chapter 20._

NORMANS: A. D. 860-1100. The discovery and settlement of Iceland. Development of the Saga literature.

The discovery of Iceland is attributed to a famous Norse Viking named Naddodd, and dated in 860, at the beginning of the reign, in Norway, of Harald Haarfager, who drove out so many adventurers, to seek fortune on the seas. He is said to have called it Snowland; but others who came to the cold island in 870 gave it the harsher name which it still bears. "Within sixty years after the first settlement by the Northmen the whole was inhabited; and, writes Uno Von Troil (p. 64), 'King Harold, who did not contribute a little towards it by his tyrannical treatment of the petty kings and lords in Norway, was obliged at last to issue an order, that no one should sail to Iceland without paying four ounces of fine silver to the Crown, in order to stop those continual emigrations which weakened his kingdom.' … Before the tenth century had reached its half-way period, the Norwegians had fully peopled the island with not less, perhaps, than 50,000 souls. A census taken about A. D. 1100 numbered the franklins who had to pay Thing-tax at 4,500, without including cotters and proletarians."

_R. F. Burton, Ultima Thule, introduction, section 3 (volume 1)._

"About sixty years after the first settlement of the island, a step was taken towards turning Iceland into a commonwealth, and giving the whole island a legal constitution; and though we are ignorant of the immediate cause which led to this, we know enough of the state of things in the island to feel sure, that it could only have been with the common consent of the great chiefs, who, as Priests, presided over the various local Things.

See THING.

The first, want was a man who could make a code of laws." The man was found in one Ulfljót, who came from a Norwegian family long famous for knowledge of the customary law, and who was sent to the mother country to consult the wisest of his kin. "Three years he stayed abroad; and when he returned, the chiefs, who, no doubt, day by day felt more strongly the need of a common centre of action as well as of a common code, lost no time in carrying out their scheme. … The time of the annual meeting was fixed at first for the middle of the month of June, but in the year 999 it was agreed to meet a week later, and the Althing then met when ten full weeks of summer had passed. {2369} It lasted fourteen days. … In its legal capacity it [the Althing] was both a deliberative and executive assembly; both Parliament and High Court of Justice in one. … With the establishment of the Althing we have for the first time a Commonwealth in Iceland."

_G. W. Dasent, The Story of Burnt Njal, introduction (volume 1)._

"The reason why Iceland, which was destitute of inhabitants at the time of its discovery, about the middle of the 9th century, became so rapidly settled and secured so eminent a position in the world's history and literature, must be sought in the events which took place in Norway at the time when Harald Hárfragi (Fairhair), after a long and obstinate resistance, succeeded in usurping the monarchical power. … The people who emigrated to Iceland were for the most part the flower of the nation. They went especially from the west coast of Norway, where the peculiar Norse spirit had been most perfectly developed. Men of the noblest birth in Norway set out with their families and followers to find a home where they might be as free and independent as their fathers had been before them. No wonder then that they took with them the cream of the ancient culture of the fatherland. … Toward the end of the 11th century it is expressly stated that many of the chiefs were so learned that they with perfect propriety might have been ordained to the priesthood [Christianity having been formally adopted by the Althing in the year 1000], and in the 12th century there were, in addition to those to be found in the cloisters, several private libraries in the island. On the other hand, secular culture, knowledge of law and history, and of the skaldic art, were, so to speak, common property. And thus, when the means for committing a literature to writing were at hand, the highly developed popular taste for history gave the literature the direction which it afterward maintained. The fact is, there really existed a whole literature which was merely waiting to be put in writing. … Many causes contributed toward making the Icelanders preeminently a historical people. The settlers were men of noble birth, who were proud to trace their descent from kings and heroes of antiquity, nay, even from the gods themselves, and we do not therefore wonder that they assiduously preserved the memory of the deeds of their forefathers. But in their minds was developed not only a taste for the sagas of the past; the present also received its full share of attention. … Nor did they interest themselves for and remember the events that took place in Iceland only. Reports from foreign lands also found a most hearty welcome, and the Icelanders had abundant opportunity of satisfying their thirst for knowledge in this direction. As vikings, as merchants, as courtiers and especially as skalds accompanying kings and other distinguished persons, and also as varangians in Constantinople, many of them found splendid opportunities of visiting foreign countries. … Such were then the conditions and circumstances which produced that remarkable development of the historical taste with which the people were endowed, and made Iceland the home of the saga."

_F. W. Horn, History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North, part 1, chapter 1._

"The Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing, and were, and still are, excellent in penmanship, says Dahlmann. It is to this fact that any little history there is of the Norse Kings and their old tragedies, crimes, and heroisms, is almost all due. The Icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy; and have left us such a collection of narratives (Sagas, literally 'Says') as, for quantity and quality, is unexampled among rude nations."

_T. Carlyle, Early Kings of Norway, Preface._

See, also, THINGS. THINGVALLA.

NORMANS: A. D. 876-911. Rollo's acquisition of Normandy.

"One alone among the Scandinavian settlements in Gaul was destined to play a real part in history. This was the settlement of Rolf or Rollo at Rouen. [The genuine name is Hrolfr, Rolf, in various spellings. The French form is Rou, sometimes Rous …; the Latin is Rollo.—Foot-note.] This settlement, the kernel of the great Norman Duchy, had, I need hardly say, results of its own and an importance of its own, which distinguish it from every other Danish colony in Gaul. But it is well to bear in mind that it was only one colony among several, and that, when the cession was made, it was probably not expected to be more lasting or more important than the others. But, while the others soon lost any distinctive character, the Rouen settlement lasted, it grew, it became a power in Europe, and in Gaul it became even a determining power. … The lasting character of his work at once proves that the founder of the Rouen colony was a great man, but he is a great man who must be content to be judged in the main by the results of his actions. The authentic history of Rolf, Rollo, or Rou, may be summed up in a very short space. We have no really contemporary narrative of his actions, unless a few meagre and uncertain entries in some of the Frankish annals may be thought to deserve that name. … I therefore do not feel myself at all called upon to narrate in detail the exploits which are attributed to Rolf in the time before his final settlement. He is described as having been engaged in the calling of a Wiking both in Gaul and in Britain for nearly forty years before his final occupation of Rouen. … The exploits attributed to Rolf are spread over so many years, that we cannot help suspecting that the deeds of other chieftains have been attributed to him, perhaps that two leaders of the same name have been confounded. Among countless expeditions in Gaul, England, and Germany, we find Rolf charged with an earlier visit to Rouen [A. D. 876], with a share in the great siege of Paris [A. D. 885], and with an occupation or destruction of Bayeux. But it is not till we have got some way into the reign of Charles the Simple, not till we have passed several years of the tenth century, that Rolf begins clearly to stand out as a personal historic reality. He now appears in possession of Rouen, or of whatever vestiges of the city had survived his former ravages, and from that starting-point he assaulted Chartres. Beneath the walls of that city he underwent a defeat [A. D. 911] at the hands of the Dukes Rudolf of Burgundy and Robert of Paris, which was attributed to the miraculous powers of the great local relic, the under-garment of the Virgin. {2370} But this victory, like most victories over the Northmen, had no lasting effect. Rolf was not dislodged from Rouen, nor was his career of devastation and conquest at all seriously checked. But, precisely as in the case of Guthrum in England, his evident disposition to settle in the country suggested an attempt to change him from a devastating enemy into a peaceable neighbour. The Peace of Clair-on-Epte [A. D. 911] was the duplicate of the Peace of Wedmore, and King Charles and Duke Robert of Paris most likely had the Peace of Wedmore before their eyes. A definite district was ceded to Rolf, for which he became the King's vassal; he was admitted to baptism and received the king's natural daughter in marriage. And, just as in the English case, the territory ceded was not part of the King's immediate dominions. … The grant to Rolf was made at the cost not of the Frankish King at Laon but of the French Duke at Paris. The district ceded to Rolf was part of the great Neustrian March or Duchy which had been granted to Odo [or Eudes] of Paris and which was now held by his brother Duke Robert. … It must not be thought that the district now ceded to Rolf took in the whole of the later Duchy of Normandy. Rouen was the heart of the new state, which took in lands on both sides of the Seine. From the Epte to the sea was its undoubted extent from the south-east to the north. But the western frontier is much less clearly defined. On the one hand, the Normans always claimed a certain not very well defined superiority over Britanny as part of the original grant. On the other hand, it is quite certain that Rolf did not obtain immediate possession of what was afterwards the noblest portion of the heritage of his descendants. The Bessin, the district of Bayeux, was not won till several years later, and the Côtentin, the peninsula of Coutances, was not won till after the death of Rolf. The district granted to Rolf … had—sharing therein the fate of Germany and France—no recognized geographical name. Its inhabitants were the Northmen, the Northmen of the Seine, the Northmen of Rouen. The land itself was, till near the end of the century, simply the Land of the Northmen"—the Terra Northmannorum.

_E. A. Freeman, Historical Norman Conquest of England,