|408.|
The settlement of the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes—all comprehended within the geographical limits of Denmark—in Great Britain, has been recorded in two historical volumes of the Cyclopædia.[[267]] Thus, in 446, Hengest laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent, which, under eighteen successive kings, subsisted to the close of the eighth century. In 477, Ella, another Saxon chief, called a smaller one, that of Sussex, into existence. Of this state the names of the two first princes only have descended to posterity. In 519, the more powerful kingdom of Wessex was founded by Cerdic, and its princes were destined to unite the other states into one monarchy within three centuries after its establishment. By Ida, the kingdom of Bernicia was founded in 547; By Ella, that of Deira, in 560. These states, being united in 644, formed the important kingdom of Northumberland, which subsisted, with some interruptions, until it was finally annexed, by Athelstane, to the Saxon monarchy. Mercia, founded, in 586, by Crida; East Anglia, by Uffa; and Essex, by Eswin; were all ultimately absorbed in the rising sphere of Wessex. All these royal chiefs boasted of their descent from Odin; all were of Scandinavian origin; all spoke the same language, and followed the same piratical profession. That hordes of obscure adventurers—mere sea kings—should thus subdue a great country, has been matter of surprise to many writers. But we should remember that, at the period in question, England was not a monarchy,—that, like the north, it was subject to many kings, and that the conquest occupied a century and a half.[[268]]
That during this period the Danes, if not the Norwegians, were brought into relation with the kings of Scotland, is asserted by Saxo. Frode III., according to that historian, gave his daughter Ulvilda in marriage to Thubar king of the Scots. Frode reigned in the fourth century, not, as Saxo assures us, early in the first. Whether Hamlet of Jutland, and other Danish princes, were really in Scotland, cannot be proved; but there is nothing improbable in the relation. That country, like England and the north, was divided among many chiefs, who assumed the regal title; and that their domains should escape the depredations which so afflicted the southern part of the island, is not to be credited. Beyond all doubt, Scotland was visited by piratical bands as early, at least, as England. Nor must we forget that the Saxon kingdom of Bernicia comprehended, besides the north of England from the Tees to the Tweed, all the east and centre of Scotland from the latter river to the Frith of Forth. At what period the inhabitants north of that Frith were first molested by the Danes and Norwegians would be a vain inquiry; we may only infer that it was much earlier than is generally supposed.[[269]]
As the inhabitants of the Danish islands and of Norway had no share in the spoils of England, they were not bound to respect the coasts after their kindred had established the kingdoms of the polyarchy. Their ravages, indeed, were experienced by the English chiefs before Northumbria became a kingdom. Offa of Mercia, whose domains were invaded by them, had the valour to defeat, and the generosity to pardon, his foes. It has, however, been contended that we find no satisfactory account of the Danes being here in such numbers as to command the notice of history, before the eighth century. In this case, the authority of Saxo is rejected as unworthy of credit. “Some documents for his history Saxo may have derived from poems of the ancient Scalds, from inscriptions on stones and rocks, from an inspection (yet how imperfect!) of the Icelandic authors, and from the narrations of his friend. We may even grant to him, that such men as he enumerates, such actions as he so eloquently describes, and such poems as he so diffusely translates, once appeared; but the chronology and succession into which he arranges them are unquestionably false. The boasted fountains of the history of the ancient Scandinavians, their memorial stones and funeral runæ, the inscribed rings of their shields, the woven figures of their tapestry, their storied walls, their lettered seats and beds, their narrative wood, their re-collected poetry, and their inherited traditions, may have given to history the names of many warriors, and have transmitted to posterity the fame of many battles: but no dates accompanied the memorials; even the geography of the incidents was very rarely noted. Hence, however numerous may have been the preserved memoranda, their arrangement and appropriation were left to the mercy of literary fancy or of national conceit. Saxo unfortunately emulated the fame of Livy, instead of becoming the Pausanias of Scandinavia; and instead of patiently compiling and recording his materials in the humble style or form in which he found them, which would have been an invaluable present to us, he has shaped them into a most confused, unwarranted, and fabulous chronology. The whole of his first eight books, all his history anteceding Ragnar Lodbrog, can as little claim the attention of the historian, as the British, history of Jeffry, or the Swedish history of Johannes Magnus. It is indeed superfluous, if we recollect the Roman history, to argue against a work which pretends to give to Denmark a throned existence, a regular government, and a tissue of orderly and splendid history for twenty-four royal accessions before the birth of Christ. Saxo, on whose history many others were formerly built, refers to the Icelandic writers; but this only increases our depreciation of his narratives, for they are at irreconcileable variance with all his history before the ninth century.”[[270]] Yet we are far from subscribing, in its most rigorous sense, to this unfavourable character. Saxo’s chronology we condemn as much as any writer; but we do not think that his facts, however distorted by tradition, are not, for the most part, founded in truth. That the authority of Snorro is superior to Saxo’s we readily admit,—superior, we mean, as to chronology; for that the latter must have been better acquainted with the actions of the Danes themselves few will be so rash as to deny. Yet even Snorro assures us that Ivar Vidfadme, a prince of the seventh century, conquered a fifth part of England.[[271]] By this expression Northumbria is usually understood; and there is nothing improbable in the opinion that the kingdom of Bernicia—that portion of Northumbria north of the Tweed—was overrun by this prince.[[272]]
|793 to 868.|
The alleged depredations of Ragnar Lodbrog in Northumbria, to which we have slightly alluded in the first chapter of this volume[[273]] have in them so much of the romantic that we can place little dependence on them. There is but one circumstance that can be made to lend them even the appearance of probability. About the period of Ragnar’s death, a formidable body of Danes descended on the island of Lindisfarne, plundered the church which contained the shrine of St. Cuthbert, massacred the ecclesiastics, defiled the altars, and consumed the building by fire. The lay inhabitants of the island were not more fortunate; the men were massacred, the women were forced, the children tossed on the points of the Danish lances. In the following year (794) the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were visited with the same fate. During full seventy years,—that is, to the period when the weak brother of Alfred allowed the centre of England to be overrun, and when Alfred himself, by his flight, left the whole kingdom to their mercy,—their depredations on the eastern coast, from the Frith of Forth to the Humber, were, however desultory, however interrupted, most harassing and most destructive. The Saxon kings of Northumbria, we are told, were too much occupied in private feuds to have either time or means for defending the country against the invaders,—if, indeed, there were any Saxon kings at this time,—if the Danes were not the actual sovereigns of the province. It is certain that all the historians of Denmark (who are confirmed by the Icelandic chronicles) speak of such a dynasty, and assure us that the sons of Ragnar Lodbrog were its kings. We see no reason to dispute this statement. There is, however, a sad confusion in the chronology. If Ragnar died in 794, and his sons avenged him in little more than a year afterwards, they could not be at the head of the armament which, in 866, appeared off the coast. Probably they and their successors reigned from the close of the eighth to the tenth century, and the confederated armament of 866 was one on a larger scale, and headed by other leaders. What confirms this inference is the fact that at this time Harald Harfager was subduing the petty kings of Norway; and that many of them, preferring freedom to the despotism of a master, left the country with their bravest warriors. During this period, all the churches and monasteries of the province were destroyed. In 828, the Danish power in Northumberland must have been great, or they would not have been powerful, enough to defeat Egbert, the conqueror of so many Saxon kingdoms, and the founder of the English monarchy. After the year 866, when, as we believe, there were many Norwegians in England, new atrocities were committed,—atrocities which threw all former ones into the shade. The monastery of Tynemouth, which had been restored, was soon in flames; that of Lindisfarne shared the same fate; yet the monks were so fortunate as to escape with the relics of St. Cuthbert. From the smoking ruins of Lindisfarne, Halfdan, one of the chiefs, hastened to the monastery of Coldingham. “According to Matthew of Westminster and succeeding writers, the nuns of Coldingham nobly redeemed the reputation of their establishment from the stain which had covered it in the time of St. Cuthbert. The monastery was now, as in the former case, governed by an abbess, named Ebba; who, if the historian be credible, deserves the honours of canonisation somewhat better than her predecessor. Hearing that it was the custom of the barbarians first to violate, and then to destroy, virgins consecrated to God, she assembled the sister-hood in the chapter house, and exhorted them to save their chastity at the expense of their beauty. With a knife she dreadfully disfigured her countenance; and her example was followed on the spot by all the nuns. The Danes soon forced their gates; but turned with horror from their embraces, and quickly consumed both them and their nunnery. Though the monk of Westminster lived so long after the time, he might follow some better guide than tradition—some record now lost; nor is the fact itself either improbable or unparalleled. The same noble conduct is related of the nuns of Ecija, during the Mohammedan invasion of Spain. During seven years similar depredations followed throughout most of Northumbria. Wherever the Danes penetrated, ecclesiastics were massacred, churches and monasteries were levelled with the ground; the whole country, in fact, became a Danish province, governed by princes of the royal house of that kingdom. Great as was the evil produced by these merciless pagans; though the monks, as an order, were almost wholly annihilated, and civilisation was destroyed, yet the invasion itself led to the conversion of the invaders. Resolved to remain in the country which they had conquered, to cultivate the lands which they had divided among themselves, they were compelled to enter into relations of amity with the inhabitants, from whose example, or by whose persuasion, they soon embraced the faith of Christ. That the Danish princes were soon no less devout than their Saxon brothers appears from the splendid donation of all the country between the Wear and the Tyne, made by Guthred to the cathedral of St. Cuthbert, now transferred to Chester-le-Street.” Out of evil comes good,—a proof of God’s particular providence.[[274]]
|868 to 876.|
But the atrocities of the Northmen at this period are most graphically described by the abbot Ingulf. After the destruction of Bardney, the pirates hastened to the monastery of Croyland. “It was midnight: the abbot Theodore and his monks had risen to matins when the enemy drew near: the younger brethren the abbot immediately commanded to seek a place of refuge, with their papers, relics, and jewels; while he himself, accompanied by the more aged monks, and some children, awaited whatever fate might be reserved for them. Perhaps he hoped that the grey locks of some, and the infancy of others, might awaken pity even in pagans. But they forgot, says Ingulf, the old verse,
“Nulla fides pictasque viris qui castra sequuntur.”
But he was prepared for any event,—to live or fall with his establishment. Having taken an affectionate leave of about thirty junior monks, he and his devoted companions returned to the church, finished the matins, and celebrated mass. They had just communicated when the pagans arrived, forced the gates, and rushed into the cloisters. The silence which they found might have induced them to believe the monastery was utterly forsaken, had not the distant chaunting of the monks fallen on their ears. They hastened to the church and burst into the choir; one chieftain instantly seized the abbot by the hair with his left hand, while the right severed the head from the body. The officiating clergy shared the same fate at nearly the same moment: the children and the aged monks were tortured for the purpose of discovering whither the treasures had been conveyed; but as the former were unable, and the latter unwilling, to disclose the secret, their sufferings were soon terminated by death. Of all these helpless inmates, one only was saved,—a boy ten years old, whose innocence made an impression on one of the chieftains. He had fled to the refectory with the sub-prior, whom he saw murdered, and whose fate he begged to share; but the chieftain tore the cowl from his head, threw a Danish cloak over him, and commanded him to follow him. The three succeeding days were passed in plunder,—in minutely examining every corner or crevice where treasure might be buried. The shrine of St. Guthlake was overthrown; the marble monuments around it, containing the mortal remains of saints and benefactors to the house, were opened, in search of rings, chalices, and other precious effects which the Saxons entombed with the bodies of the great; the bones were thrown on the ground, and the sculpture defaced. On the fourth day the extensive pile was on fire. Medeshamstede, or Peterborough, also an abbey of royal foundation, was next visited. Its noble library, its numerous treasures, which there had not been time to remove, its magnificent architecture, rendered it one of the proudest monastic establishments in the island. Within its gates many of the neighbouring inhabitants had placed their most valuable effects, and thither many had fled for protection. For a while the edifice made a noble stand; but a stone thrown by an unknown hand having mortally wounded the brother of Ubbo, the Danish king, the barbarian and his followers made a more desperate attack, forced the gates, and commenced the massacre. With his own hand Ubbo sacrificed the hoary abbot and eighty-three monks to the shade of his brother; while the strangers fell under the hands of his followers. The booty was immense; but the value was trifling compared with that of the MS. treasures which were consumed with the monastery. The conflagration continued a fortnight. While it raged, the monks who had fled from Croyland returned to their former abode, sat themselves down amidst the smoking ruins, and wept. So overcome were they by the melancholy sight, that some time elapsed before they proceeded to bury the scorched bodies of their brethren. Having performed this sad office, and elected another abbot, they were solicited to perform the last duties to the monks of Medeshamstede. With sorrowful hearts they deposited the bones of the abbot and the eighty-three monks in the same grave, over which Godric, their superior, raised a monument, engraven with the history of this sad tragedy. From Medeshamstede the pirates, exulting in their success, hastened to the Isle of Ely, to inflict the same fate on the flourishing convent which had been founded by the piety of St. Edilthryda. Its cloisters were inhabited by the noblest ladies of England. Some fled; but the greater number preferred the death which they knew awaited them. The place was taken; the nuns were ravished and slaughtered; and the holy pile was reduced to ashes. That such atrocities could be committed would be incredible were they not too well attested to admit of scepticism.[[275]]