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
The circumstance that those sculptured monumental stones in Man, which
are Norwegian, have both runic writings and peculiar representations of
figures, certainly affords a strong corroboration of the opinion before
expressed, that the sculptured monuments, generally so finely executed,
which are found on the east coast of Scotland, are in fact, though
called “Danish,” not Scandinavian, but Scotch. As, on the other hand,
the runic stones in Man have expressly preserved the name of the person
who made them—the Norwegian skilled in runes, Gaut Björnsön, who
imitated and altered the Scotch models with great expertness and
taste—it is clear that the Norwegians in the remote Western Isles must
not be regarded, any more than their kinsmen in the Orkneys and in
England, as merely rude barbarians, living only for plunder, war, and
bloodshed, and having no feeling for anything higher and nobler. The
discovery of Gaut Björnsön’s name may be regarded as an instructive
addition to the proofs before adduced, that the cathedral in Kirkwall
was originally founded, and partly erected, by a Norwegian layman, the
chieftain Kol; as well as that there existed at the same time in England
a considerable number of Danish, or Scandinavian, coiners. Of the
latter, as we shall see, there were likewise several employed by the
Norwegian-Danish kings in Ireland. For the rest, these characteristic
Scandinavian runic writings suffice to show that, with regard to the
civilization then prevailing, the Norwegians or Danes settled in these
districts were by no means deficient in education. The Northmen on the
Isle of Man were, besides, at a very early period, Christians. Almost
all the Manx runic stones are ornamented with the Christian cross; and
on a defaced piece of such a monumental stone at Kirk Onchan we even
find the words Jesus Christ (“Jsu Krist”). From the language of the
inscriptions there is reason to suppose that they were for the most part
engraved in the eleventh century. We cannot, therefore, doubt that
Christianity must at that time have been already disseminated among the
Scandinavian population in the Isle of Man. There was a bishopric in the
island in very ancient times; and we learn from history, as well as from
the names of the bishops, that in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries several of them were of Norwegian descent; for instance, in
1050-1065, Roolwer (Rolf?); 1077-1100, Aumond M’Olave; 1181-1190,
Reginald, or Ragnvald; 1203-1226, Reginald (son of a sister of King
Olaf, of Man); and his successor, John Ivarsön. Unfortunately there is a
gap in the chronicles of the bishops of Man from about the year 700 to
the year 1025. Had they been perfect, we should possibly have been able
to find Scandinavian bishops in the island even earlier than 1050.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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