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Vikings

<h2>CHAPTER VII THE VIKINGS IN BALTIC LANDS AND RUSSIA</h2> The activities of the Northmen during the Viking age were not confined to the lands west and south of their original homes: the Baltic was as familiar to them as the North Sea, to go 'east-viking' was almost as common as to go 'west-viking' and Scandinavian settlements were founded on the shores of the Baltic and far inland along the great waterways leading into the heart of Russia. As was to be expected from their geographical position it was Danes and Swedes rather than Norwegians who were active in Baltic lands, the Danes settling chiefly on[70] the Pomeranian coast among the Wends, while the Swedes occupied lands further east and founded the Scandinavian kingdom of Russia. Already in the early years of the 9th century we find the Danish king Guðröðr now making war against his Slavonic neighbours in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, now intriguing with them against the emperor. Mention is made of more than one town on the southern coast of the Baltic bearing an essentially Scandinavian name, pointing to the existence of extensive settlements. Interesting evidence of this eastward movement is also to be found in the Life of St Anskar. There we learn how, soon after 830, a Danish fleet captured a city in the land of the Slavs, with great riches, and we hear in 853 how the Swedes were endeavouring to reconquer Kurland which had been under their rule, but had now thrown off the yoke and fallen a prey to a fleet of Danish Vikings—possibly the one just mentioned. St Anskar himself undertook the education of many Wendish youths who had been entrusted to him. This and other evidence prepare us for the establishment, in the tenth century, of the most characteristic of all Viking settlements, that of Jómsborg on the Island of Wollin at the mouth of the Oder. According to tradition King Gorm the Old conquered a great kingdom in Wendland,[71] but it was to his son Harold Bluetooth that the definite foundation of Jómsborg was ascribed. For many years there had been an important trading centre at Julin on the Island of Wollin, where traders from Scandinavia, Saxony, Russia and many other lands met together to take part in the rich trade between north and south, east and west, which passed through Julin, standing as it did on one of the great waterways of central Europe. Large finds of Byzantine and Arabic coins bear witness to the extensive trade with Greece and the Orient which passed through Julin, while the Silberberg, on which Jómsborg once stood, is so called from the number of silver coins from Frisia, Lorraine, Bavaria and England which have been found there. It was no doubt in the hope of securing some fuller share in this trade that Harold established the great fortress of Jómsborg and entrusted its defence to a warrior-community on whom he imposed the strictest rules of organisation. The story of the founding of Jómsborg is told in the late and untrustworthy Jómsvikingasaga, but, while we must reject many of the details there set forth, it is probable that the rules of the settlement as given there are based on a genuine tradition, and they give us a vivid picture of life in a Viking warrior-community. No one under eighteen or over fifty years of age was admitted to their fellowship, and neither birth nor[72] friendship, only personal bravery, could qualify a man for admission. No one was allowed to continue a member who uttered words of fear, or who fled before one who was his equal in arms and strength. Every member was bound to avenge a fallen companion as if he were his brother. No women were allowed within the community, and no one was to be absent for more than three days without permission. All news was to be told in the first instance to their leader and all plunder was to be shared at a common stake. The harbour of Jómsborg could shelter a fleet of 300 vessels and was protected by a mole with twelve iron gates. The Jómsvikings played an important if stormy part in the affairs of the three Scandinavian kingdoms in the later years of the 10th and the early 11th century. Many of them came to England in the train of king Svein, while Jarl Thorkell was for a time in the service of Ethelred the Unready. The decline of Jómsborg as a Viking stronghold dates from its devastation by Magnus the Good in 1043, but the importance of Julin as a trading centre continued unimpaired for many years to come. From Jómsborg Harold Bluetooth's son Hákon made an attack on Samland in the extreme east of Prussia, but the real exploitation of the Eastern Baltic fell as was natural to the Swedes rather than to the Danes. We have already mentioned their[73] presence in Kurland on the Gulf of Riga, and we learn from Swedish runic inscriptions of expeditions to Samland, to the Semgalli (in Kurland) and to the river Duna. The important fortified port of Seeburg was probably near to Riga, while the chief trade route from the island of Gothland lay round cape Domesnæes (note the Scandinavian name) to the mouth of the Duna. The chief work of the Swedes was however to be done in lands yet further south, in the heart of the modern empire of Russia in Europe. The story of the founding of the Russian kingdom is preserved to us in the late 10th century chronicle of the monk Nestor, who tells us that in the year 859 'Varangians' came over the sea and took tribute from various Finnish, Tatar and Slavonic peoples inhabiting the forest regions round Lake Ilmen, between Lake Ladoga and the upper waters of the Dnieper. Again he tells us that in 862 the Varangians were driven over seas and tribute was refused, but soon the tribes quarrelled among themselves and some suggested that they should find a prince who might rule over them and keep the peace. So they sent across the sea to the Varangians, to the 'Rus,' for such is the name of these Varangians, just as others are called Swedes, Northmen, Anglians, Goths, saying that their land was great and powerful but there was no order within it and asking them to[74] come and rule over them. Three brothers with their followers were chosen: the eldest, Rurik (O.N. Hr&oelig;rekr), settled in Novgorod, the second in Bieloözero, the third in Truvor in Izborsk. Three years later two of the brothers died and Rurik took control of the whole of the settlements, dividing the land among his men. In the same year two of Rurik's followers, Askold (O.N. Höskuldr) and Dir (O.N. Dýri), setting out for Constantinople, halted at Kiev and there founded a kingdom, which in 882 was conquered by Rurik's successor Oleg (O.N. Helgi) and, as the mother of all Russian cities, became the capital of the Russian kingdom. There is a certain naiveté about this story which is characteristic of the monkish chronicler generally, and it is clear that, after the usual manner of the annalist who is compiling his record long after the events described, Nestor has grouped together under one or two dates events which were spread over several years, but the substantial truth of the narrative cannot be impugned and receives abundant confirmation from various sources. The earliest evidence for the presence of these 'Rus' in Eastern Europe is found in the story of the Byzantine embassy to the emperor Lewis the Pious in 839 (v. supra, p. 19), when certain people called 'Rhôs,' who had been on a visit to Constantinople, came in the train of the embassy and asked leave to return[75] home through the empire. Enquiries were made and it was found that these 'Rhôs' were Swedes. This would point to the presence of 'Rus' in Russia at a date earlier than that given by Nestor, and indeed the rapid extension of their influence indicates a period of activity considerably longer than that allowed by him. These 'Rus' or 'Rhôs' soon came into relations, both of trade and war, with the Byzantine empire. We have preserved to us from the years 911 and 944 commercial treaties made between the 'Rus' and the Greeks showing that they brought all kinds of furs and also slaves to Constantinople, receiving in exchange various articles of luxury including gold and silver ornaments, silks and other rich stuffs. The names of the signatories to these treaties are, on the side of the 'Rus,' almost entirely of Scandinavian origin and may to some extent be shown to be of definitely Swedish provenance. About the year 950, the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing a tractate on the administration of the empire, describes how traders from various parts of Russia assemble at Kiev and sail down the Dnieper on their way to Constantinople. Their course down the Dnieper was impeded by a series of rapids, and Constantine gives their names both in 'Russian' and in Slavonic form, and though the names are extremely corrupt in their Greek transcription there is no mistaking that[76] the 'Russian' names are really forms belonging to some Scandinavian dialect. The Rus were also well known as warriors and raiders. In 865 they sailed down the Dnieper, across the Black Sea and made their way into the Sea of Marmora. Their fleet was dispersed by a storm, but they were more successful in 907 when Oleg with some 2000 ships harried the environs of Constantinople and was bought off by a heavy tribute. These attacks were continued at intervals during the next century. We also find a good deal of interesting information about these 'Rûs,' as they are called, in various Arab historians. We hear how they sailed their vessels down the chief waterways and had such a firm hold on the Black Sea that by the year 900 it was already known as the Russian Sea. Often they dragged their vessels overland from one stream to another, and thus they made their way from the upper waters of the Don down the Volga to the Caspian Sea. But not only do we have a description of their journeyings we also learn a good deal of their customs and habits, and, though at times the information given is open to suspicion, archaeological research tends to confirm the statements of these historians and to show that the civilisation of the 'Rûs' closely resembled that of the Scandinavian peoples generally in the Viking age. [77] The identification of the ancient 'Rus' with the Swedes was long and hotly contested by Slavonic patriots but there is now a general consensus of opinion that the evidence for it is too strong to be overthrown. Not only have we the evidence given above but also the very names 'Rus' and 'Varangian' can be satisfactorily explained only on this theory. The name 'Rus' is the Slavonic, 'Rhôs' the Greek, and 'Rûs' the Arabic form of the Finnish name for Sweden, viz. Ruotsi. This name was originally derived from Roþr or Roþin, the name of certain districts of Upland and Östergötland, whose inhabitants were known as Rods-karlar or Rods-mæn. The Finns had early come into relation with the Swedes and they used the name of those people with whom they were in earliest and most intimate contact for the whole Swedish nationality. When these Swedes settled in Russia the Finns applied the same term to the new colonists and the term came to be adopted later into the various Slavonic dialects. We are most familiar with the term 'Varangian' or 'Variag,' to use the Slavonic form, as applied to the famous guard of the Byzantine emperors, which seems to have been formed in the latter half of the 10th century and was largely composed of Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish recruits. In Russian and Arabic historians on the other hand the term is used rather in an ethnographic or geographic sense.[78] We have seen that it was thus used by Nestor, and similarly we find the Baltic commonly spoken of as the 'Varangian' Sea both in Russian and in Arabic records. All the evidence tends to show that this was the earlier sense of the term and we find it gradually displacing the term 'Rhôs' even in Byzantine historians. The word itself is of Scandinavian origin and means 'those who are bound together by a pledge.' The theory which best explains its various uses is that put forward by Dr Vilhelm Thomsen, viz. that it originated among the Northmen who settled in Russia, i.e. among the ancient Russ, and that under that term they denoted those peoples west of the Baltic who were related to them by nationality. From the Russ the word passed into the Slavonic language as variag[12], into the Greek as barangoi—where it was often used in the restricted sense of members of the imperial guard largely recruited from this nation,—and into the Arabic as varank. Dr Thomsen adduces two happy parallels for the somewhat remarkable history of the terms 'Russian' and 'Varangian.' The term 'Russian' came to be used as their own name by the Slavonic peoples, who were once ruled over by the Russ, in much the same way that the term 'Frankish' or 'French' was adopted by the Gaulish population of France from[79] its Germanic conquerors. The term 'Varangian,' ultimately the name for a nation or group of nations, came to be used of a military force once largely recruited from those nations, much in the same way as the term 'Swiss' was applied to the Papal guard long after that guard had ceased to be recruited from the Swiss nation exclusively. The belief in the Scandinavian origin of the Russ is amply supported by archaeological evidence. The large number of Arabic coins found in Sweden (more especially in Gothland) and in Russia itself points to an extensive trade with the Orient whose route lay chiefly to the east of the Caspian Sea and then along the valley of the Volga. The dates of the coins point to the years between 850 and 1000 as those of most active intercourse with the East. Equally interesting is the large number of western coins, more especially Anglo-Saxon pennies and sceatts, which have been found in Russia. They probably represent portions of our Danegeld which had come into the hands of the Swedes either in trade or war. Viking brooches of the characteristic oval shape with the familiar zoomorphic ornamentation have been found in Western Russia, and one stone with a runic inscription, belonging to the 11th century and showing evidence of connexion with Gothland, has been found in a burial mound in Berezan, an island at the mouth of the Dnieper.[80] Professor Braun says that no others have been found because of the rarity of suitable stone. How long the Russ maintained their distinctively Scandinavian nationality it is difficult to determine. Oleg's grandson Svjatoslav bore a distinctively Slavonic name, and henceforward the names of the members of the royal house are uniformly Slavonic, but the connexion with Sweden was by no means forgotten. Svjatoslav's son Vladimir the Great secured himself in the rulership of Novgorod in 980 by the aid of variags from over the sea and established a band of variag warriors in his chief city of Kiev. But the Viking age was drawing to a close. Variag auxiliaries are mentioned for the last time in 1043 and it is probable that by the middle of the 11th century the Scandinavian settlers had been almost completely Slavonicised. Of their permanent influence on the Russian people and on Russian institutions it is, in the present state of our knowledge, almost impossible to speak. Attempts have been made to distinguish Scandinavian elements in the old Russian law and language but with no very definite results, and we must content ourselves with the knowledge that the Vikings were all powerful in Western and Southern Russia during the greater part of two centuries, carrying on an extensive trade with the East, establishing Novgorod, 'the new town,' on the Volga under the name Holmgarðr and founding a dynasty[81] which ruled in Kiev and became a considerable power in eastern Europe negotiating on terms of equality with the Byzantine emperors. Mention has already been made more than once of the way in which the Northmen entered the service of the emperors at Constantinople or Miklagarðr, 'the great city,' as they called it. From here they visited all parts of the Mediterranean. When Harold Hardrada was in the service of the emperor he sailed through the Grecian archipelago to Sicily and Africa. There he stayed several years, conquering some eighty cities for his master and gaining rich treasures for himself. One interesting memorial of these journeys still remains to us. At the entrance to the arsenal in Venice stands a marble lion brought from Athens in 1687. Formerly it stood at the harbour of the Piraeus, known thence as the Porto Leone. On the sides of the lion are carved two long runic inscriptions arranged in snake-like bands. The runes are too much worn to be deciphered but they are unquestionably of Scandinavian origin and the snake-bands closely resemble those that may be seen on certain runic stones in Sweden. The carving was probably done by Swedes from Uppland about the middle of the 10th century. One can hardly imagine a more striking illustration of the extent and importance of the Viking movement in Europe. <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> <div class="footnote"> [12] The word variag in Modern Russian means a pedlar and bears witness to the strong commercial instincts of the Viking. </div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> [82] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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