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Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts PDF

176 Pages·2005·0.617 MB·English
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Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts This page intentionally left blank Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts Magnús Fjalldal UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3837-9 Printed on acid-free paper Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Fjalldal, Magnús Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic medieval texts / Magnús Fjalldal. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3837-9 1. Old Norse literature – History and criticism. 2. Great Britain – Civilization – 1066–1485 – Sources. 3. Literature, Comparative – Old Norse and English (Old). 4. Literature, Comparative – English (Old) and Old Norse. 5. Great Britain in literature. I. Title. PT7150.F53 2005 8399.6093241 C2005-903286-3 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Contents introduction vii 1 Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Gunnlaugs saga, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin, and Hauksbók 3 2 Old English and Old Norse: The Evidence of Other Sources 12 3 General Knowledge and Attitudes about Anglo-Saxon England and Its Customs 22 4 History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Haraldr Fair-hair to the Sons of Cnut 33 5 History – Heimskringla, Ágrip af Nóregskonunga so¸gum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, and Morkinskinna: From Magnús the Good to Eysteinn Haraldsson 54 6 History – Egils saga 69 7 History – Breta sögur, Saga Ósvalds kónungs hins helga, Dunstanus saga, and Jatvarðar saga 83 8 Kings and Courts 101 9 The Hero and His Deeds 113 Conclusion 121 notes 125 bibliography 149 index 159 This page intentionally left blank Introduction Ideally, the kind of book that documented how Anglo-Saxon history is recorded in medieval Icelandic sources would be a large anthology containing all the relevant texts concerning Anglo-Saxon England and a reliable English translation of them. The idea of putting such a book together is not new: it was first suggested about 150 years ago by Eiríkur Magnússon, and envisaged as a five or six volume study.1 The project was too ambitious for nineteenth-cen- tury publishers, however, and remains so in the century that has just begun. So, instead of attempting anything of the sort, I have settled for re-telling these legends myself, knowing full well that my account of them is bound to be sub- jective. In short, the purpose of this book is to survey and assess information about Anglo-Saxon England – its language, history, geography, and culture – that appears in medieval Icelandic texts. A great deal has been written on this subject over the last 150 years, but no comprehensive survey of the Icelandic texts has ever been carried out. My intention in the chapters that follow is mostly to try and provide an overview of what information might have been available – in one form or another – to a late medieval reader in Iceland and to assess how accurate it is in those instances where the truth of the matter can be verified. In my approach no distinction will be made between the different genres of literature: heroic-mythic stories (forn- aldarso¸gur), histories of the kings of Norway and Denmark, family sagas, and the shorter þættir will be treated side by side for the information that they yield. This may seem to be a dubious methodology, but as we shall see in the course of my discussion, the legendary fornaldarso¸gur (once called ‘the lying sagas’) are no worse source material than works that profess to be historical. In the early literature on this subject it was generally concluded that Ice- landic writers were well informed about Anglo-Saxon England, its history, language, and customs. The first testimony to this effect comes from Jón viii Introduction Sigurðsson in 1854 who, in his introduction to the Icelandic Saga Ósvalds konúngs hins helga (The Saga of King Oswald the Saint), discusses the subject at some length. He concludes that Icelandic writers during the Middle Ages had extensive knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly in respect to its history and literature: We have no reason to doubt that Icelandic writers were well versed concerning legends surrounding the holy King Oswald of Northumbria. The authors of Land- námabók [The Book of Settlement] display familiarity with the writings of Bede, and various traits in Old Icelandic literature suggest extensive knowledge about England, English history and English literature.2 For a time, most other commentators agreed with this confident assessment. Henry G. Leach in his 1921 book Angevin Britain and Scandinavia extensively discussed the very close affinities he felt had existed between Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia.3 Writing in the 1930s, A.H. Smith assumed that the English and the Scandinavian Vikings had shared a composite language, Anglo-Scandinavian,4 and, quoting Snorri Sturluson’s famous dictum on the value of skaldic verse as a historical source, he insisted that Norse accounts of events in England were both reliable and accurate.5 In the 1950s J.S. Eysteins- son maintained that Icelanders had great knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England, and he believed that information was disseminated by the English missionaries who are known to have lived and worked in Iceland in the early decades of the eleventh century.6 This presumed knowledge of England and English affairs has drawn praise from many quarters. In a recent article, Geraldine Barnes attempts to show that Icelandic medieval writers were generally well informed about English matters, in contrast with Middle English writers such as Giraldus Cambrensis, who amply displayed his ignorance of Icelandic affairs in his writings.7 It should also be noted that some commentators, Sigurðsson and Leach in particular, assume that knowledge of England and things English was evenly spread throughout the country, accurate, and generated by a genuine desire to relate history. However, many others who investigated the evidence disagreed. English scholars such as E.O.G. Turville-Petre, Sir Frank Stenton, Peter Sawyer, and others have examined the Icelandic literature closely for any light it might shed on the history of Anglo-Saxon England. They have concluded that information derived from the Icelandic sagas and skaldic poetry is either unverifiable or does not tally with English sources.8 Icelandic literary sources, Sir Frank Sten- ton wrote in 1943, are to ‘be followed with peril for the sequence of events and the imaginative power which keeps them still alive.’9 Still, some scholars have Introduction ix refused to accept this view. A few decades ago, it was challenged by A.L. Binns and H.R. Loyn, for example, both of whom made a case in their works for the historical value of the Icelandic materials. Binns even ventured a counter-attack by discussing what he felt to be an exaggerated mistrust of the sagas.10 This view has also been backed recently by Geraldine Barnes, who points out that while wealth and productivity, along with luxury, refined man- ners, and savoir faire, are the hallmarks of England in the Icelandic sagas, descriptions of the country are on the whole, somewhat idealized. Once we have taken that into account, she concludes, the description of England is essentially accurate in Icelandic writings.11 Helgi Guðmundsson, in his recent book about Irish influence in medieval Iceland, examines Orkneyinga saga, and in the course of his investigation comes to the conclusion that it exhibits solid knowledge of England and English affairs.12 And so the battle between the opposing camps of ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ is by no means over. But now to a central question in this debate. Why should thirteenth-century Icelanders have been so interested in the history of a country and a culture that had long ago ceased to exist? Unsurprisingly, this question has already been asked and answered. Henry G. Leach, again in his study Angevin Britain and Scandinavia, claims that the distinguishing trait of Icelandic scholarship dur- ing the Middle Ages was its cosmopolitan interest in the history of other nations. To illustrate this point, he quotes the Danish medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus: Nor may the pains of the men of Thule [i.e., Iceland] be blotted in oblivion; for though they lack all that can foster luxury (so naturally barren is their soil), yet they make up for their neediness by their wit, by keeping continually every obser- vance of soberness, and devoting every instant of their lives to perfecting our knowledge of the deeds of foreigners. Indeed, they account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance the history of all nations, deeming it as a great glory to set forth the excellences of others as to display their own.13 More recently, Christine Fell has maintained that Icelandic saga authors saw their own history as being so intertwined with the history of Anglo-Saxon England that it was only natural for them to be interested in it, and hence to record it.14 Geraldine Barnes has argued that in Snorri Sturluson’s account of the lives of Norwegian kings in Heimskringla (The Orb of the World), empa- thy with Anglo-Saxon attitudes is often to be noted, as in the dealings between Eiríkr Blood-axe and King Edmund, who – as the saga tells us – was no friend of the Norwegian intruder. Barnes has also noted that ‘[there is] a general enthusiasm for things English ... [to be] found throughout Old Norse history

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