An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and IrelandWorsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen
History
An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland
Worsaae, Jens Jacob Asmussen
Great Britain -- Civilization -- Scandinavian influences; Northmen -- Great Britain; Northmen -- Ireland
About the year 940, Christianity must, on the whole, have had a firm
footing among the Northumbrian Danes. It would otherwise be inexplicable
how, in the wars which Edmund waged at that time with the Danish king
Anlaf, or Olaf, in Northumberland, even the Archbishop of York,
“Wulfstan,” should have sided with the Danes against the Anglo-Saxons.
Wulfstan subsequently, in the year 943, negotiated a peace between Olaf
and Edmund, whereby the latter ceded the country east of Watlinga-Stræt
to Olaf. In this treaty a great man, of Danish extraction, took part on
the Anglo-Saxon side; namely, Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose
father was a Dane who had fought in the host of the Vikings against
Alfred the Great. One might almost be led to believe that Wulfstan
himself was of Danish origin, and that his name was only the Anglo-Saxon
form of the Scandinavian “Ulfsteen.” For under King Edmund’s successor,
Edred, we again find the Archbishop, together with his clergy, paying
homage to the Danish king’s son, Erik (son of Harald Blaatand?),
although he had shortly before, in common with the Northumbrians, taken
an oath of fidelity to the Anglo-Saxon king. After the murder of Erik,
King Edred caused the Archbishop to be deposed and thrown into prison;
but afterwards gave him the bishopric of Dorchester, though far removed
from the Danish possessions.
Another argument in favour of the Danish extraction of Bishop Wulfstan
(or Ulfsteen) is, that several of his successors in the archbishopric
were undoubtedly Danish; which shows that in those days such men were
chiefly elevated to that dignity, as, through their common descent and
kinsmanship, possessed an influence over the Danish population in
Northumberland; where, also, there was doubtless a great body of Danish
clergy. Contemporary with Abbot Thorketil, a certain “Oscetel,” or
Osketil, is also named as churchwarden (circeværd) in the King’s
letters-patent in the year 949; probably the same Osketil who, between
the years 955 and 970, constantly signed the King’s letters as
Archbishop of York. As Odo, the Danish Archbishop of Canterbury, lived
long after Osketil had become Archbishop of York, we are thus presented,
half a century before the reign of Canute the Great, with the singular
spectacle of the two chief ecclesiastics of England, the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York, being both of Danish extraction. Oscytel’s
successor in the archiepiscopal see of York was also a Danish man,
although he bore the Anglo-Saxon name of Oswald. He was both nearly
related to Oscytel (his “nepos”), and, moreover, a brother’s son of
Archbishop Odo; consequently descended in a direct line from the Danish
Viking, Odo’s father. This Archbishop Oswald published some laws for the
Northumbrian clergy which are still extant, and in which, according to
Danish custom, fines are computed in _marks_ and _öre_; whilst in the
rest of England they were reckoned in pounds and shillings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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