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The Cambridge Manuals of Science and<br/>
Literature<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
THE VIKINGS</div>
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS<br/>
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.<br/>
C. F. CLAY, <span class="smcap">Manager</span><br/></div>
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Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET<br/>
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.<br/>
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS<br/>
New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br/>
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br/>
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<br/>
<i>All rights reserved</i><br/></div>
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<div class="figcenter"> <SPAN name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"> <ANTIMG src="images/frontis.jpg" width-obs="1200" height-obs="851" alt="" /></SPAN> <div class="caption"><p>The Gokstad ship</p> </div>
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<h1>THE VIKINGS</h1>
<p class="center spaced space-above">
BY<br/>
ALLEN MAWER, M.A.<br/>
Professor of English Language and<br/>
Literature in Armstrong College,<br/>
University of Durham: late Fellow<br/>
of Gonville and Caius College,<br/>
Cambridge<br/></p>
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Cambridge:<br/>
at the University Press<br/>
1913<br/></p>
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Cambridge:<br/>
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.<br/>
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS<br/></div>
<blockquote>
<p><i>With the exception of the coat of arms at
the foot, the design on the title page is a
reproduction of one used by the earliest known
Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521</i></p>
</blockquote>
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<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
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<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">Introduction</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_1">1</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">CHAP.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left">Causes of the Viking movement</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_4">4</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left">The Viking movement down to the middle of the</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">9th century</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_12">12</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left">The Vikings in England to the death of Harthacnut</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_22">22</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left">The Vikings in the Frankish Empire to the</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">founding of Normandy (911)</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_43">43</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left">The Vikings in Ireland to the battle of Clontarf (1014)</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_54">54</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left">The Vikings in the Orkneys, Scotland, the Western</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">Islands and Man</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_65">65</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left">The Vikings in Baltic lands and Russia</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_69">69</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left">Viking civilisation</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_82">82</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left">Scandinavian influence in the Orkneys, Shetlands,</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">the Western Islands and Man</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_112">112</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left">Scandinavian influence in Ireland</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_116">116</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left">Scandinavian influence in England</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_123">123</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left">Scandinavian influence in the Empire and Iceland</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_138">138</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">Bibliography</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_146">146</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">Index</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_148">148</SPAN></td></tr>
</table></div>
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<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
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<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">The Gokstad ship</td><td align="right"><SPAN href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">PLATE</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left">Viking ship from the Bayeux tapestry </td><td align="right"><i>facing page</i> <SPAN href="#Page_100">100</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left">Ornaments of the Viking period</td><td align="right">" " <SPAN href="#Page_104">104</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left">The Jellinge stone</td><td align="right">" " <SPAN href="#Page_111">111</SPAN></td></tr>
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<blockquote>
<p>The frontispiece is reproduced by kind permission of the
photographer, Mr O. Væring, of Christiania; plates II and III
are taken from Sophus Müller's <i>Nordische Altertümskunde</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
<p>The term 'Viking' is derived from the Old Norse
<i>vík</i>, a bay, and means 'one who haunts a bay, creek
or fjord<SPAN name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</SPAN>.' In the 9th and 10th centuries it came to
be used more especially of those warriors who left
their homes in Scandinavia and made raids on the
chief European countries. This is the narrow, and
technically the only correct use of the term 'Viking,'
but in such expressions as 'Viking civilisation,' 'the
Viking age,' 'the Viking movement,' 'Viking influence,'
the word has come to have a wider significance
and is used as a concise and convenient term for
describing the whole of the civilisation, activity and
influence of the Scandinavian peoples, at a particular
period in their history, and to apply the term 'Viking'
in its narrower sense to these movements would
be as misleading as to write an account of the age of
Elizabeth and label it 'The Buccaneers.'</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>It is in the broader sense that the term is
employed in the present manual. Plundering and
harrying form but one aspect of Viking activity and
it is mainly a matter of accident that this aspect is
the one that looms largest in our minds. Our knowledge
of the Viking movement was, until the last
half-century, drawn almost entirely from the works of
medieval Latin chroniclers, writing in monasteries
and other kindred schools of learning which had only
too often felt the devastating hand of Viking raiders.
They naturally regarded them as little better than
pirates and they never tired of expatiating upon
their cruelty and their violence. It is only during
the last fifty years or so that we have been able to
revise our ideas of Viking civilisation and to form a
juster conception of the part which it played in the
history of Europe.</p>
<p>The change has come about chiefly in two ways.
In the first place the literature of Scandinavia is no
longer a sealed book to us. For our period there
are three chief groups of native authorities: (1) the
prose sagas and the <i>Historia Danica</i> of Saxo Grammaticus,
(2) the eddaic poems, (3) the skaldic poems.
The prose sagas and Saxo belong to a date considerably
later than the Viking age, but they include much
valuable material referring to that period. The chief
poems of the older Edda date from the Viking period
itself and are invaluable for the information they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</SPAN></span>
give us as to the religion and mythology of the
Scandinavian peoples at this time, the heroic stories
current amongst them, and their general outlook on
life. The skaldic poems are however in some ways
the most valuable historical authority for the period.
The <i>skalds</i> or court-poets were attached to the courts
of kings and jarls, shared their adventures, praised
their victories, and made songs of lament on their
death, and their work is largely contemporary with
the events they describe.</p>
<p>Secondly, and yet more important in its results
perhaps, archaeological science has, within the last
half-century, made rapid advance, and the work
of archaeologists on the rich finds brought to light
during the last hundred years has given us a vast body
of concrete fact, with the aid of which we have been
able to reconstruct the material civilisation of the
Viking period far more satisfactorily than we could
from the scattered and fragmentary notices found in
the sagas and elsewhere. The resultant picture calls
for description later, but it is well to remember
from the outset that it is a very different one from
that commonly associated with the term 'Viking.'</p>
<p>With this word of explanation and note of warning
we may proceed to our main subject.</p>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></SPAN> The word is older than the actual Viking age: it is found in
Anglo-Saxon in the form <i>wicing</i>. Some writers have said that it
means 'people from the district of the <i>Vík</i>' in South Norway, so-called
from the long fjord-like opening which is found there, but the
early Anglo-Saxon use of the term forbids this derivation.</p>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</SPAN></span></p>
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