General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

The most noteworthy characteristic of these Northmen was the readiness with which they laid aside their own manners, habits, ideas, and institutions, and adopted those of the country in which they established themselves. "In Russia they became Russians; in France, Frenchmen; in England, Englishmen."

COLONIZATION OF ICELAND AND GREENLAND.—Iceland was settled by the Northmen in the ninth century, [Footnote: Iceland became the literary centre of the Scandinavian world. There grew up here a class of scalds, or bards, who, before the introduction of writing, preserved and transmitted orally the sagas, or legends, of the Northern races. About the twelfth century these poems and legends were gathered into collections known as the Elder, or poetic, Edda, and the Younger, or prose, Edda. These are among the most interesting and important of the literary memorials that we possess of the early Teutonic peoples. They reflect faithfully the beliefs, manners, and customs of the Norsemen, and the wild, adventurous spirit of their Sea-Kings.] and about a century later Greenland was discovered and colonized. In 1874 the Icelanders celebrated the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of their island, an event very like our Centennial of 1876.

America was reached by the Northmen as early as the beginning of the eleventh century: the Vineland of their traditions was possibly some part of the New England coast. It is believed that these first visitors to the continent made settlements in this new land; but no certain remains of these exist.

THE NORSEMEN IN RUSSIA.—While the Norwegians were sailing boldly out into the Atlantic and taking possession of the isles and coasts of the western seas, the Swedes were pushing their crafts across the Baltic and troubling the Slavonian tribes that dwelt upon the eastern shore of that sea. Either by right of conquest or through the invitation of the contentious Slavonian clans, the renowned Scandinavian chieftain Ruric acquired, in the year 862, kingly dignity, and became the founder of the first royal line of Russia, the successive kings of which family gradually consolidated the monarchy which was destined to become one of the foremost powers of Europe.

THE DANISH CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.—The Danes began to make descents upon the English coast about the beginning of the ninth century. These sea-rovers spread the greatest terror through the island; for they were not content with plunder, but being pagans, they took special delight in burning the churches and monasteries of the now Christian Anglo-Saxons, or English, as we shall hereafter call them. After a time the Danes began to make permanent settlements in the land. The wretched English were subjected to exactly the same treatment that they had inflicted upon the Celts. Much need had they to pray the petition of the Litany of those days, "From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us." Just when it began to look as though they would be entirely annihilated or driven from the island by the barbarous intruders, the illustrious Alfred (871-901) came to the throne of Wessex.

For six years the youthful king fought heroically at the head of his brave thanes; but each succeeding year the possessions of the English grew smaller, and finally Alfred and his few remaining followers were driven to take refuge in the woods and morasses.

After a time, however, the affairs of the English began to brighten. The Danes were overpowered, and though allowed to hold the northeastern half of the land, still they were forced nominally to acknowledge the authority of the English king.

For a full century following the death of Alfred, his successors were engaged in a constant struggle to hold in subjection the Danes already settled in the land, or to protect their domains from the plundering inroads of fresh bands of pirates from the northern peninsulas. In the end, the Danes got the mastery, and Canute, king of Denmark, became king of England (1016). For eighteen years he reigned in a wise and parental way.

Altogether the Danes ruled in England about a quarter of a century (from 1016 to 1042), and then the old English line was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor.

The great benefit which resulted to England from the Danish conquest, was the infusion of fresh blood into the veins of the English people, who through contact with the half-Romanized Celts, and especially through the enervating influence of a monastic church, had lost much of that bold, masculine vigor which characterized their hardy ancestors.