The A to Z of the Vikings 26 pps

Charlemagnepromoted the writing of history at his court, but it is unclear whether or not he ordered the writing of the Royal Frankish Annals.. These Annals include many details about th

have consisted of Danes and Vikings from the Norse colonies in the

West too After leaving Norway, Rollo then apparently proceeded to

raid in the Hebrides, England, the Low Countries, and France, before

establishing himself in an area along the Seine River According to

Norman annals, based on the accounts of Dudo of St-Quentin and William of Jumièges, he arrived in this region in 876, but modern

historians prefer a date nearer to the year 900

Charles III the Simple granted Rouen and the surrounding area to

Rollo sometime after 911 and, in return, Rollo agreed to end his at-tacks on Charles’s kingdom Rollo was also baptized and he married Gisla, the daughter of Charles the Simple After Gisla’s death, he is said to have married Popa, daughter of Berengar of Bayeux How-ever, despite the treaty, conversion, and marriage, Rollo continued to

raid in the region, and both he and his son, William I Longsword,

considerably extended their territory in northern France: by 924, Rollo had expanded his control to the River Vire, incorporating Bayeux He is then said by Dudo to have abdicated in favor of

William c 925 See also GÖNGU-HRÓLFR’S SAGA; ST

CLAIR-SUR-EPTE, TREATY OF

ROSKILDE FJORD See SKULDELEV.

ROYAL FRANKISH ANNALS (Annales regni Francorum) Annals

composed at the royal court of Charlemagne, king of the Franks.

They cover the period 741 to 829, at which point the Annals of St-Bertin begin Conventionally, the Royal Frankish Annals are

di-vided into three parts, covering the periods 741–795, 795–807, and 808–829, on the basis of differences in language and style Although

the Annals were clearly written by more than one person, the authors are unknown Einhard, author of the Life of Charlemagne, has been

suggested as one possibility, but although there is some resemblance, this appears to be mainly due to the fact that Einhard used these

an-nals himself The oldest manuscript of the Anan-nals was found in the

monastery of Lorsch, near Worms, but their content clearly demon-strates they were written at the royal court

The Annals were begun at some point between 787 and 793, by the

first author, on the basis of some now-lost annals The first section is therefore not a contemporary record, unlike the second and third

sec-228 • ROSKILDE FJORD

tions The reason for writing the Annals is unknown Charlemagne

promoted the writing of history at his court, but it is unclear whether

or not he ordered the writing of the Royal Frankish Annals It cer-tainly seems quite likely that he was involved, as the Annals

essen-tially present a record of his achievements and those of his son and

successor, Louis the Pious Moreover, the chronicler keeps quiet

about disasters in the field and about internal troubles during the first section; and he also seems to have intimate knowledge of the affairs

he was writing about—the campaigns, the composition of armies, and the purpose of the military action

These Annals include many details about the relationship between

the Danes and the Franks in the late eighth and early ninth century, at

a time when Charlemagne was expanding his empire Denmark is first mentioned in 777 when the Saxon chieftain, Widukind, sought refuge with King Sigifrid in Denmark; in 782 King Sigifrid sent

am-bassadors to the Frankish court; and Viking activity is recorded in

800 and again in 810 and 820 The Royal Frankish Annals also

con-stitute a key source for the study of early Danish history, being the only source to record the names of Danish kings of the late eighth and early ninth centuries, although the form of these differs from the

Scandinavian versions: for example, Heriold is Harald Klak, God-ofrid is Godfred, and Sigifrid is Sigfred The Annals are particularly

useful for tracing the dynastic conflicts in early-ninth-century Den-mark: Louis the Pious supported Harald against the sons of Godfred;

but one of these sons, Horik, won the Danish throne in 827 and held

it until his death in 854 The Annals also record the conversion of the

Danish king, Harald Klak, and the subsequent launch of Ansgar’s mission to convert the Danes and Swedes to Christianity However,

these missionary efforts by the Franks failed, and in 845 Horik at-tacked and burned Ansgar’s cathedral in Hamburg

RUNE Character in the alphabet used by Scandinavians during the

pe-riod c 200–c 1400, before the Roman alphabet became the dominant script This runic alphabet, known as the fuþark or futhark after its

first six letters, originally consisted of 24 characters, but at the be-ginning of the ninth century, it was reduced to just 16 characters in Scandinavia There were two main versions of this 16-rune, or

younger, futhark: short-twig runes and long-twig runes The forms of

RUNE • 229

the short-twig runes were simpler than those of the long-twig futhark Both of these younger futharks were, however, insufficient for

repre-senting all the sounds of the Old Scandinavian language, and in the period after the 10th century, new “dotted” versions of some of these runes appeared, which helped to distinguish between different

sounds, for example, k and g, d and t, e, and i The futhark used in the

medieval period was a mix of short-twig and long-twig forms, aug-mented with several of these “dotted” runes

During the Viking Age, the runic alphabet was used primarily on memorial stones Some 3,000 rune-stones have survived from this period, the vast majority in Sweden In the eastern Swedish province

of Uppland, about 1,800 rune-stones commemorate people who had died, both at home and abroad, although occasionally, rune-stones record the deeds of people who were still alive Most of these Viking-Age rune-stones are inscribed with the same formulaic commemora-tive text: “X (person) raised this stone in memory of Y (another person), his or her Z (relationship between X and Y).” A Christian prayer, the signature of the rune-carver, or a brief description of the status or achievements of Y, and sometimes X, may follow this com-memorative formula

Scholars are still uncertain as to why so many rune-stones were raised in Scandinavia during this brief period Older theories linked

them to Viking raids and to burial customs in the transitional period

between pagan and Christian beliefs However, these theories do not account for either the small number of stones that commemorate

peo-ple who died away from home (c 10 percent of the total) or the fact

that rune-stones generally do not seem to be associated with burials Current scholarship regards the rune-stones as a product of a complex mix of social and economic factors, which varied according to time and place

Runes are often assumed to be a magical script used by non-Christians, and it is therefore frequently believed that their use was

opposed by the Christian church However, the futhark was a

prac-tical alphabet, used in the Germanic world in the period before the

Roman alphabet became dominant The spread of Christianity was

certainly important in establishing the dominance of the Roman script However, extant inscriptions from Scandinavia show that runes were used much more commonly for Christian texts and

mes-230 • RUNE

sages than for other non-Christian religious and magical purposes in the Viking Age

RUS The name Russia is derived from the word Rus, found in the

Slavonic languages, and paralleled by Rhos in Latin, ’Rös in Greek,

and Rüs in Arabic Rus was, along with Varangian, one of the words

used to describe the Scandinavians active in Russia and the East The

etymology of this word is usually explained as Finnish ruotsi

“Swede,” which is derived in turn from the Swedish word for

“rower” and which is found in the name Roslagen, the legal area around Stockholm However, an alternative derivation may be from

Greek rusioi “blondes.”

Although some Soviet historians argued that the Rus were Slavs

rather than Scandinavians (see Normanist Controversy), there is

contemporary evidence to support the Scandinavian origin of the

Rus The Annals of St-Bertin record that some envoys of the prince

of Rhos (sent by Emperor Theophilus of Byzantium) visited the Frankish court of Louis the Pious in 839, and it identifies them as

be-ing of Swedish origin (gentis Sueonum) Bishop Liutprand of

Cre-mona identified the Rhos with Northmen in 968: “There is a people dwelling in the north whom for some bodily quality the Greeks call

Rus, we, however, by reason of their homeland call them

Nordman-nos.” The Rus names for the rapids on the River Dnieper, given in the 10th-century Administration of the Empire, also appear to be of

Scandinavian origin and are certainly distinguished from the

Slavonic names by Constantine II Porphyrogenitos However, by

the 11th century, the Rus had largely been assimilated among the Slavonic population

RUSSIA, VIKINGS IN Scandinavians called Russia either Svíþjóð

hinn mikla (“Sweden the Great” or “Greater Sweden”) or Garðaríki

(“Kingdom of Towns”) Viking activity in European Russia

(be-tween the Arctic and Black Seas in the north and south respectively, and between Poland in the west and the Urals in the east) is tradi-tionally said to have begun in the mid-ninth century, with the arrival

of the Rus leader, Rurik (d c 879), as recorded in the Russian Pri-mary Chronicle However, archaeological evidence suggests that

Scandinavian, and particularly Swedish, merchants were active in

RUSSIA, VIKINGS IN • 231

the region considerably earlier than this, in the mid-eighth century.

They reached Russia by a number of routes, and the Rivers Dnieper

and Volga opened up Russia to them From the Dnieper, they could

sail into the Black Sea and then to Byzantium, the capital of the

Byzantine Empire (Grikkland) An 11th-century Scandinavian runic

(see rune) inscription, raised in memory of a man called Karl by his business partner (see félag), Grani, was found on the island

Berezany in the Dnieper outlet to the Black Sea From the Volga, the Vikings could sail down to the Caspian Sea and reach the Middle

East (Serkland ) The Arabic writer and diplomat, Ibn Fadlan, gives

a vivid picture of a Rus community on the Volga in the 920s

The Scandinavians did not only develop trading routes through Russia, traveling onto destinations in the south and east There is also archaeological evidence that they settled in Russia Scandinavians es-tablished trading centers in order to take advantage of the region’s

wealth, settling in towns such as Staraja Ladoga, Gorodis˘c˘e, Nov-gorod, and Kiev The extent of this wealth can be traced in the huge

number of Arabic dirhams (silver coins) that have been found in Swe-den, particularly Gotland These were received in exchange for, among other things, northern furs, slaves, and amber This trade with the Arabic world appears to have increased in the mid-ninth century, reaching a peak by about 950 It subsequently declined following the exhaustion of the silver mines in Asia and the collapse of the Samanid state, and Russian trade was reoriented westward to the Baltic

Scandinavians encountered a number of distinct and different peo-ple during their travels in European Russia: Finns and Balts in the northwest, Bulghars in the northeast, Khazars in the south, and East

Slavs in western Russia The Russian Primary Chronicle emphasizes

the political and economic overlordship that the Scandinavians en-joyed in Novgorod and Kiev, but it seems that the Scandinavian rulers were rapidly assimilated to the Slavic population of Russia This can be traced in the names of the Rus dynasty; Svyatoslav I (d 978) was the first to have a Slavonic name, and he gave a Slavonic name to his son, Vladimir I (d 1015), who adopted Eastern Orthodox

Christianity as the “state” religion in 988 While Vladimir employed Scandinavian mercenaries or Varangians to help him in his

cam-paign for control of Kiev, he dismissed most of them from his service

232 • RUSSIA, VIKINGS IN

following his victory as they posed a potential threat to his position

in Russia Nevertheless, links with Scandinavia appear to have

thrived during the reign of Jaroslav the Wise He was married to In-gigerd, the daughter of the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung; his daughter, Ellisif, was married to the Norwegian king, Harald Hard-Ruler; and Jaroslav’s court appears to have had prominent Scandi-navian visitors, such as Olaf Haraldsson and Magnus I the Good of Norway and Ingvar the Far-Traveled of Sweden.

RUSSIAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE Also known as Nestor’s

Chroni-cle, from the name of the monk Nestor, who was once believed to

have written the Chronicle in Kiev around 1100 In Slavonic, the

Chronicle is usually called Povest’ from the first words of its title,

meaning “The Narrative (of Past Times).” The work survives in two major versions: the so-called Laurentian version, named after the 14th-century copyist, Laurence; and the 15th-century Hypatian ver-sion, named after the monastery where it was found These versions are both based upon a 12th-century compilation, probably made in Kiev, and this 12th-century compilation in turn seems to have used largely 11th-century material The monk Nestor is believed to have been one of the compilers involved in this work

The Chronicle takes the form of an annalistic account, a

year-by-year record of events between 852 and 1110, centered on the Kiev dy-nasty However, it is essentially an attempt by a converted people to

interpret their past: there are long biblical sections and the Chronicle

is rich in legend and myth One of the most important of these myths

for historians of the Vikings is the episode known as “The Calling of

the Varangians,” which describes how warring Slavic peoples

de-cided to ask the Varangians to come and rule over them in 862, as

they could not decide who among them should be king This episode

forms the center of the so-called Normanist Controversy over who founded the Russian state: Scandinavians or Slavs, and many of the

details are suspect The whole episode is rather reminiscent of other legends of origin, and while Rurik is known from other sources, his brothers—Sineus and Truvor—may be literary creations to explain later Scandinavian presence in a number of urban centers in Russia The chronology is also problematic, as we know from archaeology that there were Scandinavians in Russia in the early ninth century,

RUSSIAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE • 233

and that by 860 they were organized enough to attack Byzantium

from their bases in Russia

Nevertheless, the Chronicle does contain some useful details about

the activities of the Rus in the 9th and 10th centuries in the areas that

are now Russia, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine, including a number of

journeys from their base in Kiev to Byzantium The Russian Primary Chronicle also contains details about a number of treaties signed by

the Rus and the Byzantine Greeks in 907, 912, 945 and lists the names of the Rus negotiators; most of these names appear to be Scan-dinavian names that have been slavonicized to some degree

– S –

SÆMUND THE LEARNED (ON Sæmundr inn fróðði Sigfússon)

(1056–1133) Icelandic priest and scholar, Sæmund was the son of a priest and his family lived at Oddi, Iceland’s principal cultural and

religious center in the south of the island He studied for a number of years in France and returned to Iceland around 1076 He built a new church at Oddi and was instrumental in establishing tithe laws on the island in 1096 Sæmund married and had three sons and a daughter;

his grandson, Jón Lóptsson, was Snorri Sturluson’s foster father,

and the so-called Oddaverjar became one of the most influential and

important families in the late Icelandic republic Sæmund is most fa-mous, however, for his historical writing Although none of his work

has survived, it is referred to by several later writers, including Ari

Thorgilsson and the author of Nóregs konunga tal It appears that

Sæmund wrote a short chronological history of Norwegian kings, probably in Latin (Snorri names Ari Thorgilsson as the first writer of

history in Icelandic) The Poetic Edda was once believed to have

been the work of Sæmund and was known for a time as Sæmundar Edda.

SAGAS OF ANCIENT TIMES (ON Fornaldarsögur) The so-called

Sagas of Ancient Times are not, as their name suggests, historical

ac-counts, but rather heroic legends and adventure tales that were, for

the most part, written in 14th-century Iceland Although they often

took historical figures as their subject, the story that was built around

234 • SÆMUND THE LEARNED (1056–1133)

these characters lacked historical foundation For example, one of

the most famous of these sagas, Göngu-Hrolfs Saga, is about the

founder of the Norse colony in Normandy, more usually known as Rollo However, the fantastical story recounted in this saga is clearly

just that, a story or fairy tale There are about 30 surviving examples

of Sagas of Ancient Times, and the most well known of these are Völ-sunga Saga and the Saga of Hrólfr Kraki.

SAGAS OF THE ICELANDERS (ON Íslendingasögur) The

so-called Sagas of the Icelanders or Family Sagas are perhaps the best

known of the sagas and include such classics as Egil’s Saga and Njal’s Saga Most of them, as their names suggests, are set in

Ice-land, and they concern the lives of Icelandic farmers and chieftains

in the period 870–1050 There is a preoccupation with representing Iceland as a bastion of freedom, centered on the heroic farmer who had no need of king or state About 40 of this type of saga are pre-served, and the majority date to the 13th century Although the sagas are usually set in the past, these sagas are more literary creations than historical works, and they are romance-like in their structure

Unlike Kings’ Sagas, the vast majority of these sagas are also

anonymous

SAGAS OF ST OLAF As well as the saga of Olaf Haraldsson found

in Snorri’s Heimskringla, a number of other sagas about the

Norwe-gian martyr king are known The oldest of these is the Oldest Saga of

St Olaf that was written at the end of the 12th century, and which

sur-vives in just six fragments Although the language of these fragments

is Icelandic, the author is unknown A Norwegian revision of this

saga, known as the Legendary Saga of St Olaf, was composed in the

Trøndelag region of Norway in the mid-13th century; this survives in just one manuscript and includes considerable detail about his

mira-cles in order to demonstrate his spiritual significance Snorri

Sturlu-son’s Separate Saga of St Olaf, which was revised for inclusion in

his Heimskringla, appears to have been partially based upon a

biog-raphy of the king and saint that was written by Styrmir Kárason

around 1220 Parts of this biography are found in Flateyjarbók This

Separate Saga was, in turn, adapted and augmented by new material

in the 14th century

SAGAS OF ST OLAF • 235

ST ANSGAR See ANSGAR, ST.

ST BRICE’S DAY MASSACRE Massacre of “all the Danish men

who were among the English race” that was ordered to take place on

St Brice’s day (13 November) 1002 by Æthelred II According to

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the massacre was ordered because of

the king’s suspicions of a Danish plot to kill him and claim his

king-dom The victims may have included Gunnhild, the sister of Svein Forkbeard of Denmark, and her husband, Pallig A charter of

Æthelred, made some two years later, also refers to this massacre with reference to St Frideswide’s Minster in Oxford This charter compensated St Frideswide’s, which had been burned down by local residents because some Danes were inside, seeking sanctuary

ST CLAIR-SUR-EPTE, TREATY OF This is said to be the name of

an agreement signed by Rollo and Charles the Simple in 911, in

which Rollo was granted the territory of Neustria, which formed the

core of the later duchy of Normandy However, while it seems that

Rollo and Charles did come to some kind of deal, this treaty and the date 911 may be a later invention or tradition From contemporary sources, we know that Rollo and his Danish army besieged Chartres in

911, but that they were defeated The next time Rollo is mentioned

in written sources is sometime between 913–918, when he appears as

a Christian leader, with full authority over Rouen In a royal charter of

918, Charles the Simple refers to some kind of deal with Rollo, by which Rollo was given land in return for defending Charles’s kingdom This charter suggests that the agreement with Rollo was made some-time between 911 and 918, and probably 911–913, but at what point is unknown, and whether there ever was a Treaty of St Clair-sur-Epte

is also unclear Certainly the royal charter of 918 does not specify the area that Rollo was given, although it appears to have been upper Nor-mandy (the eastern part of the later Duchy)

ST OLAF See OLAF HARALDSSON, ST.

SAXO GRAMMATICUS (c 1150–c 1220) Twelfth-century Danish

writer, whose nickname Grammaticus comes from the elaborate

Latin prose of his great historical work, History of the Danes Little

236 • ST ANSGAR

is known about Saxo’s life except that he was probably from the is-land of Sjælis-land and that he came from a family of warriors He was probably a clerk in the service of Absalon, who was bishop of

Roskilde from 1158–1192 and archbishop of Lund from 1178 to

1201 Saxo is first mentioned in Sven Aggesen’s Historia Regum

Danicae compendiosa, where he is described as writing the history of

the Danish kings of the 11th century

SCAR BOAT BURIAL The boat (see ships) burial at Scar on the

beach of the Orkney island of Sanday was discovered in September

1991 and subsequently excavated during storms in November and December 1991 The boat was clinker-built with oak planks and mea-sured about 7 meters in length, with space for perhaps six oars A simple burial chamber had been created by filling the east end of the boat with stones, which was then separated from the rest of the boat with a large upright slab In the remaining space, three bodies had

been laid out: in the central part of the boat, a woman in her 70s and

a child of about 10 or 11 were placed lying on their backs; and in the more cramped west end of the boat, a man in his early 30s, who was about 1.8 meters tall, had been placed on his back, with his legs bent

up to fit into the space This west end of the burial had been partly destroyed by high tides and sea erosion, and there had also been some damage to the skeleton of the woman, caused by an otter’s nest that had been built there The remaining grave goods consisted of, for the man, a broken sword in its scabbard, a quiver of eight arrows, 22 whalebone gaming pieces, a comb, two lead weights, and possibly a shield; and for the woman, a spectacular and highly unusual whale-bone plaque, believed to be used for smoothing linen, a gilt-bronze equal-armed brooch, an antler comb, two spindle-whorls, an iron weaving-batten, shears, a needle-case containing two needles and thread, a sickle, and a maplewood box Both the plaque and brooch have close parallels in northern Norway, and it has been suggested that this woman may have been among the early Norwegian settlers

of Orkney The burial is dated to the end of the ninth century

SCOTLAND, VIKINGS IN Before the first Viking raids on the

is-lands and coast of Scotland, the modern country of Scotland was a collection of regional kingdoms rather than a single political unit

SCOTLAND, VIKINGS IN • 237