Canute the Great Part 12

From the Elbe eastward along the Baltic sh.o.r.es, at least as far as the Vistula, where the Lithuanian settlements appear to have begun,[210]

Slavic tribes were evidently in full possession all through the viking age. There was, however, no consolidated Slavic power, no organised Slavic state. The dominions of Bohemia and Poland were developing but neither had full control of the coast lands. The non-Slavic peoples who were interested in this region were the Danes and the Germans. The eastward expansion of Germany across and beyond the Elbe had begun; but in Canute's day Teutonic control of Wendish territories was very slight.

We find the Danes in Wendland as early as the age of Charlemagne, when they were in possession of a strong and important city called Reric, the exact location of which is not known.[211] The Danish interest appears to have been wholly a commercial one: horses, cattle, game, fish, mead, timber products, spices, and hemp are mentioned as important articles of the southern trade.[212] There was also, we may infer, something of a market for Danish products. At all times, the intercourse seems to have been peaceful; Danes and Wends appear to have lived side by side on the best of terms. The Germans, on the other hand, were not regarded with much favour by their Slavic neighbours. The feeling of hostility and hatred that the Wend cherished was reciprocated on the German side; the German mind scarcely thought of the Slav as within the pale of humanity.

The most famous of all Danish settlements in these regions was Jom, a stronghold near the mouth of the Oder, sometimes called Jumne, Jumneta, or Julin. In the eleventh century Jom was a great city as cities went in those days, though it was probably not equal to its reputation. The good Master Adam, who has helped us to so much information regarding Northern lands and conditions in his century, speaks of the city in the following terms:

It is verily the greatest city in Europe. It is inhabited by Slavs and other peoples, Greeks and barbarians. For even the Saxons who have settled there are permitted to live with the rest in the enjoyment of the same rights; though, indeed, only so long as they refrain from public profession of their Christian faith. For all the inhabitants are still chained to the errors of heathen idolatry. In other respects, especially as to manners and hospitality, a more obliging and honourable people cannot be found.[213]

The city was located on the east side of the island of Wollin, where the village of Wollin has since been built. For its time it enjoyed a very favourable location. Built on an island, it was fairly safe from land attacks, while its position some distance from the sea secured it from the common forms of piracy.[214] Back into the land ran the great river highway, the Oder, while a few miles to the north lay the Baltic with its long coast line to the east, the west, and the north.

To secure Danish influence in the city, Harold Bluetooth built the famous fortress of Jomburg and garrisoned it with a carefully chosen band of warriors, later known as the Jomvikings. According to saga, Palna Toki, the viking who is reputed to have slain King Harold, was the founder and chief of the brotherhood; but the castle probably existed before Toki became prominent in the garrison, if he ever was a member.

The fortress was located north of Jom near the modern village of Wollin, where abundant archaeological evidence has definitely identified the site.[215] The harbour or bay that served as such has since filled with the rubbish of time; but in the tenth century it is reported to have had a capacity of three hundred dragons.

The existence of a military guild at Jomburg seems well attested. Only men of undoubted bravery between the ages of eighteen and fifty years were admitted to membership; and, in the admission, neither kinship nor friendship nor considerations of exalted birth should be taken into account. As members of the brotherhood, all the Jomvikings a.s.sumed the duties of mutual support and the revenge of a fallen comrade. Strict discipline was enjoined in the fortress; absence for more than three days at a time was forbidden; no women were to be admitted to the castle. There was to be no toleration of quarrelsome behaviour; plunder, the fruitful source of contention, was to be distributed by lot. In all disputes the chief was the judge.[216]

It seems evident that the chief of these vikings was something more than the captain of a garrison; he bore the earl's t.i.tle and as such must have had territorial authority in and about the city. Supported by the Jomvikings he soon began to a.s.sert an independence far beyond what the Danish kings had intended that he should possess. However, till the death of Harold Bluetooth, the brotherhood appears to have been fairly loyal to their suzerain; it was to Jomburg that the aged King fled when his son rebelled against him; it was there that he died after the traitor's arrow had given him the fatal wound. The rebel Sweyn was not immediately recognised by the Earl at Jom; the vikings are said to have defied him, to have captured him and carried him off. Only on the promises of marriage to Gunhild, the sister of Earl Sigvaldi's wife, and of the payment of a huge ransom, was he permitted to return to his throne. The saga story has probably a great measure of truth in it.

Sweyn seems to have been determined on the destruction of the fraternity, and most likely had some success; for toward the close of his reign, we find the Jomvikings no longer terrorising the Baltic sh.o.r.es, but plundering the western isles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STENKYRKA STONE (Monument from the Island of Gotland showing viking ships.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VALLEBERGA STONE.]

In 1021, toward the close of the year, we read of the exile of Thurkil the Tall, who will be remembered as an old Jomviking, the brother of Earl Sigvaldi, and the leader in the descent of these vikings upon England in 1009. We do not know where the exile sought a new home, but one is tempted to conjecture that he probably returned to the old haunts at the mouth of the Oder. It is an interesting fact that a few months later Canute found it advisable to make a journey to that same region.

In the entry for 1022, the Chronicler writes that "in this year King Canute fared out with his ships to Wiht," or, as one ma.n.u.script has it, to "Wihtland." Apparently, the movement, whatever it was, did not interest the scribe; far more important in his eyes was the news that Archbishop Ethelnoth, when in Rome to receive the pallium, was invited to say ma.s.s in the papal presence, and was afterwards permitted to converse with the Holy Father. Historians have thought with the monk that the journey with the fleet can have had but little importance, that it was merely a mobilisation of the navy at the Isle of Wight, perhaps for the purpose of display.

It was the Danish historian Steenstrup who first suggested that Wiht or Wihtland probably did not mean Wight in this case, but the old Witland that we read of in the writings of Alfred: Wulfstan the wide-farer informed the royal student that "the Vistula is a mighty stream and separates Witland from Wendland and Witland belongs to the Esthonians."[217] Evidently the Angles understood Witland to be the regions of modern Prussia east of the Vistula. That Canute's expedition actually went eastward seems extremely probable for we read that the next year he returned from Denmark and had become reconciled with Earl Thurkil.[218]

There were Danish colonies at the mouths of the Oder, the Vistula, and the Duna[219]; all these, no doubt, submitted to the conqueror from England. The expedition probably first went to Jom in Wendland; thence eastward to the Prussian regions of Witland and the still more distant Semland, a region near the Kurisches Haff that is reported to have been conquered by one of Harold Bluetooth's sons.[220] Canute's possessions thus extended along the Baltic sh.o.r.es from Jutland almost to the eastern limits of modern Germany; he may also have had possessions farther up the eastern coast of the sea. It is not likely that these possessions were anything more than a series of stations and settlements; but these would serve as centres of influence from which Danish power would penetrate into the interior to the protection of Danish trade and commerce.

Later English writers have a story to tell of this expedition, especially of the valorous part that was played by the Earl G.o.dwin. In the expedition against the Vandals, G.o.dwin, without first informing the King, made a night attack on the enemy and put them to rout. When Canute prepared to make an attack early in the morning, he missed the English and feared that they had fled or deserted. But when he came upon the enemy's camp and found nothing there but b.l.o.o.d.y corpses and plunder, light dawned on the King, and he ever afterward held the English in high esteem.[221]

Jomburg apparently retained its old pre-eminence as the centre of Danish control on the southern sh.o.r.e. The King's brother-in-law, Ulf, seems to have been left in control, probably with the t.i.tle of earl. But after the death of Thurkil, who had been left as viceroy of Denmark, Ulf was apparently transferred to that country and Canute's son Sweyn, under the guidance of his mother Elgiva, was appointed the King's lieutenant in Wendland.[222]

The extension of Danish influence among the Wends brought Denmark into closer contact and relations with the Empire. Two years after Canute's expedition to the Slavic lands, Henry the Saint pa.s.sed to his reward, and Conrad the Salic succeeded to the imperial dignities. On the death of Henry II. the great Polish Duke Boleslav hastened to a.s.sume the regal t.i.tle, and evidently planned to renounce the imperial suzerainty. This policy of hostility to the Empire was continued by his son and successor, Mieczislav, who also may have hoped to interest his cousin King Canute in the welfare of the new kingdom.

Conrad also felt the need of a close alliance with the Danish conqueror, and called upon Archbishop Unwan of Hamburg-Bremen for a.s.sistance as a mediator. Unwan was Canute's friend and succeeded in bringing about the desired understanding. Possibly the price of the alliance may have appealed to Canute as much as the Archbishop's arguments; for Conrad bought the friendship of his Northern neighbour with the Mark of Sleswick to the Eider River.[223]

The exact date of this alliance is a matter of doubt, but the probabilities appear to favour 1025, when the Emperor Conrad was in Saxony. Some historians believe that the mark was not ceded at this time but ten years later, when Canute's daughter Gunhild was betrothed to Conrad's son Henry, as Adam of Bremen seems to a.s.sociate these two events.[224] But Adam's chronology is confused on these matters.

Canute's friendship was surely more difficult to purchase in 1025 when his star was rapidly ascending than in 1035 when his empire had begun to collapse. While we cannot be sure, it seems extremely likely that the boundary of Denmark was extended to the Eider in 1025.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Danish coins from the reign of Canute, minted at Lund, Roeskilde, Ringsted]

FOOTNOTES:

[192] Langebek, _Scriptores_, i., 159 (note).

[193] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1018.

[194] Simeon of Durham, _Opera Omnia_, i., 216. The account of the siege of Durham is not by Simeon but by some writer whose ident.i.ty is unknown.

[195] Simeon of Durham, _Opera Omnia_, i., 84.

[196] _Ibid._

[197] Liebermann, _Gesetze der Angelsachsen_, i., 273 (sec. 5).

[198] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1020.

[199] Sec. 4.

[200] Sees. 2, 8, and 11. For a translation of the entire doc.u.ment see Appendix i.

[201] _Chronicon_, i., 183.

[202] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1023. The story given by later writers that Thurkil was slain by a Danish mob soon after his exile cannot be credited. It doubtless originated in a desire that the persecutor of Saint Alphege should suffer retribution. See especially the life of this saint in Langebek, _Scriptores_, ii., 453.

[203] One of the sagas (_f.a.grskinna_, c. 24) tells us that Eric actually made the pilgrimage and died soon after the return. That such a journey was at least planned seems probable; Eric's brother-in-law, Einar, is said to have made a pilgrimage during the earlier years of the decade; they may have planned to make the journey together. The earliest English writers who account for Eric's disappearance on the theory of exile are William of Malmesbury (_Gesta Regum_, i., 219), and Henry of Huntingdon (_Historia Anglorum_, 186).

[204] Kemble, _Codex Diplomaticus_, No. 741.

[205] _Jomsvikingasaga_, c. 52.

[206] In an agreement of that year involving lands in Worcester and Gloucester, Leofwine ealdorman signs as a witness. Kemble, _Codex Diplomaticus_, No. 738.

[207] Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, i., 285.

[208] _Afhandlinger viede Sophus Bugge's Minde_, 8.

[209] Steenstrup, _Normannerne_, iii., 326-328.

[210] Steenstrup, _Venderne og de Danske_, 3.

[211] _Ibid._, 24-25.

[212] _Danmarks Riges Historie_, i., 322-323.

[213] _Gesta_, ii., c. 19.

[214] Steenstrup, _Venderne og de Danske_, 33-34.

[215] _Danmarks Riges Historie_, i., 325-326. Steenstrup, _Venderne og de Danske_, 49.

[216] _Jomsvikingasaga_, c. 24.

[217] _Normannerne_, iii., 322-325.