will be redirected to CNUT. Where names are given in their an- glicized form, I have tried to include their original form in brackets to assist the reader in further research. Readers should also note that, as is the convention, historical figures are listed under their first names not their surnames (if indeed any surname is known). Thus Snorri Sturluson appears under SNORRI rather than STURLUSON. The titles of written works are generally listed in both their original language and in English, when a well-known translation of the title ex- ists. Where two or more versions of a title are in common usage, the full entry is normally given under the English title, as befits a dictionary de- signed for an English-speaking audience (e.g., The entry for the Ice- landic work Íslendingabók is given under Book of the Icelanders, but those who look up Íslendingabók will be referred to the correct place in the dictionary). All entries are provided with either a translation of the title into English or the original form of the title as is appropriate. Some standard acronyms are used in the text of the dictionary: OE for Old English and ON for Old Norse. When referring to runic in- scriptions, I have supplied the reference numbers of the individual inscriptions as found in the published editions.