Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts

176 Pages·2005·0.617 MB·English

by  Magnús Fjalldal

Anglo-Saxon England in
Icelandic Medieval Texts
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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
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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