More reflections from The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood.
Iceland was first settled by the brothers Ingolf and Hjorleif. They made camp at the East Fjords, but left it only to return a few years later. After 3 years Ingolf made the permanent settlement of Reykjavik (which is now the capital of Iceland) Soon imigrants from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were coming to make a new life.
It sounds like Iceland was a dangerous place to live. There were no laws in the early settlements and they usually settled disputes to the death.
Iceland can also be compared to Ireland in the way that it was isolated from outside influences. Ireland never had Roman rule, so the Celts were able to evolve their culture there. Iceland is the same. It was so isolated from Europe that the Germanic myths, legends, and storytelling survived. Like Irish literature most of the Icelandic was passed down orally. In the year 1263 all this changed when Norway took over rule of Iceland. Literature began to decline and eventually died out in the middle ages.
Reflections from the Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood:
I am not very familiar with North Atlantic/Great Britian geography so it was a great surprise that there were all these little islands all around!! The Faeroes islands are located 190 miles northwest of Shetland. They were first settled by the Viking Grimur Kamban. He apparently came from Ireland or the Hebrides, but many of the settlers that followed were directly from Sogn, Rogaland, and Agder. They could not raise grain crops here, but were able to raise cattle and sheep due to the great pasture land. The pictures of these islands in the book are just breath taking. I don't think I would like gathering the hay by hand and hanging it out to dry. The mountains look worn from glaciers and wind, they are very smooth looking. I live in scrub country with junipers and rampent locust trees. I can't imagine living on an island that didn't have any trees on it. All of the lumber to build houses or boats had to be shipped in. That in itself was quite a task.
I know this is not the “THING” are book talks about , but this is similar and I thought it would be useful.
The Althing is Icelandic for general assembly. It is still the parliament of Iceland and is the oldest functioning legislature in the world. It started in 930 and met every summer in the town Thingvellir. During the old commonwealth of Iceland, the Althing served as the legislature and the court. When Iceland lost its independence to Norway in 1262 the Althing was dissipated of its powers and they were transferred to the royal authority. By the end of the 17th century the Althing lost all of its judicial powers and was just a novelty thing. It was stopped in 1800 and then reconvened in 1843, where it has since met in Reykjavik.
Postings from Viking. No
I found this website contained a lot of the same information as our books.
Canute the Great.
He was the son of Svein Forkbeard, Harald Bluetooth’s grandson, and King Gorm’s great-grandson.
In 1000, Saxon king, Aethelred, became the king of England. He issued an order for all Danish men to be killed. In this massacre, Svein Forkbeards sister and brother-in-law were murdered. This led Svein to England to seek revenge on their deaths. Along with him he brought his son Canute. Svein began conquering England and Aethelred fled for Normandy.
Svein passed away in 1014 and Aethelred came back to reclaim his country. He accomplished this and expelled Svein’s army, who was led by Canute.
In the year 1016, Canute returned with an army and won the battle of Ashingdon against Aethelred’s successor, Edmund ‘Ironside’. After this battle, Canute and Edmund drew up the Treaty of Olney. This left Canute with Danelaw and the English midlands, while Edmund received southern England. When Edmund died shortly after this treaty, Canute became the first Viking king of England.
In 1017 he married Aethelred’s widow and she bore him two children, Harthacnut and Gunhild. Even though a devote Christian, he still had a mistress, Aelfgifu, who gave him two sons, Harald and Svein.
In 1018 Canute’s brother, Harald king of Denmark, died. Canute traveled to Denmark to retain the crown. Within two years Canute had conquered Norway and put his mistress and son Svein in charge of it.
In the late 1020’ Canute became “king of all England, and of Denmark, of the Norwegians, and part of the Swedes.
Canute accomplished many great things during his rule. He united his entire kingdom together. This kept it free from internal and external unrest. He expanded trade, and allowed Anglo-Scandinavian art and Christianity to flourish. His respect for old English laws brought a sense of justice and he had a high regard for individual rights. Also during this time he did penance for his Viking forefathers by building churches and giving generous gifts to others.
In the year 1035 Canute passed away at the age of forty. He was buried in Winchester. Canute’s sons could not keep his kingdom together and it began to break up shortly after his death. His son Harald became king of England, but died in 1040. He was only known for his huge taxes he imposed. None of Canutes sons produced any heirs, so Aethelred’s son Edward “the Confessor” became the English king in 1042
More reflections from Else Roesdahl's THE VIKINGS.
Viking society was made up of many different classes. These were based on social and economic differences. We know the most about kings/cheiftian, free farmers, and slaves.
The slave class of the Vikings were usually poor and had no political status. They could be born into slavery or were sentenced to slavery for some crime they committed. Slaves could be sold or bartered for something else. The vikings often brought slaves home from their raiding expeditions. One buyer of Christian slaves was the Christian church. Their policy did not tolerate Christians being the slaves of pagens!!
Slaves were under the control of their owners, but slavery was regulated. Higher ranking women slaves and beautiful women could find themselves living better off than their counterparts. The book also states that talented men could also find themselves better off than non talented slaves.
They could also earn their freedom. It could either be granted or they could work it off.
FREEMAN
Another class was the free man. They were the majority of society. They included farm owners, large land owners, tenant farmers, hunters, farm workers, servants, craftsman, professional warriors and merchants. They had the right to express their opinions at THE THING (if anyone has found a website that tells more about the Thing please let me know!!) They had the right to bear arms and were under the protection of the law. It seems that depending on how wealthy you were also depended on your status in this class. A more wealthy man had more clout than a less well off man.
A major status of wealth was how much land you owned.
These are my reflections from the book THE VIKINGS by Else Roesdahl.
The land that the Vikings originated from was a difficult one. It varies from high mountains to low fjords to being partially in the Artic Circle and down to Mediterrean climate. The vast differences in this would make it unpredictable. The vast amount of land that they had to travel on, through, and around it just mind blowing based on the transportation technology they had.
Many vikings did not travel around the world destroying things. They made homes and worked their land or they performed some sort of craft/trade and provided it to the public. The book tells us about the eddaic poem Rigspula. The poem talks about three classes of people: Slaves, Free Farmers, and Warlords. There seems to have been distinct differences in classes and that they readily displayed their class by what they wore.
Clothes were found to have been made out of linen, wool, fur, and sometimes silk. Some had decorative arm bands and gold embrodery. They were usually dyed from natural products such as walnut shell. Men wore britches and tunics with belts. Over the tunics they wore cloaks that were broached and left open on the sword arm. The cloaks were usually made out of heavier material perhaps wool. I am sure this was needed living in the cold wintery climates. Women wore a underdress with tunic over the top. Its straps were held by broaches, but this depended on your wealth and social status by what size or if you had any broaches.
Jewerly was also a favorite of the vikings, but it served more than the purpose of accessorizing your outfit. It was a display of social status, but you were also carrying your money on your body. Silver neck and arm bands were usually about the same weight and you could pay for items with them. You could also cut them up to make change if you needed to. I wonder what the grocery clerk would think if I went in and paid for my groceries with one silver bracelet and two links from my gold watch!! Jewerly worn by women also displayed their husbands wealth. Depending on how many coins he had the wife wore a certain amount of neck bands. Usually the bigger your broach or jewerly was sign of how high ranked you were in society.
Their lives also revolved around the home. It was usually a house on a plot with locked outbuildings. The women of the house possesed the keys for them, so that does show how respected women were. They seemed to have good design in houses with the open hearth being in the center room. This again show how important food was to them. The roof had loveres for smoke to escape the house, but I bet it was not that much fun to be in there. You probably had a headache within 5 minutes of coming inside.
Today I was going to just check out a few of the websites from the syllabus. I ended up surfing for 2 hours by continually clicking a link to a different site.
The guide: historymedren.about.com/cs/vikings was loaded with links of information. There were two that gave me some information that would be used more for Trivial Pursuit. www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html gave a list of archaeological finds of ninth and tenth century foods in the viking era. They actually ate alot of the same foods that we do now. Deer, Beef, Pork, Lamb, and Chicken seemed to be the most common meats throughout the Viking region. Those communities that were along the sea had fish and shellfish in their diets.They also seemed to have a good selection of fruit in their diets. Plums were the most common fruit between the communities listed.
Another website that I linked on to was www.gamecabinet.com/history/Hnef.html. It was about a game called HNEFATAFL. It translates into Kings Table. The board looks like a chess board, but varies in size from 7x7 inches to 19x19. The pieces are pegged so the board has holes drilled into it. It was known in Scandinavia before 400 and the Vikings brought it to the areas they conquered. From the description it sounds like a cross between checkers, stratigo, and chess.
There were also other games that the Vikings used to play. Chess (Skak-Tafl), Tabula (Kvatru-Tafl) it is the ancestor of Backgammon, Fox and Geese (Ref-Skak), Three Men's Morris (Harae-Taft), and Nine Men's Morris.
On the website www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~cherryne/myth.cgi is a good site to learn about the Norse Gods and creation theory. It gives a brief description of each of the gods. This site also had a copy of Runes. It was the Elder Germanic Futhark. There is a link at the bottom of the page that will take you to other sites about Runes.
I had to cut my visit short to viking.no/e/people.htm . I found information on some famous vikings like Knud the Great, Leif Ericsson, and Olav the Stout. There are also link words in these stories that will give you greater detail in to that subject.
These are my observations from my current readings of THE PENGUIN HISTORICAL ATLAS of THE VIKINGS by John Haywood, Pengiun Group, 1995
I have made it to the Viking Raids. When I picture a Viking Ship I am think more along the line of Hagar the Horrible. A beautiful ship that consisted of about 20 oarsmen and a few crewman walking around, but not big like The Mayflower. I am getting a broader picture reading about how they traveled and the size of their ships. How they came up with the calculation of the Viking Army size by figuring how many men needed to guard the burhs really amazed me.
To me the Vikings have always been portrayed as destroyers and the cause for loss of historical docturnes and some cities extintion. This is not necessarly true. If anything their raids had a short term effect on the agricultural ecomomy and most towns were able to rebuild. They did have a positive effect on Ireland and England by benefitting trade and promoting people living in cities, by either establishing them or by making the Anglo-Saxons cities a more heavly guarded town.
The only real long term damage the Vikings did was to the monastaries, which people were just appalled that they would have attacked a place of God. They caused an end to monastick life in northwest Europe. Many books were destroyed for their covers or for the precious metals.
This post is my observations from my current readings of The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood, Pengiun Group, 1995.
I have been very interested in the role of women in the Viking era. What I am learning has really surprised me. The role of women was usually confined to household duties, but they took charge when their husbands were away. This, to me, shows a great respect and equality that instead of having a father or brother take over while he was away, he just had his wife do it. The Pengiun Historical Atlas of Vikings describes marriages as "an alliance between equals". Women were also entitled to part of the assets when they divorced. This sounds almost more like a modern tradition. After marriage she also owned her dowry, which I am not familiar with this, but always thought it went to the husband. The Atlas also states that women grew in status as they aged and men decreased.
If you lived in the Danish Kingdom from about 808-853 you would have had to check everyday to see who your leader was. It changed every few years because either the king died, killed in battle or by exhiled relative, or exhiled by a previous king or relative. I don't think that I would have wanted to be a leader during this time. You never would know if your cousin was coming to visit you or was coming to kill you and take over tour throne!
I am also interested in the Shipbuilding and Seafaring. The Vikings displayed great shipbuilding skills. Just having the craftsmanship to cut the lumber and put it together for ocean readiness. They obviously took great pride in their ships by displaying carvings on them. The designing of the ships in itself was a great feat. I do wonder what the ratio of ships that set off to sail to those who did not make it back. It is amazing to me that they were able to travel as far as they did with such simple navigational tools.
