Children of Ash and Elm

by Neil Price;

  The last few decades have also seen increasing efforts to understand the Viking presence in Wales. There is still much to learn about this enigmatic part of the Viking world, and for the most part the evidence does not extend beyond possible Scandinavian influences in place-names and some specific references to attacks in historical and literary sources. Until recently there was little archaeological evidence for the Viking presence, with the exception of a small number of hoards and some tentatively identified pagan burials situated near the coastline.

  However, it is now known that Scandinavians settled on the island of Anglesey off the north-west coast (the name of which is Onguls-ey, or ‘Ongul’s Island’, in Old Norse) early in the Viking Age, and by the late ninth century a Hiberno-Norse elite were based at Penmon in the east of the island. On current evidence, the native population of Anglesey does not seem to have been removed or killed by the Vikings. Excavations at Llanbedrgoch have revealed enigmatic traces of Norse activities that hint at the nature of their contacts with the locals. Perhaps a one-time royal centre, it seems to have been a multicultural (though defended) place where Scandinavians mixed not only with the Welsh but with others coming from all over the British Isles. There are a number of tenth-century burials, and stable isotope analysis on their teeth reveals they spent their childhood years in places as far apart as western Norway, Brittany, and Herefordshire. Other sites, such as Red Wharf Bay on the north-east coast of Anglesey, appear to have been way stations and refitting bases for Scandinavian seafarers—an essential resource in the stormy waters of the region.

  In western Europe, the Irish Sea was only one of several water-worlds the Scandinavians made their own. The North Sea and, closer to home, the Baltic are other obvious examples, but they were not alone. In the diaspora that developed out of the time of the hydrarchs, there was a fourth such maritime environment where, almost ironically, the Viking presence would leave the most lasting imprint of all: the Channel coast of what is now France.

  The Frankish Empire had suffered two prolonged periods of Viking assaults during the ninth century, the second coming in the 880s with a concerted campaign that left its mark from Paris to the upper reaches of the Rhine. The respite after the raiders had, at last, been expelled from the rivers was not a long-lasting one, though the political context of what would follow was distinctly different.

  The Viking fleets began to return in the early years of the tenth century, bigger and now also driven by what seems to have been a lack of targets in the rest of Europe—there was not much mileage in Scandinavians attacking England, Ireland, or the Scottish isles unless it was in direct alliance with their countryfolk who were already there. In Frankia, the new raids were much more focussed than before and hit the estuary of the Seine repeatedly. The situation grew so quickly unstable that, following a battle at Chartres in 911, the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, was forced to negotiate with the Vikings, and in the process made a fatal mistake that was to shape his nation even down to our own times. In some desperation, and with considerable lack of foresight, Charles granted the Scandinavians a swathe of territory in what was then called Neustria, along the northern coast of the kingdom facing England. Because of its new overlords, it would soon gain a new name, one that it has kept to the present day: Nordmannia, ‘the land of the Northmen’, the province we call Normandy.

  A charter from 918 records that the Scandinavian settlers there were under the command of a leader called Hrólfr (to the Franks he was Rollo, the name by which he is more commonly known today), who seems to have combined diplomacy with the constructive use (or threat) of violence to such a degree that in 924 his lands were augmented with additional territories. In return for these concessions, Rollo and his descendants were charged with preventing further attacks into the Frankish interior along the Seine—the idea being essentially to turn poachers into gamekeepers. It worked to a limited degree, at first, but soon had the opposite effect, with the Seine Vikings simply welcoming their Scandinavian comrades from overseas and allowing them to settle in ever increasing numbers, thereby further entrenching their grip on the region. The Seine was also the highway to Paris, riverine access to which had thus been actively granted to the Vikings.

  It seems the colonists integrated fairly rapidly with the indigenous population, and as a result the material evidence for the early occupation of Normandy is sparse. Weapons have been dredged from the major rivers of the province, which, as in England, suggests these rituals of watery offerings arrived with the Scandinavians. A single burial containing an individual thought to be a Scandinavian woman has been identified at Pîtres, not far from the site of Charles the Bald’s bridge across the Seine at Pont de l’Arche.

  As in several areas of the British Isles, the greatest evidence for the Scandinavian presence comes in the form of their place-names, which cluster in Normandy. There are also Norse elements preserved in aspects of Norman law, and the legislature was clearly firmly in Viking hands—as one would expect. Excavations in the major centre of Rouen, however, have shed light for the first time on the development of the city, revealing that the tenth-century housing plots were divided into long, thin tenements similar to those identified in Viking-Age contexts in the British Isles. Evidence for destruction at the cathedral there, as well as at the monastery at Jumièges, some twenty kilometres to the west, may also be attributed to a more aggressive Viking presence.

  Rollo died around 930, but the colony lived on under the rule of his son, William Longsword, who had succeeded his father before his death. William would be granted additional lands by the Franks in 933, extending Normandy’s territories to the Cotentin Peninsula and making it a dukedom. Its borders are still those of Normandie today (in the French spelling), a permanent reminder of Viking heritage; the region even has a long-cross flag reminiscent of the modern Nordic national colours.

  Within a few generations, the direct Scandinavian influence in Normandy began to fade as first, second, and subsequent generations of immigrants continued to integrate into Frankish society. William was murdered in 942, but he was succeeded a few years later by his son following a short period of conflict with the Franks. The duchy continued to grow in power, and in 1066 a dispute over the English throne led Rollo’s descendant, William the Bastard (better known to history as ‘the Conqueror’ and William I of England), to launch a successful invasion across the Channel; in doing so, he shaped the course of history in the British Isles. This remarkable achievement ensured not only that Normandy was the only Viking colony in western Europe to survive the Viking Age itself, but also that it would thrive, expanding its influence into southern Europe and the Mediterranean during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

  The Viking Age was also a formative period for Brittany. Situated to the west of Normandy, at the north-western edge of modern-day France, the region had always asserted an independent and complex identity. Its population spoke a Celtic language and had close affinities to the indigenous Britons of Cornwall and Devon just across the water.

  The Bretons had maintained somewhat frosty relations with the Franks since long before the first Viking raids. Brittany as a united territory, recognised by the Empire, seems to have emerged when it was made a Carolingian duchy in the 830s, but this was very dependent on personal connections between the Breton leaders and the crown. When Emperor Louis the Pious died in 840—a catalyst for the civil war the Vikings would exploit so effectively—the Bretons also seized the moment and sought to reassert their autonomy. This led them to manage a complex network of diplomatic allegiances with both Carolingian and Viking leaders; the latter became a powerful and growing influence in regional politics during the second half of the ninth century. This would not only result in Breton and Viking forces combining to launch assaults on the Carolingians, but would also break out as conflict between the Bretons and the Vikings themselves—most often the Scandinavian ‘army’ that established itself at the mouth of the Loire.

  Further turmoil in the region w
as fuelled by internal rivalries among the Breton elite that culminated in a civil war in 874. In the late 880s, Brittany came under intensive attack, and dissention among the Bretons allowed the Loire Vikings temporarily to occupy western Brittany. They were pushed out by Alain of Vannes in the 890s, leading to a period of relative calm until his death in 907. Viking attacks then again intensified and were further driven by the ceding of Normandy to Rollo around 911, which pushed non-aligned Scandinavians operating on the Seine—more of those brotherhoods, the lið—to make for the Loire. From 914 Brittany experienced four years of intensive attacks, followed by the arrival of another large Viking fleet that came ashore at Nantes in 919. The combined Viking forces were overwhelming, and in 920 the province was entirely overrun. The following year, Robert I ceded the capital city of Nantes to the Viking leader, Røgnvaldr.

  The Scandinavian colony in Brittany survived for about twenty years. While this is a short time by comparison with the Danelaw, the Irish towns, or Normandy, two decades was still a long time as lived experience. Røgnvaldr apparently spent much of his rule fighting, and he seems to have died shortly after 925. Conflict erupted again in 927 and 930, and in 931 the Vikings in Brittany assembled a large army with the intention of attacking east into Frankia, but a (failed) Breton revolt curtailed these plans. Another rebellion, this time led by Alain Barbetorte, occurred in 936. Alain had grown up as a Breton noble in exile at the English court, having fled there when Brittany fell. He returned at the behest of other Breton leaders-in-waiting, tasked with driving the Vikings out of the region. Nantes was recaptured, but Scandinavian resistance sputtered on until 939, when a large Viking force was defeated in battle at Trans. Viking activity in Brittany would continue into the 940s and beyond, but the Scandinavians had lost the province forever.

  Given Brittany’s uniquely short but violent life as a Viking colony, it is not surprising that much of the surviving archaeological evidence is of a militaristic nature. Possible evidence for Viking raiding has been identified in destruction layers at the abbey of Landévannec, and there are spectacular traces of combat at the Camp de Péran fortress in the north of the province. Excavations of the circular enclosure there found that the fortification had been either occupied or attacked by a Viking force. Numerous weapons were found under the burnt remains of the collapsed rampart, along with a coin of St. Peter that was minted in York c. 905–925. Structures were also found inside the fortification, perhaps allowing some insights into the nature of accommodation constructed by Viking armies while on campaign. The date of the coin fits well with the results of radiocarbon dates obtained from the wall surrounding the site (915 plus or minus twenty years), which suggests the encampment may have been attacked during the Breton reconquests of the 930s.

  Several Viking burials are also known from the region, the most dramatic being one on the Île de Groix, a rocky island off the southern Breton coast. Here, two males—an older individual and a young adult—were cremated in a ship along with dogs and birds. Burnt with them were swords, an axe, archery equipment, and spears, as well as some two dozen shields and other items; the warlike tone is obvious. The shield bosses are particularly interesting in that they are of a type so far unknown outside Brittany, having been discovered only here and in more recently excavated Viking graves at the island monastery of l’Île Lavret. Perhaps this was equipment manufactured ‘in house’ by Vikings operating on the Loire during the early tenth century—in other words, similar to the activities seen in the winter camps of the Great Army in England. The range of other equipment within the grave, however, implies the dead men possessed a wide network of connections that stretched as far as England, northern Germany, and central Sweden.

  While the Viking occupation of Brittany was short-lived, the developments taking place in this small territory were to have significant impacts on the longer-term trajectory of the Viking Age. The frequent rebellions of the Bretons and the wars they fought against their Frankish neighbours served, again and again, to draw much-needed resources away from other areas of the Empire, which contributed to the weakening of the great kingdom Charlemagne had secured only a few generations before. Many of the Viking groups that were operating across northern Europe would have cut their teeth in the frequent battles against the Bretons and the Franks, and the region also served as a springboard for further raids south. It was the place where some of the most prolific leaders of the Viking Age, such as Hástein, earned their reputations. Brittany played a formative role as a catalyst of conflict and change.

  The Île de Groix ship burial is a good place to observe the realities of the Viking world, seen as an arena of fluidly mobile activity rather than as artificially separated western and eastern theatres of operations. In this case, a single object from the grave can illustrate the globalising connections that joined the component regions of the diaspora, and in the process lead us back into the East to examine developments that were proceeding there in parallel with the opening of the Danelaw, the Irish Sea kingdoms, and places such as Normandy. One of the Groix sword scabbards had a decorated chape (the metal protector over the point of the blade) depicting a diving falcon. This symbol was known across the Viking world as the sign of the Rus’. It is found in greatest numbers among the equipment of the warriors who garrisoned Birka, the market centre in Sweden, and some of the chapes appear to have been manufactured there. The falcon sigil is seen in graves all over Scandinavia, and above all it appears along the arterial river systems of Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. Somebody in the Groix burial had eastern connections, and in that he would not have been in the least unusual.

  The Rus’ appear in many written sources, as we have seen—in Frankish annals, Greek homilies, and imperial Byzantine bureaucracy; in the Russian Primary Chronicle of the eleventh century; and even in the works of the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson. The richest, most detailed descriptions of their activities are found in Arab texts, many of which are eyewitness accounts. It is also important to understand that the texts generally refer to two fundamentally different spheres of Rus’ activity—the Arab descriptions connect them to the Volga and the Don, while the Byzantine and European sources relate to their travels along the Dniepr system.

  The historical narrative for their origins as presented by the Primary Chronicle—the arrival of Rurik and his brothers in Ladoga—has been hotly debated, especially regarding their ethnicity. For many decades, opinions were largely divided between a so-called Normanist camp that advocated a strictly Scandinavian ancestry, and others that argued for a more Slavic background. The argument was complicated by an intense politicisation of these issues in the former Soviet Union, where an authentically ‘Russian’ historical identity was anything but an academic question. This politicisation, which has thankfully now largely subsided, also affected perceptions of the people the Rus’ encountered in the lower reaches of the Volga, the Dniepr, and other routes into the Black and Caspian Seas. On the steppe, the most important confederacy of peoples was that of the Khazars, who had migrated into the lower Volga region during the seventh century. Their presence had stopped Islamic northward expansion for three hundred years; they had even made incursions into the Caliphate on occasion. Other key players were the Volga Bulgars, who were initially one of the primary trading contacts for Scandinavian merchants. To the south and west, around the shores of the Black Sea, lay the lands of the Pechenegs and the Magyars. It has only been since the downfall of the USSR that these semi-nomadic steppe tribes have been widely recognised as a significant political and cultural factor in the Viking Age.

  The mobile Scandinavians; the settled Byzantines, Slavs, and Bulghars; the nomadic Khazars, Pechenegs, and Magyars: all these peoples were moving parts in the vast machine of eastern trade, diplomacy, and the frequent warfare that erupted.

  After the establishment of Ladoga, one of the next settlements to grow up on the rivers was Gorodishche, an island around 175 kilometres south of Staraja Ladoga on the Volkhov River, just to the nort
h of Lake Ilmen. This was probably the early Rus’ trading post recorded as Holmgarðr. The modern name means ‘little fort’, and the site was protected by a fortification of logs laid in ditches. Its emergence may indicate a logistical shift southward on the part of the Rus’ themselves, in order to accommodate the rapid growth of their influence.

  Evidence for the role of Scandinavian merchants in moving goods along the Volkhov can be seen in the form of a complete walrus tusk uncovered during the excavations. It probably came from the Arctic waters north of Russia, and may even have been obtained from the Sámi. The tusk could have been intended for the European trade and was perhaps to be a prestige gift. All of the more than thirty cultic objects found at the site are of Norse origin. There is now general agreement that the Scandinavian element at Gorodishche was both very large and unusually socially diverse. Judging by the material culture, they appear to have primarily come from central Sweden and the Mälar Valley—the heart of Viking-Age Svealand. Despite their significant numbers, these Scandinavian immigrants seem to have merged rapidly with the Slavic population. This transition in material expressions of identity may represent the formation of a class-based community, in which expressions of ethnicity were not prioritised as a means of identifying between different groups.