The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are (55 page)

55
Bischoff,
Manuscripts and
Libraries
, p. 148.

56
Ibid., pp. 67–8.

57
Emerton,
Letters of St.
Boniface
, pp. 34–5.

58
Ibid., p. 167.

59
Ernst Dümmler (ed.),
Epistolae
Karolini aevi
, vol. IV (Berlin, 1925), p. 17.

60
Gameson, ‘Circulation of
Books’, p. 366.

61
Bischoff,
Manuscripts and
Libraries
, p. 12.

62
See Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘An
Anglo-Latin Letter in Boulogne-sur-Mer’,
Medium Ævum
48 (1979), pp.
1ff. and especially 11ff. for commentary; pp. 15ff. for other women’s
letters.

63
Philippe Depreux, ‘Ambitions et
limites des réformes culturelles à l’époque carolingienne’,
Revue
Historique
304, 3 (2002), p. 729.

64
Bischoff,
Manuscripts and
Libraries
, p. 104.

65
McKitterick,
Carolingians and the
Written Word
, pp. 261–3.

66
Bede,
Lives of the Abbots
,
in Webb and Farmer,
Age of Bede
, p. 203; for the value of the land, see
Michelle P. Brown, ‘Bede’s Life in Context’, in Scott de Gregorio
(ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Bede
(Cambridge, 2010), p. 19.

67
Bischoff,
Manuscripts and
Libraries
, p. 76.

68
G. Waitz (ed.),
Vitae Anskarii et
Rimberti
(Hannover, 1884), p. 32.

69
McKitterick,
Carolingians and the
Written Word
, p. 135.

70
Quoted in Peter Sawyer,
The
Wealth of Anglo-Saxon England
(Oxford, 2013), pp. 103–4.

71
McKitterick,
Carolingians and the
Written Word
, p. 217 for Gerald; pp. 247, 258; pp. 223–5 for Dhuoda (I have
adjusted the translation).

72
Rosamond McKitterick,
History and
Memory in the Carolingian World
(Cambridge, 2004), pp. 218–19.

1
Anne-Marie Flambard Héricher,
Introduction to Héricher (ed.),
La Progression des Vikings des raids à la
colonisation
(Rouen, 2003), pp. 9–10.

2
Abū Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Bakir
al-Zuhrī in his
Book of Geography
; from Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone,
Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness
(London, 2012), p. 110.

3
Cf
Helgakvida Hundingsbana in
Fyrri
26 in Carolyne Larrington’s translation of
The Poetic
Edda
(Oxford, 1996): ‘the nobles hoisted up / the well-sewn sail in
Vasrinsfjord’. Other translators prefer simply ‘woven’ but the
notion of sewing is present. (Carolyne Larrington, personal communication.) The army
leaving port is based on the same poem, verses 26–9, pp. 117–18.

4
See Jan Bill, ‘Viking Age Ships
and Seafaring in the West’, in Iben Skibsted Klæsøe (ed.),
Viking Trade
and Settlement in Continental Western Europe
(Oslo, 2010), pp. 34, 38 for
sails; p. 27 for oars and status; pp. 22, 23 for sailing season and times.

5
Cf. John Haywood,
Dark Age Naval
Power
(London, 1991), pp. 71ff. for the limited evidence that Saxons used
sails.

6
In
Óláfs Saga Helga
, ch. 175;
at p. 464 in Snorri Sturluson (tr. Lee M. Hollander),
Heimskringla
(Austin,
2009).

7
Else Mundal, ‘The Picture of the
World in Old Norse Sources’, in Gerhard Jaritz and Juhan Kreem (eds.),
The
Edges of the Medieval World
(Budapest, 2009), pp. 40, 43–5.

8
Cf. Søren Thirslund,
Viking
Navigation
(Roskilde, 2007), passim.

9
Cf. Kristel Zilmer, ‘The
Representation of Waterborne Traffic in Old Norse Narratives’,
Viking and
Medieval Scandinavia
2 (2006), p. 242.

10
On the construction, see H. Hellmuth
Andersen, ‘Danevirke’, in Pam J. Crabtree,
Medieval Archaeology: An
Encyclopedia
(New York, 2001), p. 72; on politics, see Stéphane Lebecq,
‘Aux origines du phénomène Viking’, in Héricher,
Progression des
Vikings
, pp. 17ff.

11
Cf. Knut Helle, ‘The History of
the Early Viking Age in Norway’, in Howard B. Clarke, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and
Raghnall Ó Floinn (eds.),
Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age
(Dublin, 1998), p. 244.

12
Wilhelm Holmqvist, ‘Helgö, an
Early Trading Settlement in Central Sweden’, in Rupert Bruce-Mitford (ed.),
Recent Archaeological Excavations in Europe
(London, 1975), pp. 121–3;
pp. 119–20 for the crozier; cf. Jutta Waller, ‘Swedish Contacts with the
Eastern Baltic in the pre-Viking and Early Viking Ages: The Evidence from
Helgö’,
Journal of Baltic Studies
13, 3 (1982), p. 259.

13
Thomas S. Noonan, ‘Why the
Vikings First Came to Russia’,
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
34, 3 (1986), pp. 321ff.; for the cataracts, see Sigfús Blöndal and Benedikt S.
Benedikz,
The Varangians of Byzantium
(Cambridge, 1978), pp. 8–12.

14
Dagfinn Skre, ‘Town and
Inhabitants’, in Skre (ed.),
Things from the Town: Artefacts and
Inhabitants in Viking-Age Kaupang
(Norske Oldfunn XXIV; Aarhus/Oslo, 2011),
pp. 443ff.

15
Inger Storli, ‘Ohthere and His
World – a Contemporary Perspective’, in Janet Bately and Anton Englert (eds.),
Ohthere’s Voyages: A Late 9th-Century Account of Voyages along the
Coasts of Norway and Denmark and Its Cultural Context
(Roskilde, 2007), pp.
89 for fishing; pp. 91, 93 for oil production; p. 94 for reindeer.

16
Janet Bately’s edition and
translation of Ohthere’s testimony, slipped into the text of the Anglo-Saxon
version of Orosius’
Historiarum adversum Paganos Libri Septem
, is in
Bately and Englert,
Ohthere’s Voyages
, p. 46 for riches; p. 44 for
ambition in his voyages.

17
Anton Englert, ‘Ohthere’s
Voyages Seen from a Nautical Angle’, in Bately and Englert,
Ohthere’s Voyages
, p.119 for winds.

18
Rudolf Simek, ‘Elusive Elysia,
or Which Way to Glasisvellir?’, in Rudolf Simek, Jónas Kristjánsson and Hans
Bekker-Nielsen (eds.),
Sagnaskemmtun
(Graz, 1986).

19
Francis J. Tschan (ed. and tr.),
Adam of Bremen: History of the Archbishops of Hamburg–Bremen
(New York,
2002), p. 206.

20
Ibid., p. 211.

21
Stefan Brink with Neil Price (eds.),
The Viking World
(Abingdon, 2012), pp. 564, 571 for Iceland; p. 606 for
Tyrkir.

22
See Michael McCormick, ‘New
Light on the “Dark Ages”: How the Slave Trade Fuelled the Carolingian
Economy’,
Past and Present
177 (November 2002), pp. 42–3 for Muslim
economy and slave prices; p. 46 for quotation from Paul the Deacon.

23
Wilfried Hartmann (ed.),
Die
Konzilien der Karolingischen Teilreiche 843–859
(Hannover, 1984), p.
124.

24
Brink with Price,
Viking
World
, p. 545.

25
Howard B. Clarke, ‘Proto-Towns
and Towns in Ireland and Britain in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries’, in Clarke
et al.,
Ireland and Scandinavia
, p. 336.

26
Ibrāhīm ibn Ya‘qūb reported so
in 965; in Lunde and Stone,
Ibn Fadlān
, p. 163.

27
Hávamál
, verse 13, in Andy Orchard (tr. and ed.),
The Elder Edda
(London, 2011), p. 16.

28
Stéphane Lebecq,
Marchands et
navigateurs frisons du haut Moyen Âge
, vol. 1:
Essai
(Lille,
1983), vol. 1, p. 129.

29
Black skin in a dead body might mean
nitre in the soil where it was kept, or even some crude kind of mummification; nitre
would account for the preservation.

30
In Orchard,
Elder Edda
:
Thrymskvida
17, p. 99, for Thor;
Helgakvida Hjörvardssonar
20,
p. 130, for Atli.

31
Ibn Fadlān’s account is in
Lunde and Stone,
Ibn Fadl‚n
, pp. 45ff.

32
David Wyatt,
Slaves and Warriors
in Medieval Britain and Ireland 800–1200
(Leiden, 2009), p. 142.

33
Pierre Baudin,
‘L’Insertion des Normands dans le monde franc fin IX–Xème siècles:
l’exemple des pratiques matrimoniales’, in Héricher,
Progression des
Vikings
, pp. 114–15.

34
Lunde and Stone,
Ibn Fadlān
,
p. 163.

35
Carolyne Larrington (tr. and ed.),
The Poetic Edda
(Oxford, 1996), in
Atlamal
, the Greenland poem
of Atli, verse 98, p. 232.

36
Judith Jesch,
Women in the Viking
Age
(Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 91, 95, 176–8.

37
Oliver Elton (tr.),
The First
Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus
(London, 1894), p. 277
for the generalization and pp. 229–30 for the story of Alvid.

38
Wyatt,
Slaves and Warriors
,
p. 177; the interpretation is mine.

39
Ethelwerd’s Chronicle
, in J. A. Giles (ed. and tr.),
Old English
Chronicles
(London, 1906), p. 19.

40
Michael Swanton (ed. and tr.),
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
(London, 1996), pp. 54–5.

41
Ibid., pp. 54–7.

42
Angelo Forte, Richard Oram and
Frederik Pedersen,
Viking Empires
(Cambridge, 2005), p. 55 for the
speculations on which this is based.

43
Swanton,
Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle
, pp. 56–7.

44
Ernst Dümmler (ed.),
Epistolae
Karolini aevi
, vol. II (Berlin, 1895), letter 16, p. 42.

45
Ibid., letter 20, p. 57.

46
Ibid., letter 6, p. 31.

47
Ibid., letter 20, p. 57.

48
Ibid., letter 21, p. 59.

49
Ibid., letter 22, p. 59.

50
Kevin Crossley-Holland,
The
Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology
(Oxford, 1999), p. 26, cites
Wihtred’s laws from Dorothy Whitelock,
English Historical Documents
,
vol. I (London, 1979).

51
Peter Sawyer,
Anglo-Saxon
Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography
, accessible at
www.esawyer.org.uk
, item 134: ‘nisi
expeditione intra Cantiam contra paganos marinos cum classis migrantibus’.

52
Sawyer,
Anglo-Saxon
Charters
, items 160, dated 804, and 186, dated 822.

53
Timothy Reuter, ‘Plunder and
Tribute in the Carolingian Empire’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society
, 5th series, vol. 35 (1985), pp. 75–94. He quotes the
Annales
Fuldenses
for 885 and notes a similar Frisian victory over the Northmen in
876 where the winners ‘took away the treasure and divided it among
themselves …’

54
Henry Mayr-Harting,
‘Charlemagne, the Saxons and the Imperial Coronation of 800’,
English Historical Review
111, 444 (November 1996), pp. 1113ff.

55
Charles H. Robinson (tr.),
Anskar: The Apostle of the North 801–865, Translated from the Vita Anskarii
by Bishop Rimbert, His Fellow Missionary and Successor
(London, 1922), pp.
54, 56, 116, 105.

56
Florin Curta, ‘Merovingian and
Carolingian Gift Giving’,
Speculum
81, 3 (2006), p. 690.

57
Robinson,
Anskar
, p. 38.

58
Eric Vanneufville,
Heliand:
L’Évangile de la Mer du Nord
(Turnhout, 2008), pp. 27–8.

59
I have used Vanneufville,
Heliand
, but also G. Ronald Murphy SJ,
The Heliand, the Saxon
Gospel
(Oxford, 1992), especially for his notes and commentary. For a
critique of Murphy, his interpretation and the possible errors in his translation,
see the review by Joseph Wilson in the
Journal of English and Germanic
Philology
94, 3 (July 1995), pp. 454–6; I have moderated my account
accordingly. With those caveats, G. Ronald Murphy,
The Saxon Savior: The
Germanic Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand
(New
York, 1989), is invaluable.

60
Murphy,
Heliand
, song 48, p.
130.

61
Ibid., song 2, p. 8.

62
Ibid., song 26, p. 72.

63
Ibid., song 14, p. 41, for nailed
ships; song 27, p. 75, and song 35, p. 95. for ‘high-horned’.

64
Ibid., song 16, p. 48 for salt.

65
Ibid., song 18, p. 52 for oaths; pp.
57, 157 for the cup and the toast; pp. 45, 122–3 for the moneychangers; pp. 50, 135
for ‘arrogant men’; pp. 64, 177 for ‘evil clan’.

66
Ibid., song 16, pp. 45–7, for these
military Beatitudes.

67
Haywood,
Dark Age Naval
Power
, pp. 118–19.

68
Annales regni Francorum
for 804, 808 and 810, cited in Lebecq,
Marchands et navigateurs frisons
, vol. 2:
Corpus des sources
écrites
, pp. 303–4.

69
Haywood,
Dark Age Naval
Power
, p. 119.

70
Stéphane Lebecq, ‘Les Vikings
en Frise: chronique d’un échec relatif’, in Pierre Baudin (ed.),
Les
Fondations scandinaves en Occident et les débuts du Duché de Normandie
(Caen, 2005), p. 102.

71
Quoted from Ermentar,
De
translationibus et miraculis Sancti Philiberti Libri II
, in Janet L.
Nelson, ‘England and the Continent in the Ninth Century: II, the Vikings and
Others’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
, 6th series,
vol. 13 (2003), p. 9.