CHAPTER II

THE VIKING MOVEMENT DOWN TO THE MIDDLE OF THE 9TH CENTURY

England was possibly the scene of the earliest Viking raids, but after the Dorchester raid, the sack of Lindisfarne in 793 (_v. supra_, p. 5), and the devastation of the monastery of St Paul at Jarrow in 794 we hear nothing more of Vikings in England until 835. The fate of Ireland was different. Attacks began almost at the same time as in England and continued without intermission. Vikings sailed round the west coast of Scotland. Skye and then Lambay Island off Dublin were invaded in 795, Glamorganshire was ravaged in the same year and the Isle of Man was attacked in 798. Iona was plundered in 802 and again in 806. In 807 invaders appeared off the coast of Sligo and made their way inland as far as Roscommon, and in 811 Munster was plundered. In 821 the Howth peninsula near Dublin and two small islands in Wexford Haven were ravaged. The Vikings had completely encircled Ireland with their fleets and by the year 834 they had made their way well into the interior of the island so that none were safe from their attacks. They no longer contented themselves with isolated raids: large fleets began to visit Ireland and to anchor in the numerous loughs and harbours with which the coast abounds. Thence they made lengthy raids on the surrounding country and often strengthened their base by building forts on the shores of the loughs or harbours in which they had established themselves. It was in this way that Dublin, Waterford and Limerick first rose to importance.

Of the leaders of the Vikings at this time there is only one whose figure stands out at all clearly, and that is Turges (O.N. Ðorgestr) who first appeared in 832 at the sack of Armagh. He had come to Ireland with a great and royal fleet and 'assumed the sovereignty over the foreigners in Erin.' He had fleets on Lough Neagh, at Louth, and on Lough Ree, and raided the country as far south as the Meath district. Turges was not the only invader at this time: indeed so numerous were the invading hosts that the chronicles tell us 'after this there came great sea-cast floods of foreigners into Erin, so that there was not a point thereof without a fleet.' The power of Turges culminated in 841, when he drove the abbot of Armagh into exile, usurped the abbacy, and exercised the sovereignty of North Ireland. At the same time his wife Ota (O.N. Auðr) profaned the monastery of Clonmacnoise and gave audience, probably as a _völva_ or prophetess, upon the high altar. Three years later Turges was captured by the Irish and drowned in Lough Owel (co. West Meath).

The early attacks on England and the first invasion of Ireland were alike due to Norsemen rather than Danes. This is evident from their general course, from the explicit statement of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and from the fact that the first arrival of Danes in Ireland is definitely recorded in the year 849. The attack on Dorchester (c. 786-802), lying as it does near the centre of the south coast of England, is somewhat strange if it is assigned to the traditional date, viz. 787, but there is no authority for this, and if it is placed at any date nearer to 802 (before which it must have taken place), it is probable that the attack may be explained as an extension of Viking raids down St George's Channel and round the S.W. corner of England.

In 835 the attacks on England were renewed after an interval of 40 years, but as they now stand in close connexion with contemporary invasions of Frankish territory there is every reason to believe that they were of Danish rather than of Norse origin. The attacks began in the south and west but they soon spread to East Anglia and Lindsey. In 842 the same army ravaged London, Étaples and Rochester. In 851 Aethelstan of Kent defeated the Danes at sea in one of the rare battles fought with them on their own element, and in the same year they remained for the winter in Thanet, probably owing to the loss of their ships. The size and importance of these attacks may be gauged from the fact that in this year a fleet of some 350 Danish ships sailed up the Thames. It was probably that same fleet, with slightly diminished numbers, which in 852 ravaged Frisia and then sailed round the British Isles, came to Ireland, and captured Dublin. In 855 the Danes wintered for the first time in Sheppey and we reach the same point in the development of their attacks on England to which they had already attained in Ireland. We pass away from the period of raiding. The Danes now came prepared to stay for several years at a time and to carry on their attacks with unceasing persistency.

The course of events in the Frankish empire ran on much the same lines as in England and Ireland during these years except that here trouble arose on the land boundary between Denmark and the Franks as well as on the sea-coast.

Alarmed by the conquest of the Saxons the Danish king Guðröðr collected a fleet at Slesvík and in 808 he crossed the Eider and attacked the Abodriti (in Mecklenburg-Schwerin), a Slavonic tribe in alliance with the Franks. He also sent a fleet of some 200 vessels to ravage the coast of Frisia, laid claim to that district and to Saxony, north of the Elbe, and threatened to attack Charlemagne in his own capital. The emperor was preparing to resist him when news arrived (810) of the death of Guðröðr at the hands of one of his followers and the consequent dispersal of the Danish fleet.

Soon after disputes over the succession arose between the family of Guðröðr and that of an earlier king Harold. Ultimately the contest resolved itself into one between the sons of Guðröðr, especially one Horic (O.N. Hárekr) and a certain Harold. It lasted for several years, the sons of Guðröðr for the most part maintaining their hold on Denmark. At one time during the struggle Harold and his brother Ragnfröðr went to Vestfold in Norway, 'the extreme district of their realm, whose chiefs and peoples were refusing to be made subject to them, and gained their submission,' showing clearly that at this time Denmark and Southern Norway were under one rule and rendering probable the identification of Guðröðr with Guðröðr the Yngling who about this time was slain by a retainer in Stifla Sound on the south coast of Norway. This king ruled over Vestfold, half Vingulmörk and perhaps Agðir. Both parties were anxious to secure the support of the emperor Lewis and in the end Harold gained his help by accepting baptism at Mainz in 826. He promised to promote the cause of Christianity in Denmark, while Lewis in return granted him the district of Riustringen in Frisia as a place of retreat in case of necessity. The Danes thereby gained their first foothold within the empire.

Sufficient has been said of the relation between Denmark and the empire on its land boundary: we must now say something of the attacks made by sea.

The first were made in 799 on the coast of Aquitaine and they were probably due to raiders from Ireland who followed a well-known trade route from South Ireland to the ports of Southern France. In 800 Charlemagne inspected the coast from the Somme to the Seine and gave orders for the equipment of a fleet and the strengthening of the coastguard against Northmen pirates. When Guðröðr's fleet plundered the islands off the Frisian coast in 810, Charlemagne gave orders for his fleet to be strengthened once more, but the results were meagre in the extreme. The passage of the Channel was no longer safe, and year after year, from some time before 819, Vikings harried the island of Noirmoutier at the mouth of the Loire, commanding the port of Nantes and the extensive salt-trade of the district. The Island of Rhé opposite La Rochelle, was raided in similar fashion.

The Frankish empire was free from attack between the years 814 and 833. During the same time the English coast was also unvisited, and it is probable that the struggles for the succession in Denmark had for the time being reduced that kingdom to inactivity. About the year 830 the Danish king Hárekr seems to have established himself firmly on the throne, while on the other hand the emperor Lewis was troubled by the ambition of his sons Lewis, Pippin and Lothair. It is probably no chance coincidence that these events synchronised with the renewal of Viking attacks on Frisia. Throughout their history the Vikings showed themselves well informed of the changing political conditions of the countries which they visited and ready to make the utmost use of the opportunities which these might give for successful invasion.

Frisia was the main point of attack during the next few years. Four times was the rich trading town of Duurstede ravaged; fleets sailed up the Veldt, the Maas, and the Scheldt; Antwerp was burned and the Island of Walcheren plundered, so that by the year 840 the greater part of Frisia south of the Vlie, was in Danish hands and so it remained till the end of the century. The Danish king Hárekr repeatedly denied all complicity in these raids and even promised to punish the raiders, but it is impossible to tell how far his denials were genuine. Equally difficult is it to say how far Harold in his Frisian home was responsible for these attacks. The annalists charge him with complicity, but Lewis seems to have thought it best to bind him by fresh gifts and (probably about 839) granted the district around Duurstede itself to him and his brother Roric (O.N. Hroerekr) on condition that they helped to ward off Viking attacks. All the efforts of the emperor to equip a fleet or to defend the coast were to no purpose, and there was even a suspicion that the Frisian populace were in sympathy with the Vikings. So great was the terror of attack that when in 839 a Byzantine mission, including some Rhôs or Swedes from Russia, visited the emperor at Ingelheim, the Swedes were for a time detained under suspicion, as spies.

On the death of Lewis the Pious in 840 things went from bad to worse. The division of the empire in 843 gave the coast from the Eider to the Weser to Lewis, from the Weser to the Scheldt to Lothair, and the rest to Charles, removing all possibility of a united and organised defence, and soon these princes entered on the fatal policy of calling in the Vikings to assist them in their quarrels. Thus Lothair in 841 endeavoured to bind Harold to his cause by a grant of the Island of Walcheren and Harold is found in the following year with Lothair's army on the Moselle.

The Viking expeditions to England and France stand now in close connexion. In 841 the valley of the Seine was ravaged as far as Rouen, in 842 Étaples in Picardy was destroyed by a fleet from England, while in 843 Nantes fell a prey to their attacks. From their permanent quarters at Noirmoutier the Vikings sailed up the Garonne and penetrated inland as far as Toulouse. In 844 we hear from Arab historians of their vessels swarming on the coasts of Spain like 'dark red sea-birds,' but while they effected landings at Lisbon and Cadiz and at Arzilla in Morocco, and captured Seville, with the exception of its citadel, the Mussulman resistance was too stout for them to effect much.

As a result of this expedition the Emir of Cordova, Abd-ar-Rahman II sent an embassy to the king of the _Madjus_ (i.e. the magi or the heathen, one of the commonest Arab names for the Vikings). The ambassador found the king living in an island three days' journey from the mainland, but we are told that the heathen occupied many other neighbouring isles and the mainland also. He was courteously received by the king and became an especial favourite with the queen Noud (? O.N. Auðr). His companions were alarmed at the intimacy and as a result the ambassador paid less frequent visits to court. The queen asked him why, and when he told her the reason she said that, owing to perfect freedom of divorce, there was no jealousy among the Madjus. The details of the story are too vague to admit of certainty, but it would seem as if the embassy had visited the court of the great Turges and his equally remarkable wife Auðr in Ireland, or perhaps that of Olaf the White and his wife Auðr (_v. infra_, p. 66).

In 845 Hárekr of Denmark sailed up the Elbe and destroyed Hamburg, while in the same year the dreaded Ragnarr Loðbrók, most famous of all Vikings, sailed up the Seine as far as Paris. While on its retreat from Paris, after the usual devastation, a strange and deadly disease, possibly some form of dysentery due to scantiness of food resulting from a hard winter, broke out in the Danish army. Various legends arose in connexion with this event, and it finds a curious echo in the story told by Saxo Grammaticus of an expedition made by Ragnarr among the Biarmians (in Northern Russia) when that people by their prayers called down a plague of dysentery upon the Danes in which large numbers perished. In the end the historical plague was stayed when Hárekr commanded the Vikings on their return to Denmark to refrain from flesh and meat for fourteen days. Whether as a result of the plague or from some other cause Hárekr now showed himself ready to come to terms with Lewis, and for the next eighty years there was complete peace along the Eider boundary. The whole of the coast was still open to attack however; Frisia was hardly ever free from invaders; Brittany was obliged to buy off Danish attacks in 847, while Noirmoutier continued to form a basis of attack against Southern France in the Gironde district. The Viking invasions in France had attained much the same stage as that to which we have already traced them in England and Ireland.