Guthrum II
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
have seen the Norse kings of Eastanglia presented something like this:
Guthrum I, king of Eastanglia 870/80-890, died 890.
Eric, his son, king of Eastanglia 890-904, died 904.
Guthrum II, king of Eastanglia 904-918, died 918.
This surprises me, because some of the works seem to been otherwise sober
and reliable. So now I wonder if I have missed some important piece of
evidence about this Eastanglian "dynasty".
I thought that there were serious doubts about even the mere existence of
the second Guthrum, and it seems to me that the list above represents a lot
of arbitrary guessing.
I can see how the information of the ASC is reflected in the list above,
and some of it is obviously based on the questionable treaty between Edward
the Elder and a Danish king called Guthrum.
But is that really all there is to it ...?
The genealogical relevance of this topic is the possible ties of kinship
between the Danish kings of Eastanglia and Denmark in the 10th century. I
believe in the conjecture "Guthrum II" = "Gorm the Old", but both the
possible non-existence of the left of this equation and his premature fall
in the battle at Tempsford are somewhat damaging to the theory.
So once again: Have I really missed (and that is my wishful thinking) some
important piece of evidence about this Eastanglian "dynasty"?
Kristian Nyrup.
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
>The genealogical relevance of this topic is the possible ties of kinship
>between the Danish kings of Eastanglia and Denmark in the 10th century. I
>believe in the conjecture "Guthrum II" = "Gorm the Old", but both the
>possible non-existence of the left of this equation and his premature fall
>in the battle at Tempsford are somewhat damaging to the theory.
It is chronologically improbable for Gorm "the Old" (who died in 958
or thereabouts) to have been the same person as a hypothetical Guthrum
II of East Anglia ruling in the very early tenth century, and I know
of no reasonable evidence that would link Gorm to the Viking kings of
East Anglia. (Saxo and other Danish pseudohistorians make Gorm the
Old a grandson of someone who has been identified with the first
Guthrum, but those sources are without any value whatsoever for the
time period in question.)
Stewart Baldwin
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:3b031777...@news.mindspring.com...
Well, I think I've got some evidence. I haven't got anything pretending to
be proofs, just some loose ideas that I think deserve being tested in a
discussion with interested and qualified opponents. By studying the archive
with the many previous discussions about 10th century Danish history I have
learned that this newsgroup is a proper forum.
So I am grateful for any reaction, especially the critical ones.
Now here is my line of thinking:
1) There are reasons to believe that "Denmark" c.900 was divided into
several kingdoms, and that the kings mentioned on the runic stones at
Jelling (Gorm and Harald) gradually gather the pieces until Harald finally
(c.965) was able to declare that he "won all of Denmark".
2) There are reasons to believe that Jelling was a temporary arrangement -
the bridgehead of a conqueror comming from somewhere outside "Denmark" -
until the rightful capital city of the kingdom (Lethra/Roskilde) was
conquered/incorporated.
3) There are reasons to believe that the Jelling-dynasty had close westward
(Norman-Frisian-English) contacts before the North Sea Empire was created by
Sven, and that claims of heriditary rights were part of the ideology of the
empire.
4) The dating of the Jelling-monuments tells that the "Jelling-dynasty" was
ruling (some part of) "Denmark" from around 930, perhaps a little later.
5) and so does the story about Unni's visit to king Gorm.
6) If you look at the situation in the Danish colonies around the Channel in
the previous couple of decades (910-930), you the see the perfect background
for an English-Norman-Frisian army returning to "Denmark":
Edward the Elder had wiped out the Danish kingdom of Eastanglia, leaving a
dynasty (the Guthrumians?) without a kingdom, with a force of war-trained
men, and no better place to go. The Norse kings of Dublin (the Ivarians?)
finally had some lasting succes in the Northern parts of the Danelaw. France
was since the treaty between Rollo and the French no longer a profitable
huntingground for a king without kingdom and his idle warriors.
That is why I think that the Jelling-kings came from Eastanglia, and that
this is the perfect place to look for the ancestors of Gorm "the Old".
But then of course I search for confirmation in the writings of the medieval
historians, and I think that I find some:
Saxo is not the oldest source of a Danish king called "Gorm the
Englishman" (Anglicus), although he seems to be the first one having the
explicite use of the nickname. Saxo depends heavily on the so-called
Chronicle of Roskilde from o.1140. In this chronicle you read about king
Sven with the two sons Gorm and Hardeknud. Sven had conquered a kingdom in
England. From there his two sons attack Denmark, kill the Danish king
Halfdan, and take his kingdom. Gorm becomes king in Denmark with headquarter
on Sjælland (Sealand), Hardeknud in England.
The chronicler makes a clumsy duplication of Gorm and his son Harald, so
that the first pair is made predecessors of the Halfdan, that the second
Gorm defeats.
To Saxo the list of kings cannot be too long. He seems to have realized the
ridiculous duplication, but he nevertheless keeps both Gorms in his list,
and distributes the information found in the Chronicle of Roskilde in a more
logical way. By that he created "Gorm the Englishman", made "Gorm the Old"
his own grandfather, and by the same process he deprived him of his English
origin.
Gorm the Old and Gorm the Englishman is (are?) the same person, and there is
no need to bring Guthrum-Athelstan of Eastanglia into the game.
The general opinion among editors and translators of The Chronicle of
Roskilde is that it is for the time prior to the reign of Sven Estridsen
just a simple extract from Adam of Bremen. But that is not the whole truth.
The chronicler also uses some unidentified (possibly Anglo-Norman) source
when telling about the "Lothbrog" invasion of England and the killing of
St.Edmund. That could be the source, too, of the story about Gorm the
Englishman.
A chronicle from 1140 should of course not be treated as a primary source of
events happening 200 years earlier. It is the work of a historian making
mistakes, making theories, manipulating sources as historians has always
done. His theories about what happened in the early 10th century is no
better (probably a lot worse) than the theory of a modern historian, except
from the fact that he may have had access to material now lost. That is, I
think, the general value of the works of the 12th century (or later)
historians, and the reason why one cannot just dismiss them.
(I wonder how the works of e.g. Florence of Worcester or William of
Malmesbury would have been judged today if the ASC had been lost. And by the
way: why call the medieval historians pseudo-historians? If there
ever were historians in those days, Saxo was one of them. One may question
the quality of Gesta Danorum - especially the historical value of the first
books - and whether it is a useful source of anything, but does that make
him pseudo-?)
I believe that the Chronicle of Roskilde has preserved the true story about
the origin of the Danish kings. I cannot prove it, it may be wrong. But at
least the theory of Gorm's English background should be honoured as what it
is: the oldest theory formulated by a Danish historian, who may have had
reasons to know.
If Gorm is the person whose skeleton has been found under the floor in the
church of Jelling, he was according to the anthropological analysis born in
the interval 908-923. He could have been a child of 10 when the last
mentioned (but unnamed) king of Eastanglia fell at Tempsford. I think that a
child of 10 or even younger may have been appointed king, especially in a
situation where his father and predecessor was suddenly killed.
So now you probably have guessed the continuation:
The father of Gorm was killed at Tempsford in 918. His name was Hardeknud,
and his son was for a short while formally king in the unsaveable ruins of
the Eastanglian colony.
And this child-king was later one of the ingredienses from which the
composite phantom-king Guthred of the legends of St.Cuthbert was created.
Enough for now - enough to provoke a reaction, I should think ( :-)), but
this was just the top of my iceberg of arguments.
Kristian Nyrup.
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
[much cut to save bandwidth]
I would be interested in seeing more of your evidence, particularly
for your statements that start off "There are reasons to believe that
...".
Of all of the statements that you made, the one for which I would most
like to see a direct citation is the following one:
>The father of Gorm was killed at Tempsford in 918. His name was Hardeknud,
>and his son was for a short while formally king in the unsaveable ruins of
>the Eastanglian colony.
Is this death of a Hardeknud in 918 documented somewhere, or is it
part of a hypothetical reconstruction of events? I will probably get
back to this with some more detailed comments, but here are a couple
of brief ones for now.
1. I am very skeptical about the possibility of getting historical
information for this period from the Chronicle of Roskilde. The story
you mentioned looks like a distortion of Adam of Bremen (who was a
hundred years closer to the events, and had the king of Denmark as an
informant), perhaps conflated with some English source related to
Simeon of Durham.
2. If Gorm (or his family) had an English connection, I think it is
much more likely to have been with the kingdom of York rather than
that of East Anglia. Adam places the origin of the family in
"Nortmannia" (variously translated as Normandy or Norway). There was
a king in York named Cnut ca. 900 (known from coins) who also minted
coins at Quentovic in France, and this Cnut has sometimes been
identified with Gorm's father.
Stewart Baldwin
Todd A. Farmerie
Hey, a real thread on medieval genealogy. Not my aea of
expertise, but I do have a few comments.
> Now here is my line of thinking:
>
> 1) There are reasons to believe that "Denmark" c.900 was divided into
> several kingdoms, and that the kings mentioned on the runic stones at
> Jelling (Gorm and Harald) gradually gather the pieces until Harald finally
> (c.965) was able to declare that he "won all of Denmark".
Granted (some might include Adam's Gorm predicessor, Harthacnut,
in this conquest scheme).
> 2) There are reasons to believe that Jelling was a temporary arrangement -
> the bridgehead of a conqueror comming from somewhere outside "Denmark" -
> until the rightful capital city of the kingdom (Lethra/Roskilde) was
> conquered/incorporated.
That they came from elsewhere, I would agree. I am not as
willing to accept that there was a "rightful capital city". In
other kingdoms at this time the capital moved as needed (i.e.
from Asturias to Leon). I am not sure that a dynasty who had
buried their ancestors at Jelling would have recognized Lethra as
being superior (particularly if foreign, having no traditional
links to the Lethra capital).
> That is why I think that the Jelling-kings came from Eastanglia, and that
> this is the perfect place to look for the ancestors of Gorm "the Old".
I do note that one tradition makes Thyra daughterof English king
AEthelred I.
> If Gorm is the person whose skeleton has been found under the floor in the
> church of Jelling, he was according to the anthropological analysis born in
> the interval 908-923.
Does this require his boy to have been moved? In other words, is
this a combination of the date from the wood in the mound crypt,
and the age of the skeleton in the church (which some have
suggested had been moved there from the mound - an alternative
being that the church burial is that of Harald)?
I look forward to seeimg more.
taf
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
>
> I would be interested in seeing more of your evidence, particularly
> for your statements that start off "There are reasons to believe that
> ...".
I shall try later on, but I'm afraid that the documentation is a bit too
extensive for newgroup posting.
>
> Of all of the statements that you made, the one for which I would most
> like to see a direct citation is the following one:
>
> >The father of Gorm was killed at Tempsford in 918. His name was
Hardeknud,
> >and his son was for a short while formally king in the unsaveable ruins
of
> >the Eastanglian colony.
>
> Is this death of a Hardeknud in 918 documented somewhere, or is it
> part of a hypothetical reconstruction of events? I will probably get
> back to this with some more detailed comments, but here are a couple
> of brief ones for now.
If one accepts the following premises:
1) Gorm was son of (Hartha)Cnut.
2) Gorm died in 958 at the age of 35-50.
3) Gorm was king in England before he came to "Denmark".
the conclusion follows through a series of sensible and likely steps of
reasoning, which I think is more than just a hypothetical reconstruction,
but of course much, much less than a proof.
And a direct citation I haven't got.
At the end of this posting, I shall try to explain my general approach ...
>
> 1. I am very skeptical about the possibility of getting historical
> information for this period from the Chronicle of Roskilde. The story
> you mentioned looks like a distortion of Adam of Bremen (who was a
> hundred years closer to the events, and had the king of Denmark as an
> informant), perhaps conflated with some English source related to
> Simeon of Durham.
> 2. If Gorm (or his family) had an English connection, I think it is
> much more likely to have been with the kingdom of York rather than
> that of East Anglia. Adam places the origin of the family in
> "Nortmannia" (variously translated as Normandy or Norway). There was
> a king in York named Cnut ca. 900 (known from coins) who also minted
> coins at Quentovic in France, and this Cnut has sometimes been
> identified with Gorm's father.
I believe that Adam has got the right story (namely the same as mine) from
Sven Estridsen, but he hasn't been able to transfer it from spoken Danish to
German and then again to written Latin in a correct and unambiguous way.
"Hardegon filius Suein" from Northmannia IS Gorm arriving from if not
exactly Normandy at least from somewhere else inhabitated by Northmen in
Western Europe.
To my knowledge all known coins minted by Cnut are from the Cuerdale find,
which has been dated differently by the experts. I've seen suggestions
ranging from 903 to 910 for the burial of the hoard. The coins minted by
Louis the Child, king of East Franconia 899-911, tell that it could hardly
have been done before some years after the turn of the century. It is of
course impossible to determine the other end of an interval with the same
certainty, since the absence of a coin doesn't imply that it has not been
struck. The coins prove that there once was a king named Cnut striking coins
in York, Cunetti and Quentovic, and that his reign must have begun before
the hoard was put into the earth, but it is not possible to date his reign
with any precision from just the evidence of the coins, one could choose
ca.890, ca.900, or ca.910 with the same degree of certainty. But the
Cuerdale find is not contradictory to the assumption that Cnut was king
somewhere in England some part of the period 904-918. The coins prove that
he was a king, and that York was for some time part of his kingdom, but not
that he was king of York (or king of Cunetti or king of Quentovic).
Therefore Cnut may just as well have been king of East Anglia.
No one in the Middle Ages ever doubted that the real name of a king called
Harthacnut was Cnut, and that Hartha- was a nickname placed in front of it,
and that one was free to alternate between the two versions of the name. It
is an astonishing and confidence inspiring fact that of all the medieval
works mentioning a member of the Danish royal dynasty (the "Knytlings")
called (Hartha)Cnut before Gorm (Adam of Bremen, Simeon of Durham, the
Icelandic sagas, the Danish chronicles, annals, and lists of kings) there is
only one (I know of) making him king in England, namely the Chronicle of
Roskilde. Until the 1840's that was just another stupid error of this
ignorant
chronicler, then it became the undisputable truth!
From the very beginning of the conquest of the Danelaw in the 860's till the
end of the last sovereign Norse kingdom in 954, one can follow two competing
parties among the colonists with different interests and politics and
different relations to the surrounding Anglo-Saxons. In the ASC you see how
the heathens/foreigners/enemies/Danes of Northumbria and East Anglia
sometimes are mentioned as a unity, sometimes as seperate forces. In the
first years of the 10th century king Edward's cousin Ethelwold is mentioned
as leader of the Northumbrian Danes (even as king and that's odd?), while
there is another king in East Anglia. Both of them are killed in the battle
at Holme(?) (904-905?), and in the following year Edward makes peace with
all of his enemies in Hitching. This peace lasted till 910, when the treaty
was broken, but only by the Northumbrian enemy, and in the following battle
at Tettenhall their kings (Eowils and Halfdan, brothers of Ingvar) were
killed.
All three names mentioned suggest that they were of the same family as the
first conquerors, and of the Norse dynasty in Dublin. A few years later the
same party succeeded in establishing the Dublin-York kingdom, and from c.915
to 954 the list of kings of York is complete enough to allow the conclusion
that were no other kings there than the Regnald's, Sigtryg's, Olaf's, and
Guthfrid's of that same family, and the last king of them all: Eric
(Bloodaxe?).
But from 904/5 to 910/15 there seems to be a situation with just one king in
a united Danelaw whose position was challenged by rivals crossing the Irish
Sea. In 903 Ethelwold went across the sea (the
Channel) to get assistence from the Continent in the war against Edward. On
the other side is Quentovic (and Guines!) and if the auxiliary troops were
from there, their leader was in the country when suddenly none of the Norse
kingdoms had a king. This is where Cnut fits in.
I realize that there is an awful lot of if's in this. But still, the puzzle
has been laid, and all the pieces fit so well together. Doesn't that make it
a good theory?
I think that structured data are better than isolated and unordered data.
Therefore I think it is a sensible thing to do to make theories (or
hypothetical reconstructions if you like) as long as you keep in mind that
that's what you are deeling with. Just like in natural science. If you can
make a consistent model that can incorporate and
explain all relevant phenomena, its a good model. If the model is
inconsistent or contradictory to just one "fact", it is no good.
Things did happen, there is an explanation to everything, so even if you
cannot prove every fact in the mathematical og juridical sense of the word,
I don't think you should stop thinking about what did happen. A good theory
is worth while and may become the fruitful base of useful analysis.
A theory that is not overthrown by inconsistencies, incompleteness or
contradictions to facts is not proved, is not the truth. But it is a good
theory.
But the most important branch of historical research is of course still the
activity of distinguishing "facts" from "fiction" (Quoationmarks because
both words are ambiguous). There is no conflict, without facts no theory,
they are the checkpoints.
In this case the fact is (among other things) that there was a king Cnut in
England for which a time and a space must be supplied.
Kristian Nyrup
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
Todd A. Farmerie <farm...@interfold.com> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:3B04C2A1...@interfold.com...
> Kristian Andersen Nyrup wrote:
>
>
> Hey, a real thread on medieval genealogy. Not my aea of
> expertise, but I do have a few comments.
>
> > Now here is my line of thinking:
> >
> > 1) There are reasons to believe that "Denmark" c.900 was divided into
> > several kingdoms, and that the kings mentioned on the runic stones at
> > Jelling (Gorm and Harald) gradually gather the pieces until Harald
finally
> > (c.965) was able to declare that he "won all of Denmark".
>
> Granted (some might include Adam's Gorm predicessor, Harthacnut,
> in this conquest scheme).
The only reason for this inclusion is apparently the obscure "Hardegon
filius Suein" in Adam of Bremen's version of Sven Estridsen's story, which I
believe is no other than Gorm himself. I don't think there is "room" for one
more generation.
>
> > 2) There are reasons to believe that Jelling was a temporary
arrangement -
> > the bridgehead of a conqueror comming from somewhere outside "Denmark" -
> > until the rightful capital city of the kingdom (Lethra/Roskilde) was
> > conquered/incorporated.
>
> That they came from elsewhere, I would agree. I am not as
> willing to accept that there was a "rightful capital city". In
> other kingdoms at this time the capital moved as needed (i.e.
> from Asturias to Leon). I am not sure that a dynasty who had
> buried their ancestors at Jelling would have recognized Lethra as
> being superior (particularly if foreign, having no traditional
> links to the Lethra capital).
Lethra is explicitely called capital city by Thietmar of Merseburg (c.1020),
and so is Roskilde by Adam of Bremen (c.1070). Lethra was the seat of the
famous Skjoldunge-kings in stories and poems circulating - I guess -
whereever there was a Norse society, and especially in England (Beowulf,
Withsith). Jelling has no such reputation. If you remove the royal monuments
from Jelling i.e. the graves and memorials of Gorm and Thyra archeology
shows nothing but average material from the Viking Age. And though Harald
puts so much effort in the monuments, he himself (and his son Sven)
according to Adam of Bremen (and Ecom.Emm.) was burried in Roskilde. The
greatness of Jelling probably lasted for no more than 20-30 years, it may
have ended even before the death of Gorm.
But Jutland did have its own centers: Hedeby in Slesvig (no further
presentation needed, I guess), Viborg in North Jutland, where kings had to
be acclaimed (?) and later on an episcopal residence, Ribe, the old gateway
to the North Sea and the junction of western contacts. Jelling is not an
ancient center, it seems to be as excentric as possible. But it is placed at
a very advantageous strategic position near the sea just opposite Ribe and
approximately halfway between the ends of the old road (Hærvejen) from
Hedeby to Viborg.
Nevertheless Jelling is the obvious administrative center (one just have to
look at a map) of 1) the first Danish dioceses (948) all in Jutland, 2) the
partitioning of only Jutland into "syssel"s (administrative entities
comparable to "shires"), and 3) the establishment of some tool of central
government represented by the placename "Husby" (Jutland/Fyn).
All of this look like giant steps forward of royal power, that can most
easily be explained as acts of a powerful king with experiences from the
more established kingdoms of Europe imposing new ideas on his subjects. And
this happened when Jelling was the center of a Jutlandish kingdom. Therefore
this king must be Gorm.
A medieval king most of the time travelled around between several centers, I
think that capital city in those days meant not very much more than the
place considered by the king to be his "home and castle", a place to return
to, probably with large personal possessions, a place where his family
lived, and where members of the family were burried.
> > That is why I think that the Jelling-kings came from Eastanglia, and
that
> > this is the perfect place to look for the ancestors of Gorm "the Old".
>
> I do note that one tradition makes Thyra daughterof English king
> AEthelred I.
It is a remarkable thing that Saxo at this point so definitively contradicts
the Icelandic tradition that Thyra was the daughter of a certain Harald
Klak, because what else he writes about Gorm and Thyra indicates that he
knew that tradition. He must have had some reason to make this English
connection, some source relating Gorm to England, But I don't think the
exact nature of the connection should be derived from Saxo's statement.
I prefer the Icelandic version, because one can argue for it in a way
totally independent of what the Icelanders wrote.
>
> > If Gorm is the person whose skeleton has been found under the floor in
the
> > church of Jelling, he was according to the anthropological analysis born
in
> > the interval 908-923.
>
> Does this require his boy to have been moved? In other words, is
> this a combination of the date from the wood in the mound crypt,
> and the age of the skeleton in the church (which some have
> suggested had been moved there from the mound - an alternative
> being that the church burial is that of Harald)?
I'm afraid that without the translation theory you have no way of deciding
the age of Gorm, when he died.
The arguments against this theory have been ignored by journalists and
laymen (and tourist industry), and last year's reburial of Gorm in the
presence of the Danish royal family was in my oppinion impropriate. Several
Danish historians with Harald Andersen in front have argued against the
theory, and it can by no mean be called indisputable.
Nevertheless I think it is the best theory presented till now, and most of
the arguments against it can easily be rejected if you are willing to accept
some radical changes in the traditional view upon Danish history of the 10th
century.
Kristian Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
>Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com> skrev i en
>nyhedsmeddelelse:3b03f39d....@news.mindspring.com...
...
>> Of all of the statements that you made, the one for which I would most
>> like to see a direct citation is the following one:
>>
>>> The father of Gorm was killed at Tempsford in 918.
>>> His name was Hardeknud, and his son was for a short
>>> while formally king in the unsaveable ruins of
>>> the Eastanglian colony.
>>
>> Is this death of a Hardeknud in 918 documented somewhere, or is it
>> part of a hypothetical reconstruction of events? I will probably get
>> back to this with some more detailed comments, but here are a couple
>> of brief ones for now.
>
>If one accepts the following premises:
>1) Gorm was son of (Hartha)Cnut.
Given the account of Adam of Bremen, reasonable, but not certain.
>2) Gorm died in 958 at the age of 35-50.
The death in 958 or thereabouts seems reasonably certain, given that
the dendrochronological evidence indicates the burial at Jelling of an
important person in that year, and Gorm (who has a contemporary
monument there) is the only reasonable candidate. The age of 35-50
depends on the theory that the body found in the church there was
Gorm's reburied body.
>3) Gorm was king in England before he came to "Denmark".
This one is a problem. While it is not impossible, I know of no
evidence that this was the case.
>the conclusion follows through a series of sensible and likely steps of
>reasoning, which I think is more than just a hypothetical reconstruction,
>but of course much, much less than a proof.
>And a direct citation I haven't got.
>At the end of this posting, I shall try to explain my general approach ...
...
>I believe that Adam has got the right story (namely the same as mine) from
>Sven Estridsen, but he hasn't been able to transfer it from spoken Danish to
>German and then again to written Latin in a correct and unambiguous way.
>"Hardegon filius Suein" from Northmannia IS Gorm arriving from if not
>exactly Normandy at least from somewhere else inhabitated by Northmen in
>Western Europe.
Isn't this inconsistent with what you said above, where you suggested
that Gorm was a son of a certain Hardeknud. Now you are suggesting
that Gorm was the same as Hardegon, son of a certain Svend. (A more
likely suggestion is that Hardegon was a corruption of Hardeknud,
which is how the name appears in at least one manuscript of Adam of
Bremen.)
>To my knowledge all known coins minted by Cnut are from the Cuerdale find,
>which has been dated differently by the experts. I've seen suggestions
>ranging from 903 to 910 for the burial of the hoard. The coins minted by
>Louis the Child, king of East Franconia 899-911, tell that it could hardly
>have been done before some years after the turn of the century. It is of
>course impossible to determine the other end of an interval with the same
>certainty, since the absence of a coin doesn't imply that it has not been
>struck. The coins prove that there once was a king named Cnut striking coins
>in York, Cunetti and Quentovic, and that his reign must have begun before
>the hoard was put into the earth, but it is not possible to date his reign
>with any precision from just the evidence of the coins, one could choose
>ca.890, ca.900, or ca.910 with the same degree of certainty. But the
>Cuerdale find is not contradictory to the assumption that Cnut was king
>somewhere in England some part of the period 904-918. The coins prove that
>he was a king, and that York was for some time part of his kingdom, but not
>that he was king of York (or king of Cunetti or king of Quentovic).
>Therefore Cnut may just as well have been king of East Anglia.
I find this part very difficult to swallow. The coins of this king
Cnut show him minting coins at York, at Quentovic (on the French coast
near Guînes), and at Cunetti (unidentified locality). If he had
control of the mint at York for a long enough period to mint coins,
then it would be hard to believe that he was not king of York. There
is NO evidence that he was alos king of East Anglia, so that
suggestion seems like no more than guesswork. In fact, if a Viking
king was ruling both East Anglia AND York in the early tenth century,
how did he not find his way into the English sources?
...
>I realize that there is an awful lot of if's in this. But still, the puzzle
>has been laid, and all the pieces fit so well together. Doesn't that make it
>a good theory?
The problem is that this theory has a LOT of filling in of details for
which there is no good evidence. There are a lot of other ways to
fill in the details that are completely contradictory to your theory.
In the absence of evidence, why should your theory be accepted over
the many others that could be put forward?
Stewart Baldwin
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
[snips and rearragements]
> The problem is that this theory has a LOT of filling in of details for
> which there is no good evidence. There are a lot of other ways to
> fill in the details that are completely contradictory to your theory.
> In the absence of evidence, why should your theory be accepted over
> the many others that could be put forward?
I think that different theories, even contradictory theories, may exist side
by side. It may be impossible to choose between them, and I see only one
criterion that might decide the choice: the amount of observed phenomena
explainable within the theory. If a theory leaves a lot of natural questions
unanswered it is inferior to a theory that offers straightforward and
logical answers to the same questions.
A whole lot of interesting questions are left unanswered, answered in an
artificial or unsatisfactory way, or not even posed in most of the works on
the history of this period of time that I've studied.
I just think that there must be a better way of doing it, so now I'm trying
...
As for the filling in of details you put your finger on a sore point. When
making theories you may easily be carried away by the spledour of your own
thoughts so that you end up with feet off the ground.
But if the unproven details are filled in in order to demonstrate the
possibility of something, they are not a fundamental problem. Because then
the purpose is not to reach the conclusion: this is how it happened, but
only to avoid "reductio ad absurdum".
As an example of an unsolved problem:
Why haven't any lasting and generally accepted conclusions been drawn from
the evident and striking fact, that the names of the Danish kings changed
dramatically in the 10th century? Why is Harald the only name surviving the
turn of the century? Why has Gorm disappeared? Why all these Cnut's and
Sven's? Cnut is (originally) not a king's name, Sven (originally) not even a
personal name.
One can say: nobody knows for sure, and stop there. Or you can say: let us
try to find the best possible answers, study the implications, and be
prepared to accept that a better answer or new facts may turn up.
Here are my considerations about "Cnut":
Cnut became the name of Danish kings because at some unique occasion a
specific individual not of (Danish) royal descent happened to become the
king of something.
" Knud den Hellige" (St.Canutus) called himself Canutus Quartus in a
diploma. He and his contemporaries (c.1080) must have believed that there
once was a predecessor, a king called Canutus Primus. If you count backwards
you see that he was the father of Gorm (if you accept that his name was
Cnut, and that he was a king). Later on the family was known as the
Knytlings. None of this make sense if this Cnut was considered to be just
another ancestor in what was believed to be an unbroken line of kings of the
same dynasty. There must have been a family tradition telling about the
first Cnut, the founder of the dynasty, telling that something extraordinary
happened, when he became the very first king Cnut. One could not have called
a king "the First" if there were doubts about that. In a royal family with
expectably more than average interest in genealogy, traditions about a
grandfather's grandfather's grandfather are more than legends.
Therefore it is very unlikely that there could be two different kings called
(Hartha)Cnut in the generation before Gorm. The king mentioned on the coins
from Cuerdale must be the one and only king Cnut of that time, the same
person as Adam of Bremen's Harthacnut and Hardegon, and therefore Gorm's
father.
But then Gorm's father WAS king in England, and I think that the probability
that Gorm was his successor and also king in England has been raised
considerably. Another consequence of this analysis is that king Cnut must
have been alive in 908 and probably some years thereafter, so that also the
assumption that Cnut and Gorm are to be found in the final wars between
Edward the Elder and the Danes has gained some support.
A king founding a new dynasty must have had severe problems with the fact
that he was without heriditary rights. He would have to demonstrate the
rights that he pretended to have in any possible way, e.g. when he named his
son. He did not call him by any of the names of the 9th century kings of the
Danes at home (Sigfrid, Harald, Gudfrid, Horik, Hemming, Halfdan), and among
all of the possible names of Viking kings in Britain and Ireland that he
could have chosen (Halfdan, Ivar, Sigtryg, Sigfrid, Eowisl, Olaf, Regnald,
Gudfrid, Guthrum, Eric), he chose exactly the name of the powerful first
king of the Danes in East Anglia.
That must be a demonstration.
> >Therefore Cnut may just as well have been king of East Anglia.
>
> I find this part very difficult to swallow. The coins of this king
> Cnut show him minting coins at York, at Quentovic (on the French coast
> near Guînes), and at Cunetti (unidentified locality). If he had
> control of the mint at York for a long enough period to mint coins,
> then it would be hard to believe that he was not king of York. There
> is NO evidence that he was alos king of East Anglia, so that
> suggestion seems like no more than guesswork.
This is not an important point of dispute, because neither the kings
themselves nor theír contemporaries would probably use the title "king of
York" or "king of East Anglia". A King of that time was normally the king of
a
group of people, not the king of a piece of geography. ("Ímar, king of the
Norsemen of all Ireland and Britain", Annals of Ulster 873, "Guthrum, king
of the Northern men, ... he abode among the East-Angles, where he first
established a settlement", ASC 890, "Sitriuc grandson of Ímar, king of the
dark foreigners and the fair foreigners", Annals of Ulster 927). Cnut would
probably have been titulated "king of all the Northmen in England". I use
the title "king of East Anglia" only to emphasize that he was king of a
kingdom of which East Anglia was always a part, but in periods included more
or less of the Mercian and Northumbrian parts of the Danelaw.
> In fact, if a Viking
> king was ruling both East Anglia AND York in the early tenth century,
> how did he not find his way into the English sources?
>
Well, why did Cnut not at all find his way into the sources? As you point
out, his coins show that he must have been a king of some fame, with a
stable reign of some lenght, since he was able to have so many different
coins minted at three different places on both sides of the Channel. That is
one of the unsolved problems that calls for a solution. It simply can't be
true that the ASC writes nothing about him.
But there is only one king appearing in the ASC that could be him, namely
the one and only unnamed king of the Vikings ever mentioned by the
chronicles, the one who fell at Tempsford: (ASC 921 (i.e. 918) "...slew the
king, and Earl Toglos, and Earl Mann his son, and his brother"). Why didn't
the chronicler give the name of this king? He knew and wrote names and
kinships of the king's followers, so he must have been both interested in
and acquainted with the enemy side in the battle. I see no better
explanation to this odd fact than that the Anglo-Saxon writing this sentence
also knew the name of the king, but had difficulties with it, because it was
unfamiliar to him, because he had never before heard or spelled the name of
the king.
This is annoying, and the negligent chronicler should only be excused if the
name troubling him was something like Harthacnut.
> >"Hardegon filius Suein" from Northmannia IS Gorm arriving from if not
> >exactly Normandy at least from somewhere else inhabitated by
> >Northmen in Western Europe.
>
> Isn't this inconsistent with what you said above, where you suggested
> that Gorm was a son of a certain Hardeknud. Now you are suggesting
> that Gorm was the same as Hardegon, son of a certain Svend. (A more
> likely suggestion is that Hardegon was a corruption of Hardeknud,
> which is how the name appears in at least one manuscript of Adam of
> Bremen.)
>
When Adam quotes Sven Estridsen, he most of the times does it as if it was
direct citation. This is not true in the sense that he writes the exact
words of the king. But it makes it possible to see when the king is his
informant and when it is someone else. In this way you see that Adam's
Harthacnuth Vurm and therefore probably the rest of his accounts of king
Gorm is not the words of his highly praised source, king Sven, to whom he
makes references whenever possible. Some of it - if not all of it - he has
got from a certain unnamed Danish bishop.
This is not the place for all the pro's and con's, let's assume the most
natural interpretation of two names put together: it is a patronymikon
meaning Harthacnut's Gorm or Harthacnut's son, Gorm. Adam seems to see no
connection between this person and "Hardegon filius Suein" in a direct
citation of Sven Estridsen. Again let's drop all the sophisticallities [is
that a word?]: Hardegon is probably a miswritten Hardeknud. Since it has
come to Adam through oral communication, the possibilities of
misunderstandings are without number. So what did the king say? It must have
been something else than what Adam heard or what he wrote down. If Adam's
got the relationship between the two persons right, i.e. this person is
really "Harthacnut son of Sven", then the king may have said that
in at least four ways (known from runic inscriptions): 1) Sven's Harthacnut,
2)Sven's son, Harthacnut, 3) Harthacnut, Sven's son, 4) Harthacnut, son
Sven's.
A Saxon like Adam not familiar with Danish patronymika, not familiar with
Danish genetive, not at all familiar with the person mentioned, would not be
able to distinguish this from 1) Harthacnut's Sven, 2) Harthacnut's son,
Sven, 3) Sven, Harthacnut's son, 4) Sven, son Harthacnut's. Therefore he is
not an indisputable authority to the relationship between Harthacnut and
Sven.
You may chose the most likely form, and I think that Sven Estridsen said
Harthacnut's Sven (and that the bishop said Harthacnut's Gorm). If this
Harthacnut's Sven is not the same as Gorm, then Sven Estridsen did not at
all mention his grandfather's grandfather when asked about his predecessors.
To me that is a much more unlikely conclusion than the conclusion that Adam
is guilty of a simple and understandable misunderstanding.
Ergo, Gorm=Sven.
But if this was the only argument, I would not dare to propose this
equation.
1) Sven must have become a regular personal name in the same way as hundreds
of other pet or nicknames. It must have been the pet or nickname of a person
having another name, and somebody named after this person must have got his
nickname in stead of the regularly given name. If Gorm was called both Gorm
and Sven, that would explain why Sven Forkbeard was called Sven, not Gorm,
why Gorm disappears from the list of Danish kings, and why this odd name,
Sven, gets so popular.
2) If Sven was a pet name for Gorm, then he could and would still use his
real given name at official occasions: on runic inscriptions, in documents,
and whenever it was nessecary to be known as a legitimate member of the
royal dynasty with all rights to rule the kingdom. But among family and
friends, and especially the people who knew the reason for it the pet name
might have taken over. So his great-great grandson Sven would of course know
him as the Sven, from which he himself and his mother's father got their
name. But a bishop would know the king from another angle, perhaps from some
written evidence in his church, and call him Gorm.
3) But why should Gorm be called Sven? Because he became king already when
he was a boy. You find examples of this in many list of kings: Louis the
Child, Horicus Puer, ..
Gorm was called Gorm the Kid or perhaps just King Kid, translated into
Old Norse that would be something like: Gorm Sveinn and Konung Sveinn.
Isn't that amazing: Gorm the Old has become Gorm the Kid?
Now you may laugh.
But afterwards I think you should read (once again?) what Guillaume de
Jumiège writes about what happened in Normandy c.943, what Saxo Grammaticus
writes about Sven Forkbeards English relations, and what the Danish 12th
century historians write about Sven Langfod.
Sorry about the lengthyness, I do get carried off.
Kristian Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
...
>I think that different theories, even contradictory theories, may exist side
>by side. It may be impossible to choose between them, and I see only one
>criterion that might decide the choice: the amount of observed phenomena
>explainable within the theory. If a theory leaves a lot of natural questions
>unanswered it is inferior to a theory that offers straightforward and
>logical answers to the same questions.
>A whole lot of interesting questions are left unanswered, answered in an
>artificial or unsatisfactory way, or not even posed in most of the works on
>the history of this period of time that I've studied.
>I just think that there must be a better way of doing it, so now I'm trying
>...
>
>As for the filling in of details you put your finger on a sore point. When
>making theories you may easily be carried away by the spledour of your own
>thoughts so that you end up with feet off the ground.
>But if the unproven details are filled in in order to demonstrate the
>possibility of something, they are not a fundamental problem. Because then
>the purpose is not to reach the conclusion: this is how it happened, but
>only to avoid "reductio ad absurdum".
The problem with the approach that you outline is that it often
becomes a case of guesses piled upon "ifs" piled upon "maybes", so
that the whole scenario becomes a "house of cards" that will collapse
under its own weight. I have read through numerous arguments for
complicated scenarios that start off speculating a certain thing to be
true. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, IF IT STAYS AS
SPECULATION. However, what often happens is that the speculation,
after having been repeated a few times, becomes stated as established
fact later in the argument, and is then used as a basis for further
speculation. After a while, you have that "house of cards" I was
talking about. As an example of this, you make the statement (below)
that "But then Gorm's father WAS king in England." In fact, there is
no direct evidence for this. It depends on identifying Gorm's
probable father Hardeknud as being the same person as the king Cnut
who ruled at York. While there is a POSSIBILITY that this is the case
(and I, like you, find it to be an attractive hypothesis), it is
hardly certain that this is the case, and it should not be stated as
if it were an established fact. If one wishes to use that supposition
as the basis for further argument, then some sort of qualification
using a word such as "proposed" or "hypothesized" should be used in
order to acknowledge that the scenario is already uncertain.
>As an example of an unsolved problem:
>Why haven't any lasting and generally accepted conclusions been drawn from
>the evident and striking fact, that the names of the Danish kings changed
>dramatically in the 10th century?
...
>He did not call him by any of the names of the 9th century kings of the
>Danes at home (Sigfrid, Harald, Gudfrid, Horik, Hemming, Halfdan), and among
>all of the possible names of Viking kings in Britain and Ireland that he
>could have chosen (Halfdan, Ivar, Sigtryg, Sigfrid, Eowisl, Olaf, Regnald,
>Gudfrid, Guthrum, Eric), he chose exactly the name of the powerful first
>king of the Danes in East Anglia.
>That must be a demonstration.
An interesting scenario, but unfortunately, it is false, for several
reasons.
First, although it is true that no KING of the Danes named Gorm is
known prior to the well-known bearer of that name, a PRINCE of the
Danes named Gorm is well documented in the contemporary Frankish
chronicles. The Annals of Fulda, under the year 887, mentions two
Danish princes named Wurm (i.e., Gorm) and Hals as being present with
kings Sigifrid and Godafrid, and this Gorm is also mentioned (without
the title of prince) in the Annals of St. Bertin for 882.
Second, it is not certain that the names Gorm (Vurm, Wurm) and Guthrum
are to be regarded as the same name. If they are not, then your
argument collapses.
Third, if you do assume that Gorm and Guthrum were the same name, then
there was a man named Godurm (i.e., Guthrum), nephew of Horic, who
fought for the Danish throne in 854 (Annals of Fulda), and was almost
certainly one of the two kings (nephews of Horic) with whom Horic had
been forced to share his kingdom (Annals of St. Bertin, 850, 854).
Thus, one of the main premises of your argument fails in this case
also.
In fact, I agree that Gorm (or his father) probably founded a new
dynasty in Denmark. The names given to the members of that dynasty
presumably came from their ancestors and other relatives (of whom the
Gorm of the 880's could have been one).
>This is not an important point of dispute, because neither the kings
>themselves nor theír contemporaries would probably use the title "king of
>York" or "king of East Anglia". A King of that time was normally the king of
>a
>group of people, not the king of a piece of geography.
Even if that is the case, it is generally considered appropriate to
identify a king by a location that he is actually known to have ruled
(for example, York), rather than with a location for which there is no
evidence that he ever ruled (East Anglia). Remember, your statement
that Cnut was a king of East Anglia has yet to be supported by any
clear evidence.
>> In fact, if a Viking
>> king was ruling both East Anglia AND York in the early tenth century,
>> how did he not find his way into the English sources?
>>
>
>Well, why did Cnut not at all find his way into the sources? As you point
>out, his coins show that he must have been a king of some fame, with a
>stable reign of some lenght, since he was able to have so many different
>coins minted at three different places on both sides of the Channel. That is
>one of the unsolved problems that calls for a solution. It simply can't be
>true that the ASC writes nothing about him.
Sure it can, if he was only a king of York, far to the North. If he
were so powerful as to be king of both East Anglia (close to home) and
York AND part of the continent, then it would be hard to explain that
he was not mentioned BY NAME in contemporary sources. Identifying the
individual killed in 918 with Cnut is nothing more than another
conjecture, not backed up by any hard evidence.
...
>Ergo, Gorm=Sven.
>But if this was the only argument, I would not dare to propose this
>equation.
>
>1) Sven must have become a regular personal name in the same way as hundreds
>of other pet or nicknames. It must have been the pet or nickname of a person
>having another name, and somebody named after this person must have got his
>nickname in stead of the regularly given name. If Gorm was called both Gorm
>and Sven, that would explain why Sven Forkbeard was called Sven, not Gorm,
>why Gorm disappears from the list of Danish kings, and why this odd name,
>Sven, gets so popular.
The fact that Gorm was a pagan is probably sufficient explanation why
the later kings of Christian Denmark did not receive that name.
>2) If Sven was a pet name for Gorm, then he could and would still use his
>real given name at official occasions: on runic inscriptions, in documents,
>and whenever it was nessecary to be known as a legitimate member of the
>royal dynasty with all rights to rule the kingdom. But among family and
>friends, and especially the people who knew the reason for it the pet name
>might have taken over. So his great-great grandson Sven would of course know
>him as the Sven, from which he himself and his mother's father got their
>name. But a bishop would know the king from another angle, perhaps from some
>written evidence in his church, and call him Gorm.
>
>3) But why should Gorm be called Sven? Because he became king already when
>he was a boy. You find examples of this in many list of kings: Louis the
>Child, Horicus Puer, ..
>Gorm was called Gorm the Kid or perhaps just King Kid, translated into
>Old Norse that would be something like: Gorm Sveinn and Konung Sveinn.
The problem that I have with this whole scenario regarding the names
is that it goes to TREMENDOUS lengths to offer an elaborate theory in
order to explain away evidence given by a perfectly straightforward
(although admittedly not contemporary) source. A much simpler
explanation of the evidence would be that Gorm was a son of Hardeknud
who was the son of an otherwise unknown Svend (as the simplest
interpretation of Adam's data suggests), and that Gorm's grandson
Svend was named after his earlier ancestor of that name. (It requires
only that Adam's informant Svend Estridsen knew five generations of
his mother's ancestry, which is quite reasonable, although not
certain.)
Stewart Baldwin
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:3b085646...@news.mindspring.com...
> ... After a while, you have that "house of cards" I was
> talking about. As an example of this, you make the statement (below)
> that "But then Gorm's father WAS king in England." In fact, there is
> no direct evidence for this. It depends on identifying Gorm's
> probable father Hardeknud as being the same person as the king Cnut
> who ruled at York. While there is a POSSIBILITY that this is the case
> (and I, like you, find it to be an attractive hypothesis), it is
> hardly certain that this is the case, and it should not be stated as
> if it were an established fact. If one wishes to use that supposition
> as the basis for further argument, then some sort of qualification
> using a word such as "proposed" or "hypothesized" should be used in
> order to acknowledge that the scenario is already uncertain.
I shall try to be more careful.
In this particular case the emphasized WAS was supposed to mean: I have
"proved" the implication (IF you identify Harthacnut, Gorm's father with
Cnut the Mintmaster THEN you must also accept as at least likely that Gorm
himself was a king in England for some time), not that I have "proved" the
conclusion. I.e. you cannot argue in favor of the first statement and
against the second statement at the same time.
> >He did not call him by any of the names of the 9th century kings of the
> >Danes at home (Sigfrid, Harald, Gudfrid, Horik, Hemming, Halfdan), and
among
> >all of the possible names of Viking kings in Britain and Ireland that he
> >could have chosen (Halfdan, Ivar, Sigtryg, Sigfrid, Eowisl, Olaf,
Regnald,
> >Gudfrid, Guthrum, Eric), he chose exactly the name of the powerful first
> >king of the Danes in East Anglia.
> >That must be a demonstration.
>
> An interesting scenario, but unfortunately, it is false, for several
> reasons.
I am afraid that I haven't been clear enough at this point either, because
what I intended to mean was:
IF Gorm's father was some sort of ursupator founding a new dynasty somewhere
in England AND that would be reflected in his choice of name for a son THEN
East Anglia (by which I mean nothing but the kingdom of
Guthrum/Athelstan) is the most suitable "somewhere".
So, if you believe in these premises, you have a reason to search for
evidence there.
> First, although it is true that no KING of the Danes named Gorm is
> known prior to the well-known bearer of that name, a PRINCE of the
> Danes named Gorm is well documented in the contemporary Frankish
> chronicles. The Annals of Fulda, under the year 887, mentions two
> Danish princes named Wurm (i.e., Gorm) and Hals as being present with
> kings Sigifrid and Godafrid, and this Gorm is also mentioned (without
> the title of prince) in the Annals of St. Bertin for 882.
Gorm seems to have been a common name in the royal family in the 9th
century, and the kings of East Anglia could be a branch (Eohric/Haruc =
Eric/Horic?). But none of the Gorm's that you mention possess exactly the
qualities required. Without a kingdom and considerable power and fame the
naming would not be a political manifestation, and that was the point.
> Second, it is not certain that the names Gorm (Vurm, Wurm) and Guthrum
> are to be regarded as the same name. If they are not, then your
> argument collapses.
A lot of work in the field of personal name studies would collapse
simultaneously.
> Third, if you do assume that Gorm and Guthrum were the same name, then
> there was a man named Godurm (i.e., Guthrum), nephew of Horic, who
> fought for the Danish throne in 854 (Annals of Fulda), and was almost
> certainly one of the two kings (nephews of Horic) with whom Horic had
> been forced to share his kingdom (Annals of St. Bertin, 850, 854).
> Thus, one of the main premises of your argument fails in this case
> also.
You are right, I could have put Gorm on the list of names of Danish kings.
For a short period of time during the reign of Horik I there may have been
a King Gorm in some part of "Denmark". But since three brothers of Horik
are mentioned, and two of these were exiled, there might be a multitude of
nephews both at home and abroad. And the Gorm killed in the civil war in
854 is called a returning Viking as if he had just come back by both the
Annals of Fulda and Vita Anscharii. I would not use the phrase almost
certain here, and I cannot agree that one of the main premises has failed.
I am sure that one could easily find a kingdom somewhere where one could
establish some unknown king Gorm for a period of time when there is no other
king known (e.g. in "Denmark" in the last decades of the 9th century). I
just wonder about the curious coincident that Gorm has got the same name as
the only victorious conqueror by that name of his grandfather's generation
that we for sure know of.
> ... it is generally considered appropriate to
> identify a king by a location that he is actually known to have ruled
> (for example, York), rather than with a location for which there is no
> evidence that he ever ruled (East Anglia). Remember, your statement
> that Cnut was a king of East Anglia has yet to be supported by any
> clear evidence.
OK, then let us drop the locations altogether. I don't see any reason to
prefer York to Cunnetti or Quentovic.
Cunnetti is unidentified, but I've seen several suggestions, and I think
that the best one presented yet is that Cunnetti is the same as Kennett, the
name of the border river between Cambridgeshire and East Anglia, and the
name of a town by that river in Danish Mercia. I'm not that familiar with
the geography of England, so here I'm relying totally on my source (Georg
Galster). In round figures there were 7000 coins in the Cuerdale hoard of
which 1000 were from "far away". Nearly 3000 of the rest were mintet by
Cnut, most of them with his name. 250-300 coins were mintet by other Norse
rulers. A certain King Sigfrid, who must have mintet coins in York before
Cnut, because some of his stamps have been (mis)used by Cnut's coin makers,
is responsible for most of these. The name Athelstan, believed to be Guthrum
of East Anglia, is found on c.25 coins.
But then there are nearly 1800 coins with the name of St.Edmund and the East
Anglian "A"!
If the Cuerdale hoard tells anything about Cnut's kingdom, I really don't
see why that should be in favor of (just) York. And it shows that Cnut and
East Anglia had at least one point of contact: the person who gathered the
hoard.
Have you any other reason to believe that he was "king of York"?
> > ... It simply can't be
> >true that the ASC writes nothing about him.
>
> Sure it can,
Of course you are right, "can't be true" is just a manner of speaking, ...
> if he was only a king of York, far to the North.
But he wasn't.
> If he
> were so powerful as to be king of both East Anglia (close to home) and
> York AND part of the continent, then it would be hard to explain that
> he was not mentioned BY NAME in contemporary sources.
I'm not sure that I get your point here. I don't see the big difference
between "mentioned by name" and "known by a name not written down", at least
not a difference big enough to decide anything about the portion of the
Danelaw ruled by the king (not) mentioned.
> Identifying the
> individual killed in 918 with Cnut is nothing more than another
> conjecture, not backed up by any hard evidence.
>
Right again, no hard evidence, the ever growing amount of soft evidence will
have to do (:-)). If I knew another conjecture presented with enough details
I would be able to comment on "nothing more than". I know of just one
conjecture apart from mine: that the anonymous king who was killed in 918
was Guthrum II, but I don't know any arguments for it. Therefore I certainly
would still like some reaction to my original question: Does anyone know of
(hard) evidence of any kind relating to the East Anglian dynasty and the
reasons for letting a Guthrum II be the king killed in 918?
>
> The fact that Gorm was a pagan is probably sufficient explanation why
> the later kings of Christian Denmark did not receive that name.
>
I would not consider that a fact.
And wouldn't this imply that also Cnut and Sven were unacceptable (unless we
put in somewhere a hypothetical Sven and Cnut born as Pagans, baptized as
adults)?
> >Gorm was called Gorm the Kid or perhaps just King Kid, translated into
> >Old Norse that would be something like: Gorm Sveinn and Konung Sveinn.
>
> The problem that I have with this whole scenario regarding the names
> is that it goes to TREMENDOUS lengths to offer an elaborate theory in
> order to explain away evidence given by a perfectly straightforward
> (although admittedly not contemporary) source. A much simpler
> explanation of the evidence would be that Gorm was a son of Hardeknud
> who was the son of an otherwise unknown Svend (as the simplest
> interpretation of Adam's data suggests), and that Gorm's grandson
> Svend was named after his earlier ancestor of that name. (It requires
> only that Adam's informant Svend Estridsen knew five generations of
> his mother's ancestry, which is quite reasonable, although not
> certain.)
The only reason why this becomes so lengthy is that one has to cut through
such a layer of habitual thinking.
Sven Forkbeard is named after his father's father. What could be simpler or
more natural?
Gorm=Sven, son of Harthacnut, the simple answer to all the speculations
about generations that don't fit (Gorm defeats Gnupa, his father defeats
Gnupa's son)
All you need is a comma ("Hardegon filius Suein" --> "Hardegon filius,
Suein", a smaller operation than the one making Harthecnuth Vurm into Gorm
Hardeknud's son), and a good reason to believe that Gorm was also called
Sven.
I don't know if this has been proposed before, but I know that there is a
lot of things that have not been re-analyzed in the light of the
Jelling-datings. Most of the analysis I know of is from the days when Gorm
the Old was still an old man living and dying c.935.
Kristian Nyrup.
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
...
>I shall try to be more careful.
>In this particular case the emphasized WAS was supposed to mean: I have
>"proved" the implication (IF you identify Harthacnut, Gorm's father with
>Cnut the Mintmaster THEN you must also accept as at least likely that Gorm
>himself was a king in England for some time), not that I have "proved" the
>conclusion. I.e. you cannot argue in favor of the first statement and
>against the second statement at the same time.
But even that implication is not valid. Even if Gorm's father was a
king in England, that in no way implies that Gorm was also a king in
England. In fact, taking the most natural assumption that Hardegon is
a corruption of Hardeknud (which is indicated by at least one
manuscript of Adam's work), then it was Hardeknud, and not Gorm, who
made the move to Denmark.
...
>Have you any other reason to believe that he was "king of York"?
Well, according to Simeon of Durham, the the father of king Guthred of
York was named Hardeknud. If true, it shows that the name was already
in the family of the kings of York.
...
>Sven Forkbeard is named after his father's father. What could
>be simpler or more natural?
>Gorm=Sven, son of Harthacnut, the simple answer to all the
>speculations about generations that don't fit (Gorm defeats
>Gnupa, his father defeats Gnupa's son)
I would regard your suggestion as neither simple nor natural. If Gorm
was also called Svend, why is there no evidence for this anywhere?
Also, I see no generations that don't fit. Adam made it quite clear
that he was not sure whether or not the kings he listed were
consecutive, or ruling different parts of Denmark at the same time.
Of all of the things said by Adam, his chronology is the least
certain. For all we know, it was Harald who defeated Gnupa's son.
After all, he is the one who claimed that he (re)united Denmark.
Although the chronology is tight, you could also make the kings
consecutive. We know from Widukind that Gnupa was alive in 934. If
he was succeeded in that year or the next by his son Sigtrygg, then
Sigtrygg could have been almost immediately defeated by Hardeknud,
succeded shortly thereafter by Gorm. If you assume that Adam was
wrong in placing Gorm during Unni's episcopate (as it could be an
erroneous assumption based on the erroneous reign of 50 years that
Adam assignes to Harald), then there would be even more room. So, you
can see that there are plenty of scenarios which do not require the
complicated scenario Gorm=Svend.
>All you need is a comma ("Hardegon filius Suein" --> "Hardegon filius,
>Suein", a smaller operation than the one making Harthecnuth Vurm into Gorm
>Hardeknud's son), and a good reason to believe that Gorm was also called
>Sven.
Commas are a modern convenience, and your argument would not be valid
without assuming that words were switched. In the case of the other
passage, there are manuscripts witnesses that directly indicate that
the word "filius" was lost (before the word Hardecnudth, not between
Hardecnudth and Wrm), so there is direct manuscript evidence for the
additional word that has been suggested. It is not just a guess.
Stewart Baldwin
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
threads usually are, but isn't a newsgroup thread supposed to branch a
little more than this?
I find this discussion extremely interesting, and I am afraid that the only
event that might stop me (apart from no response or sudden death) is some
kind of family revolt.
Shall we continue in this way, or would it be more in the spirit of
newsgroup discussions to go private at some point?
Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:3b0a7e97...@news.mindspring.com...
> > ... (IF you identify Harthacnut, Gorm's father with
> >Cnut the Mintmaster THEN you must also accept as at least likely that
Gorm
> >himself was a king in England for some time), ...
> But even that implication is not valid. Even if Gorm's father was a
> king in England, that in no way implies that Gorm was also a king in
> England. In fact, taking the most natural assumption that Hardegon is
> a corruption of Hardeknud (which is indicated by at least one
> manuscript of Adam's work), then it was Hardeknud, and not Gorm, who
> made the move to Denmark.
>
What then if I formulate the implication in more general terms:
IF (X is son of Y) AND (Y is king of E) THEN it is likely that X is king of
E.
and compare it with
IF (X is son of Y) AND (X is king of D) THEN it is likely that Y is king of
D.
To me these statements have approximately the same validity, and if they are
not both valid, I apparently don't know the meaning of the English word
"likely".
If we could be sure that Harthacnut was king in "Denmark", the
implication would - I think - still not be invalid but irrelevant.
So perhaps I should return to my original formulation, which was in the
terms of conditional probability:
P(X is king of E) << P(X is king of E / (X is son of Y) AND (Y is king of
E).
(<<: much less than, /: given that)
This was just for the fun of it - sorry.
> ...
>
> >Have you any other reason to believe that he was "king of York"?
>
> Well, according to Simeon of Durham, the the father of king Guthred of
> York was named Hardeknud. If true, it shows that the name was already
> in the family of the kings of York.
>
Woops - you really hit a trigger there!
The early 12th century historians of Northumberland probably made every
effort to find material to fill the gap of nearly forty years between
Halfdan (exiled and killed c.876-7) and Regnald I (or Sigtryg I) c.915-925.
All they found was this king Guthred from the legend of St.Cuthbert, to whom
they anyway ascribed a reign of just fourteen years, fixed at the end by the
death of Guthfrith in York c.895.
A lot of things do not fit here. The whole story is so absurd and
unrealistic that you have to do something about it, before you extract any
evidence from it. I assume, you wouldn't refer to the story about
St.Cuthbert's miracle without having some sort of interpretation, and I will
not be able to comment on your argument, that this puts a Harthacnut
(exclusively) in York, before I know how you evaluate this material as
evidence of things happening in the 9/10th century.
I have to rely on the words of Arnold in the Roll's Series edition: "The
History of St.Cuthbert" (not Simeon) is from c.1050, "The History of the
Church of Durham" (Simeon) is from c.1110, and "The History of the Kings"
(perhaps Simeon) is from c.1140.
Has this been revised by modern research?
To someone trying to make probable that there was once a boy named Guthrum,
son of Harthacnut, who was elected king somewhere in the Danelaw, a story
telling that there was once a boy named Guthred, son of Harthacnut, who was
elected king somewhere in the Danelaw, does not look exactly like counter
evidence.
The scenario that I am advocating for is: Harthecnut was king in both York
and Eastanglia (and Danish Mercia in between) from 904/5-, because both
kingdoms were without king after the battle at Holme. After a while he lost
control of the Northern parts, because York was invaded by the rivaling
dynasty in Dublin. During the campaign of Edward the Elder his power was
gradually diminished, East Anglia was his home and last stronghold when he
was killed in 918.
Nothing I know of, written by the Northumbrian historians (or the York
mintage), contradicts this, that would take more than just any Cnut-York
connection, since Cnut-York connections are part of the scenario.
> I would regard your suggestion as neither simple nor natural. If Gorm
> was also called Svend, why is there no evidence for this anywhere?
But there is...
The 12/13th century historians through whose writings this evidence has
reached us, did not know that Gorm and Sven was the same king. Nearly
everything that they write about Gorm can be traced back to Adam of Bremen,
the runic inscriptions, and Icelandic sources. That is where the pictures of
the cruel enemy of the Christians and the old and deedless man with the
beautiful and clever wife comes from. Whatever they knew about Sven, they
would have to assume was conserning another king another time, especially if
it did not agree with these pictures. Therefore you find the history of Sven
as bits and pieces scattered around by the Danish historians.
But Guillaume de Jumičges knew, he called the Danish king ruling in 943 - a
year undoubtebly within the reign of Gorm - Sven! In Normandy they were
first row witnesses to the merits of the Kid King in his cross Channel
kingdom ...
> .... For all we know, it was Harald who defeated Gnupa's son.
> After all, he is the one who claimed that he (re)united Denmark.
We only know that Gnupa's son Sigtryg was ever defeated, because Sven
Estridsen said and Adam wrote that "Hardegon filius Suein" did it. I don't
see how one could seperate the two things, keep the name, and dismiss the
event. And if you suggest that the event didn't happen as described, would
you not then loose the only support of Hardeknut being a king in "Denmark"?
I put quotationmarks around Denmark, when I mean what was called Denmark in
the following centuries untill 1658. In most of the 10th century this
probably had not yet become the meaning of the word, therefore I do not read
the words of Harald in the same way. I'll not comment further on this for
the time being. There are enough balls in the air, I'm afraid my comments
would launch at least three more.
> Also, I see no generations that don't fit...
But I could present a vast material with speculations about precisely that
from the works of several historians.
> Although the chronology is tight, you could also make the kings
> consecutive. We know from Widukind that Gnupa was alive in 934. If
> he was succeeded in that year or the next by his son Sigtrygg, then
> Sigtrygg could have been almost immediately defeated by Hardeknud,
> succeded shortly thereafter by Gorm. If you assume that Adam was
> wrong in placing Gorm during Unni's episcopate (as it could be an
> erroneous assumption based on the erroneous reign of 50 years that
> Adam assignes to Harald), then there would be even more room. So, you
> can see that there are plenty of scenarios which do not require the
> complicated scenario Gorm=Svend.
We don't seem to have the same oppinion about what is complicated. Once
again this ball in the air problem, and further comments postponed.
>>All you need is a comma ("Hardegon filius Suein" --> "Hardegon filius,
>>Suein", a smaller operation than the one making Harthecnuth Vurm into Gorm
>>Hardeknud's son), and a good reason to believe that Gorm was also called
>>Sven.
>Commas are a modern convenience, and your argument would not be valid
>without assuming that words were switched. In the case of the other
>passage, there are manuscripts witnesses that directly indicate that
>the word "filius" was lost (before the word Hardecnudth, not between
>Hardecnudth and Wrm), so there is direct manuscript evidence for the
>additional word that has been suggested. It is not just a guess.
Manuscript studies show that "Hardegon filius Suein" probably is exactly as
Adam himself wrote it, and that "Hardegon Sven's son" is probably exactly
what he meant to write. The oldest manuscripts have no variant forms at all
of Hardegon. If we agree that this should probably be changed into
"Hardeknud son of Sven", then this can only be explained as correcting an
error in the oral communication between Adam and the king. The king said
Hardeknud, Adam wrote Hardegon. We guess (though not arbitrarily) that the
king was talking about Hardeknud, but we cannot know for sure. My argument
(20-5-2001) is that Adam would probably not be able to percieve the
difference between this and the opposite relation coming from the mouth of
the Danish speaking king, so that we may reverse it for some reason. And if
we do, we make a correction of the same nature as the Hardegon>Hardeknud
correction.
I did not leave that position, when I made the statement quoted above, I
just tried to vary the expression:
"and all you (i.e. you and me and anybody, not especially Adam or some
medieval writer) need is a comma" was supposed to mean what I had already
said once before: "and all you need is to switch the names of this uncertain
patronymikon". I did not intend to suggest that anybody ever actually put in
that comma, or that the result of doing so would be proper medieval Latin -
frankly, I would not know - and it is not part of my argumentation.
I admit that it may have looked that way.
I shall not insist on the rest of the perhaps too hastely formulated
parenthetic remark, which is of no significans to the purpose: demonstrating
the fragility of this specific patronymikon. That is of course something
quite different from and incommensurable with filling in a missing word
in a manuscript, and accepting the result as it is.
Kristian Nyrup
royalynx
Kristian Andersen Nyrup wrote:
>
> This thread has become rather one-dimensional. I know that that is what
> threads usually are, but isn't a newsgroup thread supposed to branch a
> little more than this?
> I find this discussion extremely interesting, and I am afraid that the only
> event that might stop me (apart from no response or sudden death) is some
> kind of family revolt.
> Shall we continue in this way, or would it be more in the spirit of
> newsgroup discussions to go private at some point?
>
[remainder snipped to conserve bandwidth]
Dear Kristian,
May I ask that you and Stewart __Not__ take the discussion off list to continue!
It is so refreshing to be able to sit back and observe a truly
scholarly discussion of a topic by two people, both possessing
boundless enthusiasm and passion for their subject, without
manifesting some sort of desire to resort to outbursts of personal and
venomous diatribe.
This is both refreshing and rewarding from my vantage point, though
admittedly I have an equally passionate interest in this particular
discussion. However, I would be very much surprised if there were not
others just "lurking" who are also quite interested in this
gentlemanly discussion that you and Stewart are providing for us.
And may I be so bold as to suggest that this discussion might very
well serve as a model for future discussions by other participants?
Thanks from at least one person who has already learned a lot from
these discussions that have not been even slightly tainted by
extraneous drivel.
Jack Brown
sla...@geraldton.lakeheadu.ca
From: royalynx <roya...@home.com>
Organization: @Home Network
Subject: Re: Sv: Guthrum II
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
( snipped to conserve bandwidth]
May I totally concur with Mr Brown and hopefully see more of this
type of discussion
Regards
Sally Laine
Todd A. Farmerie
>
> This thread has become rather one-dimensional. I know that that is what
> threads usually are, but isn't a newsgroup thread supposed to branch a
> little more than this?
> I find this discussion extremely interesting, and I am afraid that the only
> event that might stop me (apart from no response or sudden death) is some
> kind of family revolt.
> Shall we continue in this way, or would it be more in the spirit of
> newsgroup discussions to go private at some point?
This is the typical progression of a newsgroup discussion.
Starting with comments general and introductory, it progresses to
very specific and technical, and in the process loses potential
contributors without the expertise to continue to participate in
the discussion itself. That does not mean that they do not
continue to read the discussion, and would very much like it to
continue. That being said, let me see if I can't find something
to address.
taf
PMood...@aol.com
This thread has become rather one-dimensional. I know that that is what
threads usually are, but isn't a newsgroup thread supposed to branch a
little more than this?
I find this discussion extremely interesting, and I am afraid that the only
event that might stop me (apart from no response or sudden death) is some
kind of family revolt.
Shall we continue in this way, or would it be more in the spirit of
newsgroup discussions to go private at some point?
PLM: Mr. Nyrup; I do hope you keep this thread public because it is the most
interesting one I have had the pleasure to read in the six months I have been
in this group. I expressed an interest in Guthrum (I) and East Anglia about
two weeks ago but no one had any contributions to offer at that time; so I
can assure you, I find this extremely fascinating!
As this is a Genealogy forum, perhaps you can help understand Guthrum
(I)'s relationship to your Guthrum (II), aka (Gorm)?
Guthrum (I) 879-890
Eohric (Erik) 890-902
Guthrum (II) aka Gorm 902- ?
Now, as you are supposing that Harthacnut is Guthrum (II)'s father; are
you suggesting that GuthrumGorm is not related to Guthrum (I)? This does not
seem likely in light of the naming pattern.
One solution would make Harthaknut the brother of Erik but even this is
problematic; considering that you are suggesting that Harthaknut is none
other than Cnut of York. We find the Saxon Athelwold fighting Cnut for York
but in 902, Atholwold and Erik of East Anglia are allies against Wessex and
both kings are killed. Now, it is difficult to believe that Erik would ally
himself with Athelwold if he had driven his brother Cnut out of York but
stranger things have happened:-)
Kristian, I am hoping you can give us a glimpse of the big picture.
Best Wishes,
Phil
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
>This thread has become rather one-dimensional. I know that that is what
>threads usually are, but isn't a newsgroup thread supposed to branch a
>little more than this?
>I find this discussion extremely interesting, and I am afraid that the only
>event that might stop me (apart from no response or sudden death) is some
>kind of family revolt.
>Shall we continue in this way, or would it be more in the spirit of
>newsgroup discussions to go private at some point?
You seem to be worried that the two of us are the only ones interested
in this, but the other messages that were posted should show you that
there are others who are interested, even if they aren't actively
participating. Obviously, the thread should stay on the newsgroup as
long as it remains on-topic.
...
>What then if I formulate the implication in more general terms:
>IF (X is son of Y) AND (Y is king of E) THEN it is likely that X is king of
>E.
>and compare it with
>IF (X is son of Y) AND (X is king of D) THEN it is likely that Y is king of
>D.
>To me these statements have approximately the same validity, and if they are
>not both valid, I apparently don't know the meaning of the English word
>"likely".
>If we could be sure that Harthacnut was king in "Denmark", the
>implication would - I think - still not be invalid but irrelevant.
The problem is the word "likely", which turns it into a not very
precise statement that it not very suitable to try and treat as a
logical proposition. I would say that the first of the above
statements is usually false, simply because a man will often have many
sons. The second statement will be true more often. However, they
are much less likely to be true in a period of change, such as the
period we are talking about, and even if it were likely, it would
still not count as valid evidence to that effect.
>> >Have you any other reason to believe that he was "king of York"?
>>
>> Well, according to Simeon of Durham, the the father of king Guthred of
>> York was named Hardeknud. If true, it shows that the name was already
>> in the family of the kings of York.
>>
>
>Woops - you really hit a trigger there!
>The early 12th century historians of Northumberland probably made every
>effort to find material to fill the gap of nearly forty years between
>Halfdan (exiled and killed c.876-7) and Regnald I (or Sigtryg I) c.915-925.
>All they found was this king Guthred from the legend of St.Cuthbert, to whom
>they anyway ascribed a reign of just fourteen years, fixed at the end by the
>death of Guthfrith in York c.895.
I see no evidence that these 12th century historians were worried
about any such gap. To my knowledge, the survivng sources show no
evidence of anyone trying to fill a gap, just a bunch of stories with
a very vague chronology.
>A lot of things do not fit here. The whole story is so absurd and
>unrealistic that you have to do something about it, before you extract any
>evidence from it. I assume, you wouldn't refer to the story about
>St.Cuthbert's miracle without having some sort of interpretation, and I will
>not be able to comment on your argument, that this puts a Harthacnut
>(exclusively) in York, before I know how you evaluate this material as
>evidence of things happening in the 9/10th century.
>I have to rely on the words of Arnold in the Roll's Series edition: "The
>History of St.Cuthbert" (not Simeon) is from c.1050, "The History of the
>Church of Durham" (Simeon) is from c.1110, and "The History of the Kings"
>(perhaps Simeon) is from c.1140.
>Has this been revised by modern research?
I agree that Simeon is not the most reliable source in the world, but
even if the story is false (which is quite possible), then it is still
likely that Hardeknud is a garbled version of either the king Cnut
whom we know to have been reigning at York (and at Quentovic), or some
othe member of the same family.
>To someone trying to make probable that there was once a boy named Guthrum,
>son of Harthacnut, who was elected king somewhere in the Danelaw, a story
>telling that there was once a boy named Guthred, son of Harthacnut, who was
>elected king somewhere in the Danelaw, does not look exactly like counter
>evidence.
Please note that it is virtually impossible for Guthred and Gorm to
have been brothers, so that the two statements do not support each
other. Second, I was offering Simeon as evidence that the name
(Harde)knud appeared in the family of at least one king of York.
Given that we have a king Cnut who is known to have minted coins at
York, there appears to be some connection.
>The scenario that I am advocating for is: Harthecnut was king in both York
>and Eastanglia (and Danish Mercia in between) from 904/5-, because both
>kingdoms were without king after the battle at Holme. After a while he lost
>control of the Northern parts, because York was invaded by the rivaling
>dynasty in Dublin. During the campaign of Edward the Elder his power was
>gradually diminished, East Anglia was his home and last stronghold when he
>was killed in 918.
>Nothing I know of, written by the Northumbrian historians (or the York
>mintage), contradicts this, that would take more than just any Cnut-York
>connection, since Cnut-York connections are part of the scenario.
The problem still remains that you have yet to offer any evidence that
Cnut was also a king in East Anglia.
...
>But Guillaume de Jumičges knew, he called the Danish king ruling in 943 - a
>year undoubtebly within the reign of Gorm - Sven! In Normandy they were
>first row witnesses to the merits of the Kid King in his cross Channel
>kingdom ...
Unfortunately, I don't have easy access to Guillaume de Jumičges, but
I have never seen such a reference to a Danish king Sven ruling in
943, and would be very surprised if all of the other scholars working
on this had missed such an important reference. Are you sure that
Guillaume says that, and if so, could you quote the passage?
>> .... For all we know, it was Harald who defeated Gnupa's son.
>> After all, he is the one who claimed that he (re)united Denmark.
>
>We only know that Gnupa's son Sigtryg was ever defeated, because Sven
>Estridsen said and Adam wrote that "Hardegon filius Suein" did it. I don't
>see how one could seperate the two things, keep the name, and dismiss the
>event. And if you suggest that the event didn't happen as described, would
>you not then loose the only support of Hardeknut being a king in "Denmark"?
After giving his account as a consecutive sequence, Adam admits that
he doesn't know for sure whether or not the kings ruled consecutively,
or some of them at the same time. He could have had a story that
Hardegon came from "Nortmannia" and overthrew the king, with Adam
assuming that it was "Sigeric". (And it is also possible that Sigeric
was not the same person as the Sigtrygg of the runic inscriptions, as
Adam does not say that Sigeric was a son of Knuba.)
...
>> Also, I see no generations that don't fit...
>
>But I could present a vast material with speculations about precisely that
>from the works of several historians.
...
But that's the problem. Just because certain hypothetical scenarios
create a problem with the generations doen't mean that there actually
is a problem. While speculation is fine as an intellectual exercise,
in the long run it is no substitute for evidence.
Stewart Baldwin
Debbi Logan
contribute, and I really want to learn from those who, like you, post
information.
Debbi
----- Original Message -----
From: royalynx <roya...@home.com>
To: <GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 6:31 PM
Subject: Re: Sv: Guthrum II
>
>
> Kristian Andersen Nyrup wrote:
> >
> > This thread has become rather one-dimensional. I know that that is what
> > threads usually are, but isn't a newsgroup thread supposed to branch a
> > little more than this?
> > I find this discussion extremely interesting, and I am afraid that the
only
> > event that might stop me (apart from no response or sudden death) is
some
> > kind of family revolt.
> > Shall we continue in this way, or would it be more in the spirit of
> > newsgroup discussions to go private at some point?
> >
> [remainder snipped to conserve bandwidth]
>
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
> You seem to be worried that the two of us are the only ones interested
> in this, but the other messages that were posted should show you that
> there are others who are interested, even if they aren't actively
> participating. Obviously, the thread should stay on the newsgroup as
> long as it remains on-topic.
That was my worry, but after reading all these pleasant and encouraging
messages, I find it hard to maintain this worry. So now the decision is back
in the hands of the Miss Nyrups and their mother....
>
> The problem is the word "likely", which turns it into a not very
> precise statement that it not very suitable to try and treat as a
> logical proposition. I would say that the first of the above
> statements is usually false, simply because a man will often have many
> sons. The second statement will be true more often. However, they
> are much less likely to be true in a period of change, such as the
> period we are talking about, and even if it were likely, it would
> still not count as valid evidence to that effect.
A fair conclusion to this part of the discussion.
> >The early 12th century historians of Northumberland probably made every
> >effort to find material to fill the gap of nearly forty years between
> >Halfdan (exiled and killed c.876-7) and Regnald I (or Sigtryg I)
c.915-925.
> >All they found was this king Guthred from the legend of St.Cuthbert, to
whom
> >they anyway ascribed a reign of just fourteen years, fixed at the end by
the
> >death of Guthfrith in York c.895.
>
> I see no evidence that these 12th century historians were worried
> about any such gap. To my knowledge, the survivng sources show no
> evidence of anyone trying to fill a gap, just a bunch of stories with
> a very vague chronology.
They probably did not worry, they were probably not even aware of the fact
that there was a gap to be filled. I assume that they did their best to make
their works as complete as possible, and that they did not deliberately
leave out any relevant accessible information. When you read the history of
the church of Durham by Simeon, you get the impression that he did thorough
investigations and it seems very unlikely that he should have omitted e.g.
names of kings of York/Northumbria if he had had (is this English?) the
slightest idea about their existence. Therefore I think that there is de
facto a gap that was filled in the way described.
These pieces of Northumbrian lists of kings may serve as exemplification
(from the Roll's Series edition of the works of Simeon of
Durham - my translation [sic]):
Series Regum Northymbrensium:
"Afterwards (i.e. after the death of Osbert and Ella 867) Egbert ruled for 6
years.
Ricsi 2 years.
Ecbert 2 years.
Guthred, from slave to king, 14 years.
Afterwards Reingwold occupied St.Cuthbert's land ..."
De Primo Saxonum Adventu:
"(After the deaths of Osbert and Ella and the fall of York 867)... Egbert,
who ruled for 5 years.
Then Ricsi 2 years.
After him Egbert 2 years.
Then Guthred son of Hardecnut ...(slave history in more details) ... Ruled
for 14 years.
After him Sichtric ..."
A bunch of stories (as e.g. the History of St.Cuthbert) may not pretend to
be complete, but in a list of kings completeness is a "must" or at least an
aim. Guthred was all they could find in the works from which they extracted
the information (mainly Simeon's works). These lists have probably no value
as independent sources, but they do demonstrate a gap in the knowledge of
the Northumbrian historians. Both Regnald and Sigtryg are placed by more
reliable sources in 915-925.
>
> I agree that Simeon is not the most reliable source in the world, but
> even if the story is false (which is quite possible), then it is still
> likely that Hardeknud is a garbled version of either the king Cnut
> whom we know to have been reigning at York (and at Quentovic), or some
> othe member of the same family.
>
I don't see how one can deduce anything useful from a false story. If it is
possibly false, then the deductions must have at least the same probability
of being false.
But I think that you can do better than just calling the whole story:
possibly false, you can try to distinguish between the (possibly) true and
the (possibly) false parts of it. And if then the possibly true parts of the
story place a Hardeknud as the father of a king of York, you may have a
point. Therefore a more detailed analysis of the story about St. Cuthbert's
miraculous intervention seems unavoidable if this track should lead to
useful insight.
Here is the RESULT of my analysis:
1) Guthred is not a king's name, it is a spelling error.
2) The story about Guthred is not true history, it is not even a legend
(whatever that is) or a fairytale, it is a construction made by some Durham
clergyman in the middle of the 11th century.
3) In this construction three different historical persons living in the
beginning, the middle, and at the end of the above mentioned period of forty
years have been merged into one.
4) These are:
a) Guthrum-Athelstan, king of East Anglia AND Northumberland 878-890.
b) Guthfrith, died in York 895.
c) Guthrum son of Hardeknud, child king in the remains of his fathers
kingdom from 918.
All moderations omitted, documentation and arguments withhold, it will be
supplied for instance in case of disagreements (:-)).
>
> Please note that it is virtually impossible for Guthred and Gorm to
> have been brothers, so that the two statements do not support each
> other. Second, I was offering Simeon as evidence that the name
> (Harde)knud appeared in the family of at least one king of York.
> Given that we have a king Cnut who is known to have minted coins at
> York, there appears to be some connection.
I suppose that this has already been sufficiently commented on above, so no
further comments at this point.
> >The scenario that I am advocating for is: Harthecnut was king in both
York
> >and Eastanglia (and Danish Mercia in between) from 904/5-, ...
>
> The problem still remains that you have yet to offer any evidence that
> Cnut was also a king in East Anglia.
I must insist that the Cuerdale hoard do represent some evidence, although
it is certainly not decisive. If what it takes is a direct citation from
some
contemporary source stating the equivalent of "Cnut king of East Anglia", or
a coin with "CNVT REX" on one side and "NORWICH" in Latin on the other side,
then I'm afraid I would have to resign.
But I am convinced than less will do, and I shall - as I am not able to meet
the demand - in stead try to reject it. Why should the burden of proof be
laid on the claim that Cnut was king of all Norsemen in England, if that was
the expectable state of things?
As a starting point: Why should the invaders act in accordance with the
borders and the integrity of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms? They made the
system collaps. The old kingdoms were never revived, when the Norse kings
had been expelled, the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons rose from the ruins, and
the West-Saxon dynasty was the true beneficiary.
A united Danelaw is the natural entity as an area ruled by a Norse king in
England. What I see as the occasional (three occasions to be precise - se
below) division of it into two parts corresponding to East Anglia and
(southern part of) Northumbria can easily be explained by the documented
fact that the invasion was a joint venture of an alliance consisting of the
forces of several kings, and the logical implication that they and their
successors would have to share the gain and probably sometimes quarrel or
fight over it.
The mysterious election of Ethelwold as king in the North (of which I have
no satisfactory explanation) shows at least so much that there was no
obvious candidate of the Norse dynasty ruling in York until then. That may
very well still have been the case when Ethelwold was killed after a short
reign. After the battle of Holme there were no two rivaling parties each
promoting a candidate, and there would be no reason why the people of the
Danelaw in this situation should elect two kings.
The title of Ivar "king of all the Northmen in Ireland and Britain" at his
death in 873 is probably reflecting exactly what he was considered to be by
himself, the people around him, and the man writing these words. At least
two of his descendants were adressed by what seems to be the same title
expressed in the specific Irish way of doing it "king of (all) the dark and
fair foreigners" when they died as kings in York. You see a certain pattern
in the way successions of kings take place in Dublin/York. A king of Dublin
moves eastwards over the Irish Sea to become king in York, at the same
moment another member of the family takes his place in Dublin. I remember no
other example (haven't had the time to check the sources) of a Norse king in
Ireland having this title.
A lot of events happening in Dublin and York may be explained as the result
of the aspirations of the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of Ivar to
achieve his position as THE king of all the Northmen in Ireland and Britain,
the king of kings, and that the possession of York, the first conquest in
England, the juvel of the crown, was what decided the status. The Dublin
kings seem to be attracted to York as flies to a sugar bowl.
That is why I question whether the notion "king of York", if ever used by
these kings of Ivar's descent and their contemporaries, meant anything but
"king of all the Northmen ...".
If Cnut was king of York in the same sense, he is special in at least one
way. There is no evidence of any kind relating him to the dynasty in Dublin.
Lack of evidence is of course a questionable base of deduction. But in this
case it has the pleasant consequence that he may without violating any known
fact join the exclusive group of kings ruling in York with no contacts
across the Irish Sea, a group with just two more members: Guthrum I (if you
accept my decomposition of Guthred), and the last king in York, Eric, (the
one with the same name as a the king of East Anglia!).
I believe that Cnut was the only king in the Danelaw from 904-918, and that
he pretended to be the successor of Guthrum I, who ruled the same kingdom
unchallenged by other candidates from 878, i.e. from the battle at Cynvit,
which marks the end of the power of the first generation of Ivar's kin, till
he died. Then the next generation, the sons of Ivar were ready to challenge
the heirs of Guthrum and they held York for the rest of the century, while
the "Guthrumians" had to settle with half a kingdom, East Anglia.
I know that there is a lot of speculations, filled in details, and lack of
moderation in all this.
But does this picture, that may still be just a good-looking phantasy,
contain any inconsistencies or contradictions to known facts?
> Unfortunately, I don't have easy access to Guillaume de Jumičges, but
> I have never seen such a reference to a Danish king Sven ruling in
> 943, and would be very surprised if all of the other scholars working
> on this had missed such an important reference. Are you sure that
> Guillaume says that, and if so, could you quote the passage?
>
The (!) scholars usually dismiss the passages with "Harald=Harald
Bluetooth", "Sven=Sven Forkbeard", and "Guillaume de Jumičges is a big fool
to make such an anachronistic blunder". I have seen no attempt to reanalyze
the account since the Jelling-datings, but I guess that most scholars would
not have changed their oppinion.
If you are not familiar with this, it probably makes no sense yet, but I
don't intend to raise your expectations too much ...
I have a Danish version, you'll get my personal translation of the relevant
passages next time.
Out of time ...
Kristian Nyrup
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
> >But Guillaume de Jumièges knew, he called the Danish king ruling in 943 -
a
> >year undoubtebly within the reign of Gorm - Sven! In Normandy they were
> >first row witnesses to the merits of the Kid King in his cross Channel
> >kingdom ...
>
> Unfortunately, I don't have easy access to Guillaume de Jumièges, but
> I have never seen such a reference to a Danish king Sven ruling in
> 943, and would be very surprised if all of the other scholars working
> on this had missed such an important reference. Are you sure that
> Guillaume says that, and if so, could you quote the passage?
I hope that you will be able to read this piece of Ladenglish:
Guill.Jum.III.9:
"When the bravery and piety of this great prince (William I) had become
known through his reputation, King Harald of Denmark arrived in Normandy
expelled from his kingdom by his son, Sven, with sixty ships loaded with
armed warriors, asking for assistance. The mighty and noblely thinking duke
recieved him with proper honor and gave him the county of Coutance
as a safe base, until he, after having build ships and made the army
complete and stronger with an increased number of men, was able to return to
his lost kingdom."
In the following chapters we read about the murder of William I, the
troubles of his son, the boy Richard, when the existence of the Norman
community was threatened by the French, and how Harald and his army played
an important role in the successful restistance.
Guill.Jum.IV.9:
"... (peace again in Normandy) ... Soon thereafter king Harald returned to
Denmark after having made up with his son Sven."
In this way Guillaume deliberately changes a similar story that he must have
known from Dudo, who does not make Harald a refugee, and who has nothing
about this king Sven.
In my last message I tried to explain the common attitude among scholars
towards this piece of information.
Since it has now become evident that this king Harald cannot be Harald
Bluetooth, the identification of his son Sven with Sven Forkbeard has lost
most of its likelyhood, and I think that time has come to rehabilitate
Guillaume.
The identification is only possible if you believe that he has not got the
least sense of chronology. I find it hard to believe that a Norman historian
from the time of the Norman conquest should know so little about the history
of the rivals to the English throne that he would make Sven Forkbeard
conquer England at an age of at least ninety!
I guess that this may lead to another dispute.
(The thread certainly has no lack of internal branching)
Kristian Nyrup
T Stanford M S P F Mommaerts-Meulemans-Browne
-------Original Message-------
From: sla...@geraldton.lakeheadu.ca
Date: Wednesday, 23 May, 2001 07:31:20 PM
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Sv: Guthrum II
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 16:31:37 -0700
From: royalynx <roya...@home.com>
Organization: @Home Network
Subject: Re: Sv: Guthrum II
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
( snipped to conserve bandwidth]
May I totally concur with Mr Brown and hopefully see more of this
type of discussion
Regards
Sally Laine
Dear Kristian,
May I ask that you and Stewart __Not__ take the discussion off list to continue!
Aside from the (examplary) civil & scholarly tone of this discussion, I should like to see it continue because of a shared interest in the subject matter.
So far I have saved almost every posting to my PC so that I may go back to study them when I have more time. Sometime after I've deleted the literally hundreds of pieces of junk that I get in my e-mail, (not a few from this list). Thanks.
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
...
On the contrary, I would say that it is evident that this Svend could
be nobody other than Svend Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth,
misplaced chronologically by Guillaume. Your suggestion that this
Svend was actually a different kings of the Danes who was ruling a
generation or so earlier does not even look remotely plausible to me.
>The identification is only possible if you believe that he has not got the
>least sense of chronology. I find it hard to believe that a Norman historian
>from the time of the Norman conquest should know so little about the history
>of the rivals to the English throne that he would make Sven Forkbeard
>conquer England at an age of at least ninety!
Guillaume was writing about 1070, well beyond living memory of the
events being described, and it appears likely that his sources were
also vague on chronology. Dudo mentioned a "Haigrold" king of "Dacia"
(i.e., Harald king of the Danes) who is called a kinsman of Richard I
of Normandy, and it is apparent that Guillaume has misidentified this
Haigrold with Harald Bluetooth, when he inserted this information.
(Haigrold is identified by Frankish chroniclers as a local Viking
chieftain in France.) This silly blunder by Guillaume should not be
used as a source indicating that there was a king Svend ruling Denmark
in the 940's, and should certainly not be considered evidence that
Gorm "the Old" was also called Svend, as you have suggested before.
Stewart Baldwin
Todd A. Farmerie
>
> Todd A. Farmerie <farm...@interfold.com> skrev i en
> nyhedsmeddelelse:3B04C2A1...@interfold.com...
> >
> > AEthelred I.
>
> It is a remarkable thing that Saxo at this point so definitively contradicts
> the Icelandic tradition that Thyra was the daughter of a certain Harald
> Klak,
Usually identified with the sometimes King Harald.
> because what else he writes about Gorm and Thyra indicates that he
> knew that tradition. He must have had some reason to make this English
> connection, some source relating Gorm to England, But I don't think the
> exact nature of the connection should be derived from Saxo's statement.
> I prefer the Icelandic version, because one can argue for it in a way
> totally independent of what the Icelanders wrote.
Someone about the turn of the century argued for two Thyras, in
succession, the first daughter of Harald, the second of
AEthelred. My own gut reaction is to reject both. The Harald
Klak connection sounds a bit too "legitimist" to me. Admittedly,
Gorm did name a son Harald, but it was not an uncommon name in
the north. I just see no supporting evidence. Harald was
friendly with the Franks, yet Gorm was a pagan throughout life.
No claim of a connection to the earlier kings appears to have
been suggested by Svein. Gorm's center of operation differed
from Harald's. It looks too much like the kind of thing early
"historians" developed to more easily show a continuity of
reigns.
I would be interested in your totally independent argument.
> > > If Gorm is the person whose skeleton has been found under the floor in
> the
> > > church of Jelling, he was according to the anthropological analysis born
> in
> > > the interval 908-923.
> >
> > Does this require his body to have been moved? In other words, is
> > this a combination of the date from the wood in the mound crypt,
> > and the age of the skeleton in the church (which some have
> > suggested had been moved there from the mound - an alternative
> > being that the church burial is that of Harald)?
>
> I'm afraid that without the translation theory you have no way of deciding
> the age of Gorm, when he died.
So be it. Telling age from bones is problematic anyhow.
Something like a dietary quirk or genetic predisposition can lead
to grossly different age estimates. Even if it can be proven
that the skeleton is that of Gorm, I am not sure that we really
learn that much useful about the chronology.
taf
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
> >Since it has now become evident that this king Harald cannot be Harald
> >Bluetooth, the identification of his son Sven with Sven Forkbeard has
lost
> >most of its likelyhood, and I think that time has come to rehabilitate
> >Guillaume.
>
> On the contrary, I would say that it is evident that this Svend could
> be nobody other than Svend Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth,
> misplaced chronologically by Guillaume. Your suggestion that this
> Svend was actually a different kings of the Danes who was ruling a
> generation or so earlier does not even look remotely plausible to me.
>
Imagine that Guillaume of Jumièges wrote this:
""When the bravery and piety of this great prince (William I) had become
known through his reputation, King Harald of Denmark arrived in Normandy
expelled from his kingdom by his son, Gorm, with sixty ships loaded with
armed warriors, asking for assistance. The mighty and noblely thinking duke
recieved him with proper honor and gave him the county of Coutance
as a safe base, until he, after having build ships and made the army
complete and stronger with an increased number of men, was able to return to
his lost kingdom.
... (peace again in Normandy) ... Soon thereafter king Harald returned to
Denmark after having made up with his son Gorm.""
I am convinced that if these were the words, then they would have been
highly appreciated, and no effort would have been spared to make probable
that this was reliable information about the Danish kings in the middle of
the 10th century. And you would have heard arguments like:
Guillaume de Jumièges was close to the ducal family, he may even have spoken
with the duke himself, he was writing about events of the greatest
importance to the dukes and the duchy, it happened just 125-130 years ago in
the days of the (great)greatgrandfather of the ruling duke, so that reliable
oral tradition might be the source of the information.
And there would probably have been a never ending dispute between the
historians proposing these arguments and their opponents saying that one
cannot be sure, one should not just accept it as facts, ...etc.etc... But I
don't think that the words "not even remotely plausible" would have been
used.
The name of the king, "Sven", is the only reason why the idea of a
chronological blunder ever came up, if Guillaume had used any name but
"Sven", people might have believed him with nothing more than the usual and
required moderations. And that is not fair. How could he in any convincing
way have told the true story about a king Sven in Denmark, if this very
story would be evidence of its own falsehood?
That is why I do not accept the "blunder" theory without any further
arguments. The "blunder" theory is not superior to a "chronology OK"
theory, I see no evidence supporting it, I see several arguments against it.
To me it is just based on a "same-name" argument fostered in the heads of
modern historians, who had already falsely identified Harald with Harald
Bluetooth.
Here is the first argument against the "blunder" theory:
The problem is not the confusion by Guillaume of events, chronology, and
names 130 years prior to his own time. Some confusion here would be natural,
understandable, even expectable.
But what I find utterly unbelievable is that he should have looked upon Sven
Forkbeard as such a distant and vague figure that he felt entitled to fool
around with him as implied by the "blunder" theory.
Sven Forkbeard must have been living history in Normandy c.1070, when the
last of his warriors may still have been alive spending their otium in
monasteries of England or Normandy. He was of the same generation as Gunnor,
who had died just 40 years ago, perhaps even 10 years younger. His daughter,
Estrid (perhaps the daughter, who was once involved in some unsuccessful
mariage alliance between the Normans and the Danes), was still alive. He was
the father-in-law of Emma, one of the main characters in the prehistory of
the conquest, who died in 1052. The stories of her sons Alfred and Edward
could not be told without references to the old days when the Danish kings
ruled England. Any coherent story about the Norman conquest of England would
have to begin with Sven Forkbeard's conquest just half a century earlier.
I find it unbelievable that a historian writing down this very story should
be able to make a blunder in size corresponding to that of a French
historian of our time placing president Truman in the history of Napoleon
III. Truman is (still) living in the memory of many people, Napoleon III is
ancient history.
Guillaume of Jumièges tells about Sven Forkbeard precisely as much as it
takes to understand how the English-Danish-Norman complications started and
develloped until the great conquest of 1066. He introduces king Sven by
telling about the massacre on the Danes in England (1002) instigated
by king Ethelred. He concentrates the events of the following ten years into
one event, so that the attack in 1013 leading to the Danish conquest follows
immediately after the massacre as an act of revenge. In this way the
dramatic effect has been increased, the motives have been simplified, just
as it happens when a good story is made better in the mouth of people
telling it.
But Guillaume also had some written accounts of king Sven. He makes an
extract of the treaty of peace and friendship between the dukes and the
Danish kings from 1003. And he probably uses the work called Encomium Emmae
from c.1040 as a source of many details in the history of Sven and Cnut.
Everything is as one might expect: Guillaume is very well informed and not
the least confused about Sven Forkbeard. And there are no signs whatsoever
indicating that Guillaume himself identified king Sven of his own living
history with king Sven of 943.
> Guillaume was writing about 1070, well beyond living memory of the
> events being described, ...
That is not what I have learned from researching my own family. I think that
the range of the memory of a family nowaday is about 125-130 years. When an
old member of a family retells what he/she has been told in his/her
childhood or youth by people that he/she once knew as personal experiences
of these same people, then it is living memory. One more link in the
tradition changes the character of the stories fundamentally. They become
stories told as entertainment and they become easy targets of changes or
improvements having just the purpose of making them better stories. They are
no longer protected by the loyalty of the reteller to his source, and they
are not preserved just because they happened to family.
From old, distant relatives I have within the last ten years through the
living memory of a granddaughter's grandson heard stories never written
down, which happened at my greatgreatgrandfather's farm in 1864
during the Prussian occupation of Jutland, through the living memory of a
grandson's grandson I have learn about this ancestor's (died 1869)
nickname, and through the living memory of a my father's brother I have
learned a story that he once heard from his father's sister before she died
in 1952 about a very dramatic incident turning the life of the family upside
down. It happen when she was 14 in 1884, in ten years there will probably
still be a living person, who could retell her story as he heard it directly
from her own mouth.
If just one person born in 925 survived till 1005, and this person knew just
one person born in 990, who survived till 1070, there would a channel
through which reliable information of 943 in my oppinion might reach
Guillaume. In medieval Normandy that would be rather improbable due to a
much lower average lifelength (but not very much lower maximum lifelength, i
guess), but it would not be impossible. Therefore I think that "well beyond
living memory" is a bit too definitive a way of putting it.
I realize that we may disagree on the very concept of living memory.
> ... and it appears likely that his sources were
> also vague on chronology.
There are not very many precise datings in Guillaume's book, but a few pages
after the disputed account on Harald's flight from Sven, he dates the
killing of William I precisely to 17.dec.943, and a few pages before the
above mentioned account on the Dane Massacre he writes that Richard I died
in 996. And shortly thereafter he quotes the treaty of 1003, if he knew the
original document, that would have given him a third year. The "blunder"
theory implies that Guillaume did not realize that Sven conquered England
sixty-seventy years after the expulsion of "his" father!
Guillaume states that Harald was expelled by his son Sven. That is why
historians began wondering about the "blunder" in the first place. Until few
years ago it was a common assumption that king Harald was the same as Harald
Bluetooth. But there is nothing in the works of Dudo or Guillaume indicating
that they made that identification, except that Harald is expelled by Sven.
It is all in the heads of historians, who thought that Harald Bluetooth was
king in Denmark at that time. Now we know that he probably wasn't. If
Guillaume had no reason to believe that, and actually did not believe that,
then he couldn't possibly have misplaced Sven Forkbeard for that reason. But
then it is all just in the heads of historians making speculations about
the identity of these two persons: Harald Bluetooth was expelled by his son
Sven Forkbeard. Guillaume tells about king Harald expelled by his son Sven.
Voila: the same names, similar events, the same persons. And you can only
argue for the "blunder" theory by assuming a priori that the blunder was
actually made:
K: Why did Guillaume make a blunder?
S: Because he writes that Harald was expelled by Sven before 943!
K: Why is that a blunder?
S: Because Sven rebelled against his father in the 980's!
K: Why should Guillaume be refering to this incident?
S: Because he makes a blunder!
There probably is a way of breaking this circle, ...
Guillaume must have known the history about how Harald Bluetooth was
expelled by his son Sven Forkbeard. The story is told in "Encomium Emmae", a
work that he probably used as source. He may even have known the work of his
contemporary Adam of Bremen, which contains the same history. Therefore it
is certainly a possibility (but unlikely to me) that he may have mixed
Harald and Sven of 943 with these two kings, but the only resemblence (apart
from the names) indicating that this should be the case, is as mentioned the
statement, that Harald was expelled by Sven.
But if he knew of Sven Forkbeard's rebellion against his father as we know
it, or as it is told by the above mentioned works, then he would also have
known the dramatic culmination of this story: Harald Bluetooth was wounded
in the battle, he fled to Wendland, where he died of his wound after a short
while (Enc.Emm.I.1,Adam II.27-28.). It is at least difficult to explain how
he could have known about the rebellion without knowing the result of it as
well.
If you assume that this is the source of Haralds appearence in Normandy in
943 after being expelled by his son Sven, then Guillaume certainly is guilty
of much more than just a chronological blunder. I don't see how anyone, not
even the most clumsy medieval historian, out of this could make: Harald was
not wounded, he fled to Normandy, he did not die, he reconsiled with his son
and returned to Denmark, without knowing what he was doing. This is not just
bending the facts a little. To anybody else interested in the history of
these king this would be just a bunch of obvious mistakes put into the
history for no reason at all. Dudo had already written the story without
king Sven, the only effect obtained by Guillaume, if he actually altered and
put in elements of Sven Forkbeard's rebellion against his father, was his
own stultification. We would not need any modern time historian to point
that out, he must have known it himself, while he did it.
> This silly blunder by Guillaume should not be
> used as a source indicating that there was a king Svend ruling Denmark
> in the 940's, and should certainly not be considered evidence that
> Gorm "the Old" was also called Svend, as you have suggested before.
Is this not just another way of putting:
K: There was a king Sven in Denmark c.943.
S: Why?
K: Because Guillaume de Jumièges says so.
S: G.d.J. makes a chronolgical blunder.
K: Why?
S: Because there was no king Sven in Denmark c.943.
?
I see no reason why the accounts of Guillaume should not be evidence of this
king Sven in Denmark. On the contrary, I find it very likely (at least 3:1
in my favor) that there in the grandparent's generation of one king Sven
should be found another king Sven, but of course this isn't the indisputable
proof either. I would not mind though accepting that the odds of this
conjecture were 1:3, because if I can present 10 independent conjectures of
that quality each implying Sven=Gorm then the accumulated odds would still
be 9:1 in my favor.
By this completely unserious calculation (history is not a stochastic
experiment) I just want to show the difference between linking conjectures
with AND's and OR's. In the first case you have the "house of cards"
metaphor, in the second case you have what I would call the "game of
puzzle" metaphor: the pieces support each other, when the structure has
appeared, fitting is evidence.
After thus having eliminated (:-)) the "blunder" theory, we are (I am) left
with a number of more interesting problems. Might king Sven in some way have
been related to the dukes by kinship, and could that be the reason why
Guillaume knew about him? Why is he called son of Harald, not son of
Hardecnut? Why does Dudo call Harald a kinsman of Richard I? Who is
this Harald anyway, if not a king (Flodoard), why does Dudo believe so? Why
are Sven Forkbeard and Richard II called cousins in "Chronique de
Normandie"? Does not the word "cousin" indicate some interest in and
knowledge about at least two generations af ancestry?
What are the facts and theories (good or bad) about the relations between
the dukes and the Danish kings?
Have all the arguments, all the evaluations of source reliability, been
reconsidered since it has become the canonized oppinion of official Denmark,
confirmed in the presence of crown and church, that this (king?) Harald of
Bayeux/Coutance/(Denmark?) is not Harald Bluetooth?
I know that there is a lot of expertice on early Norman genealogy present
here. If some obscure piece of evidence has been rejected only or mainly
because of this false identification, I'm sure it would be known by someone
in this newsgroup.
Kristian Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin
<k.a....@mobilixnet.dk> wrote:
...
>Imagine that Guillaume of Jumièges wrote this:
>
>""When the bravery and piety of this great prince (William I) had become
>known through his reputation, King Harald of Denmark arrived in Normandy
>expelled from his kingdom by his son, Gorm, ...
The problem, of course, is that he didn't write that, so it is
completely irrelevant.
...
>That is why I do not accept the "blunder" theory without any further
>arguments. The "blunder" theory is not superior to a "chronology OK"
>theory, I see no evidence supporting it, I see several arguments against it.
>To me it is just based on a "same-name" argument fostered in the heads of
>modern historians, who had already falsely identified Harald with Harald
>Bluetooth.
...
But the chronological blunder scenario is BY FAR the simplest
explanation of the evidence at hand. Your attempts to argue against
it by putting hypothetical circular arguments in my mouth which I
never said simply are not valid.
>I find it unbelievable that a historian writing down this very story should
>be able to make a blunder in size corresponding to that of a French
>historian of our time placing president Truman in the history of Napoleon
>III. Truman is (still) living in the memory of many people, Napoleon III is
>ancient history.
...
To look at your example from another perspective, suppose an author
writing today mentioned an American President named Harry Truman as a
contemporary of Napolean III. I claim that the natural assumption
would be that the said author made a blunder regarding the chronology
of Harry Truman. Do you claim differently, and if not, why does the
same not apply to Guillaume?
I'm sorry, but I find your suggestion FAR to unbelievable to take
seriously. If we accept the scenario given by you over the past
several postings, then Gorm, who was also called Svend, was the son of
Cnut, who was also called Harald, etc., ... I just don't see that as
a reasonable possibility.
Stewart Baldwin
Stewart Baldwin
<farm...@interfold.com> wrote:
...
>Someone about the turn of the century argued for two Thyras, in
>succession, the first daughter of Harald, the second of
>AEthelred. My own gut reaction is to reject both. The Harald
>Klak connection sounds a bit too "legitimist" to me. Admittedly,
>Gorm did name a son Harald, but it was not an uncommon name in
>the north. I just see no supporting evidence. Harald was
>friendly with the Franks, yet Gorm was a pagan throughout life.
>No claim of a connection to the earlier kings appears to have
>been suggested by Svein. Gorm's center of operation differed
>from Harald's. It looks too much like the kind of thing early
>"historians" developed to more easily show a continuity of
>reigns.
In addition to these reasons for skepticism, there is also the
chronological problem. Gorm, who apparently died about 958, would
have to have been pretty old in order to be a son-in-law of Æthelred.
If the "Harald Klak" of the Icelandic sources is to be identified with
the king Harald (d. 852) who is given the nickname "Clac" in late (and
often unreliable) Danish sources, then the chronological problem is so
severe that it could be regarded as nearly impossible. Thus,
accepting that Thyra's father was a king named Harald Klak requires
one to assume that Harald Klak was a different person from the Harald
who ruled Denmark briefly in the first half of the ninth century.
>So be it. Telling age from bones is problematic anyhow.
>Something like a dietary quirk or genetic predisposition can lead
>to grossly different age estimates. Even if it can be proven
>that the skeleton is that of Gorm, I am not sure that we really
>learn that much useful about the chronology.
It depends on what you want to learn. Accepting for the moment the
(not yet proven) suggestion that the skeleton was Gorm's, the
estimates on the age of the skeleton is in the vague area of 35-50
years. The lower part of this range would make the chronology pretty
tight if we assume that Gorm's son Harald was old enough to be king in
958, but the mid-to-upper part of the range would be no problem as
long as we are willing to abandon Gorm's epithet of "the Old", for
which there is no good evidence anyway. However, making Harald a
grandson of Æthelred (since we know from the runestones that Thyre was
Harald's mother) would require Gorm to have been significantly older
than the upper limit given for his estimated age. Thus, even though
the age estimates could not be regarded as set in stone, they would
still qualify as one more piece of negative evidence regarding Saxo's
story that Thyra was Æthelred's daughter. The alternate theory that
the skeleton was Harald's would give essentially the same
chronological problem.
Stewart Baldwin
Richard Smyth
> To look at your example from another perspective, suppose an author
> writing today mentioned an American President named Harry Truman as a
> contemporary of Napolean III. I claim that the natural assumption
> would be that the said author made a blunder regarding the chronology
> of Harry Truman. Do you claim differently, and if not, why does the
> same not apply to Guillaume?
Are rulers who are named "Napolean" less plentiful than authors writing
today who believe that President Truman was a contemporary of a man who died
in 1873? If I encountered a reference to a "Napolean III who was a
contemporary of President Truman", I would assume that I was unfamiliar with
the referent of "Napolean III". I certainly would not assume that the
author thinks that President Truman lived in the nineteenth century.
Regards,
Richard Smyth
sm...@nc.rr.com
Todd A. Farmerie
>
> The lower part of this range would make the chronology pretty
> tight if we assume that Gorm's son Harald was old enough to be king in
> 958, but the mid-to-upper part of the range would be no problem as
> long as we are willing to abandon Gorm's epithet of "the Old", for
> which there is no good evidence anyway.
I have seen it suggested (don't recall where), and I think it
reasonable in light of such liminaries as Halfdan the Old and
Bjorn the Old, that the epithet "the Old" did not originally
imply age at all, but instead was used to demarcate the founder
of a dynasty.
taf
Peter E. Murray
following comments of my own (I am copying this reply also directly to
Stewart in case it fails to transmit to the list).
Regarding the parentage of Thyra, Gorm's wife, I prefer the more widespread
version that she was daughter of a jarl Harald who supposedly also had
another daughter who married Sigurd Hjort, although the information is only
legendary (Chronologically this requires that we reject the marriage of
Sigurd Hjort's daughter with the Westfold king Halfdan the Black, which I
am quite prepared to do for many reasons). Whether jarl Harald's cognomen
was "Klak" is even more uncertain considering the several different
individuals to which this has been applied. these include the king Harald
baptized at Mainz in 826, a king Harald who is said perhaps erroneously to
have preceded Gorm the Old, a jarl Harald from Jutland or Holstein, and
even Gorm's son Harald before he was called "Bluetooth". Christiansen
briefly discusses the obscure meaning and occurrences of the name Harald
Klak in his notes to "The Works of Sven Aggesen". It should not, however,
be assumed that the same cognomen could not have been used by more than one
individual of the name, since there are many examples of this with other
names.
The alternative parentage for Thyra, the version of Saxo, that she was
daughter of an English king Ethelred is also far from impossible. It is
important to note that there is nothing in the story to indicate or even
hint that this Ethelred was the Wessex king of the name. Even if this were
chronologically plausible, which it is not, it seems politically unlikely.
Consider that references to Anglia in Scandinavian sources appear, at least
in some instances, to refer specifically to East Anglia. There is a
different later Ethelred, who was one of the English client kings of East
Anglia under Danish domination, who is a much more likely candidate for the
Ethelred mentioned by Saxo. Some of his coins survive and date from about
900. Although I do not favour identifying an Ethelred as Thyra's father, if
there is anything to the story, it would not be the only claimed
intermarriage between the English dynasty of East Anglia and the Vikings
around this time. Oswald, the East Anglian client king who may have
immediately followed Ethelred is said to have had, by a daughter of the
slain East Anglian king (St) Edmund, a daughter Vilborg who married Thord
Skeggi, later a settler in Iceland.
Yet another possibility for the identity of Saxo's Ethelred could be the
alderman Ethelred of Mercia, who is indeed called king in some early
sources although clearly subordinate to and supportive of the king of
Wessex. But politically this has to be viewed as unlikely.
As for the description of Gorm as "the Old", it is at least compatible with
almost everything that is recorded about him. There is no "good evidence"
only because there is no contemporary evidence at all for Gorm other than
from runestones. But the various legendary and non-contemporary sources at
least give a consistent picture, and it suggests that he was indeed "old"
at his death.
He is implied to have been senile in his later years.
His son Harald was effectively and probably actually king of Denmark
before, and probably long before, Gorm's death.
According to the usual interpretation of Adam of Bremen identifying him as
Hardecnudth's son Vurm (Gorm), his son Harald was an adult or near adult
when Unni visited Denmark in 936. This implies an expected birthdate for
Gorm in the period 880 to 890 although a date as late as 900 is also
possible although very unlikely.
His grandson Gold-Harald was already an adult in command of a strong fleet
when he demanded a share of the Danish kingdom from his uncle Harald
Bluetooth ca.970, having presumably inherited his following on the death of
his father Cnut Danaast ca.958. This tends to imply that Gorm's son Cnut
was not likely born later than about 915 and Gorm himself not likely later
than about 890, although there is some leeway to these estimates.
There are also other, more indirect indications that also place Gorm's
birth significantly before the end of the 9th century, but since these
require a more extensive explanation of the context I will not go into them
now.
The only dissenting evidence is the dating of the suggested body of Gorm
found at the site of the church in Jelling. Both this identification and
the reliability of the age estimation at death of 30 to 50 are very
uncertain, and his isolated burial without wife or presence of other royal
burials makes me suspicious, so I am not willing to accept this as being
Gorm yet.
Peter
----------
> From: Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com>
> To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
> Subject: Re: Guthrum II
> Date: Thursday, May 31, 2001 3:04 AM
> years. The lower part of this range would make the chronology pretty
> tight if we assume that Gorm's son Harald was old enough to be king in
> 958, but the mid-to-upper part of the range would be no problem as
> long as we are willing to abandon Gorm's epithet of "the Old", for
> which there is no good evidence anyway. However, making Harald a
> grandson of Æthelred (since we know from the runestones that Thyre was
> Harald's mother) would require Gorm to have been significantly older
> than the upper limit given for his estimated age. Thus, even though
> the age estimates could not be regarded as set in stone, they would
> still qualify as one more piece of negative evidence regarding Saxo's
> story that Thyra was Æthelred's daughter. The alternate theory that
> the skeleton was Harald's would give essentially the same
> chronological problem.
>
> Stewart Baldwin
>
> ______________________________
Stewart Baldwin
wrote:
>In connection with the comments below by Todd and Stewart, I will add the
>following comments of my own (I am copying this reply also directly to
>Stewart in case it fails to transmit to the list).
...
Hello, Peter. Welcome back. It has been a while (a few years?) since
I have seen you post to this list. I may have some responses to your
comments about Thyra later, but for the moment I will concentrate on
Gorm's chronology.
>As for the description of Gorm as "the Old", it is at least compatible with
>almost everything that is recorded about him. There is no "good evidence"
>only because there is no contemporary evidence at all for Gorm other than
>from runestones. But the various legendary and non-contemporary sources at
>least give a consistent picture, and it suggests that he was indeed "old"
>at his death.
>
>He is implied to have been senile in his later years.
>
>His son Harald was effectively and probably actually king of Denmark
>before, and probably long before, Gorm's death.
Considering how little is known for certain about the chronology, I
would be interested in knowing what evidence justifies the use of the
term "probable" here. In fact, what little contemporary evidence we
have, though admittedly not conclusive, suggests the opposite. IF the
age of the skeleton has been estimated correctly and IF the skeleton
was that of EITHER Gorm OR Harald (both subject to argument, of
course), then Harald would have had to be relatively young at the time
of Gorm's death ca. 958. Even though this interpretation of the
archaeological evidence is not without its problems, it does not
contradict the contemporary evidence, and I don't agree that it should
be set aside in favor of legendary sources which are DEMONSTRABLY
unreliable on important points (see below).
>According to the usual interpretation of Adam of Bremen identifying him as
>Hardecnudth's son Vurm (Gorm), his son Harald was an adult or near adult
>when Unni visited Denmark in 936. This implies an expected birthdate for
>Gorm in the period 880 to 890 although a date as late as 900 is also
>possible although very unlikely.
Adam tends to be very weak in his chronology, especially when he is
depending on narrative sources. It is apparent from reading Adam that
he had many different sources of information (of varying reliability),
and that he did not always have chronological data to go with that
information. In such cases, he tried to place events during the time
of a specific archbishop as well as he could (and not always
successfully). Two of Adam's stataments seem to be related here. The
first places the encounter with Vurm (i.e., Gorm) during Unni's time,
and the second states that Harald ruled for 50 years (almost certainly
false). It may be that these were independant pieces of information,
but there is also the possibility that one was deduced from the other.
If Adam had Gorm placed in Unni's time period, he could have used that
to deduce a fifty year reign for Harald. However, it could also be
that he had given a fifty year reign to Harald (who is represented as
the wise and glorious king who converted to Christianity, and as such
is an obvious subject for embellishment), and then placed Gorm during
the time of Unni as a result of that calculation. (Adam admits
elsewhere that he was uncertain about the chronology of the early
Danish kings.)
>His grandson Gold-Harald was already an adult in command of a strong fleet
>when he demanded a share of the Danish kingdom from his uncle Harald
>Bluetooth ca.970, having presumably inherited his following on the death of
>his father Cnut Danaast ca.958. This tends to imply that Gorm's son Cnut
>was not likely born later than about 915 and Gorm himself not likely later
>than about 890, although there is some leeway to these estimates.
I would regard the very existence of both Knut Danaast and Gold-Harald
as dubious at best, and certainly as unsuitable subjects as the basis
for chronological arguments. The earliest sources mentioning either
of which which I am aware were 200+ years after their alleged
existence. The most detailed story regarding Gorm in the sagas has
his son Knut (Danaast) invading Northumbria (i.e., the kingdom of
York) and getting killed, after which Gorm was informed (indirectly)
of Knut's death by Thyra, after which Gorm died of grief. The story
is demonstrably false on two important points. First, we know from
the contemporary rune monuments that Gorm survived Thyra, contrary to
what the saga account says. Second, the year 958 is unsuitable for
the alleged events in England described in relation to Gorm's alleged
son Knut. Thus, the most detailed story about Gorm that appears in
the sagas is almost certainly fictional
Also, if you look at the saga accounts, there seem to be a
proliferation of duplicated Gorms and Knuts. The Jomsvking saga has a
certain Gorm as the adopted father of (Harde)-Knut, father of Gorm
(the Old), father of Knut. The saga of Olaf Tryggvason carries the
duplication even further, making the first Gorm the adopted father of
Knut, father of another Gorm, adopted father of another Knut, father
of Gorm (the Old), father of Knut. Note that (1) this Knut-Gorm
alternation is quite artificial, and (2) the confusion provides plenty
of opportunities for a story to get transferred from one individual to
another of the same name. When we observe further that there was in
fact a king Knut of York (who cannot be a son of Gorm "the Old", for
chronological reasons, but could very well have been Gorm's father),
it is difficult to escape the conclusion that a story about an earlier
king Knut of York has been transferred to a (possibly nonexistent) son
of Gorm "the Old".
>There are also other, more indirect indications that also place Gorm's
>birth significantly before the end of the 9th century, but since these
>require a more extensive explanation of the context I will not go into them
>now.
>
>The only dissenting evidence is the dating of the suggested body of Gorm
>found at the site of the church in Jelling. Both this identification and
>the reliability of the age estimation at death of 30 to 50 are very
>uncertain, and his isolated burial without wife or presence of other royal
>burials makes me suspicious, so I am not willing to accept this as being
>Gorm yet.
I agree that some have jumped the gun in assuming that the skeleton
was Gorm's (I lean toward Andersen's suggestion that it was Harald).
However, regarding the age estimate, note that a fairly wide range of
error has ALREADY been allowed in giving a range of possible ages. I
find it difficult to believe that someone as old as almost seventy (or
older) would be estimated by experts as being 35 to 50.
Stewart Baldwin
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
[rearranged, to clarify some principles first]
> > I'm afraid that without the translation theory you have no way of
deciding
> > the age of Gorm, when he died.
>
> So be it. Telling age from bones is problematic anyhow.
> Something like a dietary quirk or genetic predisposition can lead
> to grossly different age estimates. Even if it can be proven
> that the skeleton is that of Gorm, I am not sure that we really
> learn that much useful about the chronology.
In this case I depend on the archaeologists reporting what their experts on
skeleton studies seem to have led them to believe.
I suppose that the interval 35-50 is based on statistics, and that it is the
result of the usual statistical analysis telling that the age is in this
interval with probability close to 1, the age may be outside the interval
with some probability greater than but close to 0. I don't know the exact
level of significance, and I cannot decide (at this very moment) whether you
by this observation - which I believe is correct - add to the uncertainty or
just express what has always been the uncertainty.
That the skeleton is Gorm's, that he died in 958, and that he was 35-50
years of age when he died are the basic assumptions (I abbreviate this as
"GtntO" for "Gorm the not that Old" in the following) and the offset of my
analysis. I think that the assumptions are likely, but unproven. There are -
as already mentioned - serious reasons to doubt. It is these reasons that
made me wonder in the first place. Why do so many people accept
"GtntO" as a fact without drawing the nessecary conclusions from it?
So now I am trying to reverse these arguments.
If one argument is: Because of "reason" , "GtntO" must be false, I try to
examine what follows from: Because of "GtntO", "reason" must be false.
If this by some unavoidable steps of reasoning leads to absurdity, then
"GtntO" is "false". That may still happen, and to me that too would be
a significant and satisfactory outcome of the analysis.
But I haven't found any absurdities yet, all I see is mysteries being
explained, problems being solved, doubtful or rejected evidence gaining
credibility. Assuming the "truth" of "GtntO" is like pulling the cork off a
bottle. I must admit that I've grown quite fond of the scenario, I don't
expect it to imply any absurdities, but I don't think it can be proved
either.
It is so easy to prove the existence of pixies: you just go out and find
one. But how do you prove their non-existence? And would the lack of proof
make you believe in pixies?
With the most likely scenario you have the best possibilities of getting
ideas, of seeing connections, of making relevant investigations, of
interpreting the sources correctly, and by that you may be led to sufficient
evidence to determine a genealogical relation. Therefore it is worth while
trying to make a likely scenario and very much relevant to medieval
genealogy.
A line of a pedigree should however not be based on an attractive scenario.
I see no new solid line of any pedigree result directly from my theory.
Perhaps there might be a few dotted lines implied by it, perhaps some lines
may gain a little more probability, ...
With that in mind, back to business:
>
> Someone about the turn of the century argued for two Thyras, in
> succession, the first daughter of Harald, the second of
> AEthelred. My own gut reaction is to reject both. The Harald
> Klak connection sounds a bit too "legitimist" to me. Admittedly,
> Gorm did name a son Harald, but it was not an uncommon name in
> the north. I just see no supporting evidence. Harald was
> friendly with the Franks, yet Gorm was a pagan throughout life.
> No claim of a connection to the earlier kings appears to have
> been suggested by Svein. Gorm's center of operation differed
> from Harald's. It looks too much like the kind of thing early
> "historians" developed to more easily show a continuity of
> reigns.
>
> I would be interested in your totally independent argument.
>
Actually I do believe that Gorm married twice, but not because of Saxo's
account, to which I shall return at the end of this message.
But allow me first to explain, what would be the expectable marriage policy
of a king Gorm acting within the scenario that I suggest.
I see no Danish-English affairs indicating that an English marriage would be
of high priority to Gorm. In the fifty years 930-980 almost coinciding with
the reign of Gorm and his son Harald there is hardly any written evidence of
Danish-English contacts. It must be the longest period of time between 830
and1080 without registered hostility in England caused by Danes crossing the
North Sea or the Channel.
If Gorm came from England (perhaps via Normandy) c.930 and took power first
in a small part of Jutland around Jelling, and then gradually enlarged
his kingdom with the northern and southern parts of Jutland and later on
also incorporated some of the eastern parts, then the long lasting period of
peace in England (from the Danes) during the reign of Gorm and Harald is
predictable, and not a coincidence.
The kings were simply too busy at home gathering the pieces of their new
kingdom and consolidating their position internally as well as externally.
Quarrels with the German kings at the southern border and quarrels among the
Scandinavian kingdoms seem to have dominated the foreign affairs all through
these fifty years, and internally there must have been endless controversies
caused by the Jelling kings attempting to eliminate, submit, or expel their
rivals in the lands of the divided Danish kingdom.
Marriage policy in this scenario could be a matter of acquiring some
additional right or just some local support after a conquest (by marrying
the widow or a daughter of some defeated rival), it could be a matter of
getting support from powerful allies (by marrying e.g. the daughter of a of
local magnate), it could be a matter of securing a peace treaty at the end
of some conflict (with the bride acting more or less as a hostage), or it
could be a matter of covering the rear by making a marriage relation to one
rival while dealing with another.
There may be other possibilities - probably just as unromantic, but most of
the documented Viking king marriages would fit into one or more of these
catagories. The common indication of all these possibilities is: Look for
the wives of Gorm not abroad but within the borders of what became the
(re)united kingdom of the Danes during the 10th century.
Harald Bluetooth declares in the runic inscription on the stone in Jelling
that he had ordered memorials made in Jelling to honor both his father and
mother. The northern mound is dated very precisely because of the wood from
the chamber: shortly after 958. In the southern mound wood has been found
too, but the dendrochronological results are more blurred. I skip the
archaeological details and refer just the conslusion: the southern mound is
probably build during a period of 5-10 years within the interval 960-970.
The following is on my own reasoning:
The most likely interpretation of this is that the two mounds (and the runic
stone) are what Harald is refering to as the memorials of his parents. Two
parents, two mounds, one for Gorm, and one for Thyra. In the northern mound
his father was buried, in the southern mound there is no grave, it is just a
memorial to his mother. She died long ago, her grave must be somewhere else.
If we remove the mounds and Harald's stone, we reconstruct the situation as
it was before 958. If not the archaeologists have overlooked important
material, all we see is Gorm's runic stone, and a gigantic formation of
large stones formed as a ship (one theory) or as a triangle (another
theory). This must then be the memorial made by Gorm in honor of Thyra. And
somewhere in the middle of the area marked by these stones Thyra was
probably buried. But there is no realistic hope of finding her grave, since
most of that area has been graveyard ever since.
When the mounds were built, Thyra's memorials was partially destroyed, some
of the stone formation was covered by earth, and inside the southern mound
some of these stones have been found on there original position, while some
of the uncovered stones may have been moved. Therefore the shape of the
stone formation has not yet been determined, different theories coexist.
Now to the point - finally: Botanical analysis has shown that on the stones
covered by the earth of the southern mound some sort of alga or moss has
been growing while the stones were uncovered for 20-30 years. Once again I
must rely on the result of an auxiliary science and believe that the
archaeologist refering it has taken into account most of the obvious
uncertainty of such a result by the margin of ten years, this is all I know
about it, but I have seen this result used by others to determine the span
of years between the erection of the stone formation and the first spits for
the southern mound.
Based on the archaeological findings and datings one may conclude (with all
the necessary moderations): Thyra died c.935+/-5.
I don't think that a king widowed in his early 30's or even younger would
spend the rest of his life as widower. To a king, marriage was too
important a tool to be left unused for so long, and my guess based on the
datings above is that Gorm probably already in the early 940's was married
to someone else than Thyra. And the origin of both this hypothetical second
wife and Thyra is most likely to be found somewhere inside "Denmark", as a
daughter, sister, or widow of a rival king or a local magnate.
By these general consideration alone, I am led to the conviction that Saxo
must be wrong, when he makes Thyra the daughter of an English king, and that
the Icelandic sagas may be right, when they make her the daughter of a Klak
Harald, earl or king somewhere in "Denmark".
But neither Gesta Danorum by Saxo nor the Icelandic sagas are primary
sources to knowledge of the Viking age, and if all we knew were these
accounts of works written c.1200 (and no good explanation of how they could
possibly have known), then I would personally consider the question of
Thyra's ancestry settled right here as "unknown".
But as mentioned, I see a way of justifying a dotted line in the pedigree:
Here is a sketch:
1) In most of the 10th century Denmark did not include Jutland and perhaps
some of the islands. Denmark was Scania, Halland, Selandia and perhaps some
of the other islands.
2) When Gorm used the word Denmark in his runic inscription it was an area
outside his own kingdom, when he calls Thyra "Denmark's Both", he tells that
she has come from Denmark, no matter the disputed word "Both" might mean,
and when Harald used the words "won all of Denmark" it probably meant: won
all of Denmark as described above, unlike his father, who had won only a
part of it.
3) The monuments of Jelling are unique. Although there must have been
dozens of kings and queens and royal children dead and buried in "Denmark"
in these years with family not less conserned with the memory of their
departed dear ones, no one ever did anything like this. The monuments are
more than just average memorials at the burial place of a royal family. It
must be some kind of demonstration.
4) The role of Thyra is what makes it unique. The stone formation erected by
Gorm is immense. The mound built to replace it 20-30 years after her death
is just as big as the king's. To Harald it wasn't enough to tell that he was
the son of a king and to commemorate him, he had to mention his mother once
again and make this gigantic mound to secure that the memory of her was
maintained too.
5) If Gorm and Thyra's marriage was political, the efforts to preserve her
memory must be just as political. What made her rememberence important to
her husband and son must be what made the marriage important in the first
place. Especially if she died young - and that is what the dating above
suggest - while the cause of the marriage was still actual politics,
memorials would be nessecary substitutes.
6) Interpreted in this way the message of the runic inscriptions sound like
this: Remember that I, Gorm, was once married to Thyra from Denmark.
Remember that I, Harald, who has just won all of Denmark, is the son of this
Thyra.
7) Therefore it is likely, that Thyra is the daughter of a king ruling in
the eastern part of the kingdom that Harald finally reunited, the most
attractive part of the kingdom, the name of which for the same reason later
became the name of the (re)united kingdom.
8) Gorm was son of (Hartha)Knut. The oldest son was probably called Knut. It
is likely that the son Harald is named after his mother's father, or at
least that Harald is a name occuring among his mother's kinsmen.
9) I 935 Gorm was king in Jutland, there was at the same time another king
called Harald in the eastern part of the country, i.e. Denmark in the sense
of 1). Adam of Bremen's story about archbishop Unni's mission in Scandinavia
with one minor correction tells exactly this, and because of "GtntO" this
account would have to be corrected anyway.
10) If we make Thyra the daughter of this king Harald in Denmark, then all
the pieces of the puzzle have been joined to a clear and comprehensible
picture. That would make a good theory contradicting no fact and explaining
a lot of observed phenomena. And it has been reached through a series of
likely - but unproven - steps, and it is based on no source later than Adam
of Bremen, but of course very much on "GtntO" and the scenario derived from
it.
11) The last step is to supply this king Harald with a proper nickname. That
is not an important step, since none of the nicknames usually assigned to
the Danish kings of the 10th century (Bluetooth and Forkbeard) can be traced
further back in the sources than to c.1140.
Nevertheless it would be quite reasonable to call this king Harald of
Denmark by the name Klak Harald or Harald Klak. We just have to put the
nickname back to where it belonged in the first place.
In the 13th century it was mistakenly attached to the first Christian king
in "Denmark" from the time of St.Ancharius, the Harald who was expelled by
the sons of Gudfrid after a short period of shared reign. That was the
oppinion of neither the oldest source of the nicknames of Danish kings The
Chronicle of Roskilde nor Sven Aggesen (c.1180) nor Saxo (c.1200). Saxo
calls no Harald by this nickname. To the Roskilde chronicler and Sven
Aggesen Klak Harald was a king living shortly before or a contemporary to
Gorm.
If there ever were a king Harald deserving the nickname Klak, then the
father of Thyra (or any other king Harald) from the beginning of the 10th
century would have higher priority than a king Harald from the beginning of
the 9th century.
I suppose that I thus have argued for the Icelandic point of view: "Thyra
was the daughter of Harald Klak" with no reference whatsoever to any
Icelandic source!
So now you may wonder if the Icelander, who actually wrote c.1200 that Thyra
was daughter of Harald Klak, had to go through the same 11 steps of
reasoning. I do ...
From this point it is tempting to step a little further, although somewhat
digressively and on even thinner ice, so that this tributary may join the
main stream:
Thyra died c.940, Gorm married again probably to make a new alliance of some
political significance. Some turbulence would follow. It could have tipped
the balance of power. The good relations to king Harald of Denmark may have
suffered. Gorm was perhaps no longer dependent on a powerful father-in-law.
If Gorm's plans were to move eastwards this could be the time, and if he was
successful there would no longer be a kingdom for Harald Klak, he would have
to resign, to die or to flee.
And if he fled, somewhere in Europe in the early 940's a refugee, a certain
king Harald from Denmark, would turn up. Stories would spread about how this
king was expelled from his kingdom by a rival called Gorm, unless of course
Harald came to a land, where this rival had been known since his early
childhood, in that land he would probably be called Sven ...
Back on (more) solid ground:
Saxo:
Once again, Gesta Danorum by Saxo it not a primary source of anything but
itself. It is a marvellous relict telling a whole lot of things about the
society in which Saxo lived, and about e.g. how he and vip's around him
looked upon history through their 1200 glasses. But he is a historian
combing sources, making theories, filling in detail, and not even for events
happening in his own lifetime may one without the greatest caution consider
his work to be a primary source.
But Gesta Danorum is a primary source to its own creation. It is hard work
to find out what Saxo did and what he had to do it with, i.e. What was his
sources and how did he use them? He is so superior to these sources with
respect to style and the use of Latin, that he hardly ever takes over a
whole
unchanged sentence from them.
From the stories about Gorm "the Old", Harald Bluetooth, and Sven Forkbeard,
however, I think that it is possible to cut away everything that he got from
his Icelandic, German, and older Danish sources, and what is left then seems
to be rudely manipulated accounts from some English work of history. And it
is here that you find the statement that Thyra was a daughter of the English
king Ethelred. I think that Saxo by accident put in these accounts on wrong
places. Therefore I don't think that this marriage - if historical - belongs
to the history of Gorm "the Old" at all.
It would take another posting of this size to explain why.
Kristian Nyrup
Peter E. Murray
welcome but time consuming followup. This particular topic being one of the
great problems in medieval historiography, it was hard to resist. My
responses to your points are inserted below.
----------
> From: Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com>
> To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
> Subject: Gorm's chronology (was: Guthrum II)
> Date: Friday, June 01, 2001 4:42 PM
The identity and dating of the skeleton indeed has the potential to be
compelling evidence, but it is very new evidence that has still not been at
all adequately assessed. The uncertainty as to whose body it is offsets the
objective worth of the measurements, whereas the lack of individual
reliability of the other sources is somewhat compensated by the mutual
compatibility of the stories from varied sources that survive.
I indeed consider it probable that Harald was king of Denmark in his
father's lifetime. I will list the main suggestive evidence below which
taken together is very suggestive despite the nature of the sources. I am
not aware of any contemporary evidence that contradicts it so I will leave
it to you to add that part in order to provide the other side of the story.
- The 50 year reign suggested by Adam by coincidence or design takes his
accession back to 936 when he is said by Adam to have interceded to protect
christians despite his father's hostility to them. More on this in
connection with your further comment below.
- When king Hakon of Norway invaded Denmark his opponent was Harald
Bluetooth. All attempts to date this event place it inevitably somewhere in
the interval 950-954, probably closer to 950, all of which is in Gorm's
lifetime.
- Cnut, corresponding apparently to Gorm's son, is mentioned by Lambert of
Ardres as brother of the king of Denmark who by inference must be Harald
Bluetooth. This would be sometime before 962 when this Cnut's friend and
kinsman Sigfred (Sigurd) killed himself (we discussed this on this list a
few years ago). If indeed Cnut perished soon before his father Gorm, as
Saxo and Sven say, then it is significant that Harald was already king. I
am taking the sources at face value that this Cnut existed, but would be
interested in any specific evidence that he didn't.
- Bishoprics were founded in Denmark in 948, which could hardly have been
done without royal support. This is at a time when Harald is believed to
have been sympathetic and Gorm unsympathetic to Christianity, suggesting
that Harald was calling the shots.
Incidentally, in my last post I omitted three other pieces of information
directly suggesting a relatively early date for Gorm's regnum in Denmark
implying a date of birth close to or more likely prior to 900.
- Athelstan is said to have visited Gorm in Denmark soon before his
accession as king of Wessex. This was probably when he was threatened with
assassination ca.924 (date from memory but I will look it up).
- According to Chron Roskilde, a Gorm and Hordaknut had recently shared
Denmark and Anglia (meaning East Anglia) just before the permanent loss by
the Danes of East Anglia which happened in 921.
- There is even a suggestion (JH Todd citing Langebek, have not seen
ultimate source) that a Gorm ruled very briefly with Svein Longfoot before
giving up his share in the Danish kingdom to go to England. This presumably
is Gorm Anglus who, despite Saxo, can be shown to be none other than Gorm
the Old. This would be most plausibly sometime prior to the apparent
sharing of these kingdoms between Gorm and Hordaknut mentioned in the
previous point, again implying a birth date before 900 for Gorm.
We must not be troubled that the evidence is legendary. While the truth is
certainly beyond our reach, determining the scenario that is most
consistent with the evidence may not be and is an exercise that is
worthwhile in itself.
I do not share your suspicion of the date 936 for Unni's visit. Unni's date
is confirmed by his death the same or next year in Sweden in 936, an event
which is credible in its details and is widely accepted by historians. I am
in full agreement with your other comments about Adam's approach.
> >His grandson Gold-Harald was already an adult in command of a strong
fleet
> >when he demanded a share of the Danish kingdom from his uncle Harald
> >Bluetooth ca.970, having presumably inherited his following on the death
of
> >his father Cnut Danaast ca.958. This tends to imply that Gorm's son Cnut
> >was not likely born later than about 915 and Gorm himself not likely
later
> >than about 890, although there is some leeway to these estimates.
>
> I would regard the very existence of both Knut Danaast and Gold-Harald
> as dubious at best, and certainly as unsuitable subjects as the basis
> for chronological arguments. The earliest sources mentioning either
> of which which I am aware were 200+ years after their alleged
> existence.
It is not possible to discuss Gorm without considering late sources, since
little else of any chronological use survives. The issue here is not the
reliability of late sources, but what we get when considering the various
sources and pieces of information side by side. This integrative approach
is akin to enhancement of forensic drawings of suspects by combining
descriptions from multiple witnesses who individually may have been poor
observers.
What is it that you find so suspicious about the stories of Gold-Harald and
his very existance? The stories we have from the Danish and Norwegian
perspective are reasonably consistent with each other and I am not aware of
any medieval source that is in contradiction of his existance, although
some do not have reason to mention him.
> The most detailed story regarding Gorm in the sagas has
> his son Knut (Danaast) invading Northumbria (i.e., the kingdom of
> York) and getting killed, after which Gorm was informed (indirectly)
> of Knut's death by Thyra, after which Gorm died of grief. The story
> is demonstrably false on two important points. First, we know from
> the contemporary rune monuments that Gorm survived Thyra, contrary to
> what the saga account says. Second, the year 958 is unsuitable for
> the alleged events in England described in relation to Gorm's alleged
> son Knut. Thus, the most detailed story about Gorm that appears in
> the sagas is almost certainly fictional
It has been pointed out by several historians, including Smyth, that the
stories of two kings Cnut seem to have been confounded in the various
accounts. The problem is which chronology, an earlier or later one, should
one accept, since similar stories of the death of Cnut have been placed
(my corrected dates from stated context) in 902/3, soon before 940, or just
prior to Gorm's death ca.958/9. As with other legends, the manner of death
can readily be transferred from one individual to another. It does not mean
that individuals of the same name at these different times did not exist.
Despite your unease, can I suggest that we start by looking at the
consequences of assuming, as most of the sources do, that the son of Gorm
also existed, and reject this scenario only if we are left with no choice.
In a dark age with little non-legendary information my experience is that
it is risky to disregard even poor sources before attempting a complete
overview of the evidence, especially in a period where the
legend overwhelms the few pitiful scraps of solid information.
> Also, if you look at the saga accounts, there seem to be a
> proliferation of duplicated Gorms and Knuts. The Jomsvking saga has a
> certain Gorm as the adopted father of (Harde)-Knut, father of Gorm
> (the Old), father of Knut. The saga of Olaf Tryggvason carries the
> duplication even further, making the first Gorm the adopted father of
> Knut, father of another Gorm, adopted father of another Knut, father
> of Gorm (the Old), father of Knut. Note that (1) this Knut-Gorm
> alternation is quite artificial, and (2) the confusion provides plenty
> of opportunities for a story to get transferred from one individual to
> another of the same name. When we observe further that there was in
> fact a king Knut of York (who cannot be a son of Gorm "the Old", for
> chronological reasons, but could very well have been Gorm's father),
> it is difficult to escape the conclusion that a story about an earlier
> king Knut of York has been transferred to a (possibly nonexistent) son
> of Gorm "the Old".
Yes, we have discussed all this before and indeed I have much more to say
about this confused set of traditions and a wide range of interrelated
issues relevant to these kings. But for now I will avoid widening the
discussion ere I start to regret returning to the list.
>
> >There are also other, more indirect indications that also place Gorm's
> >birth significantly before the end of the 9th century, but since these
> >require a more extensive explanation of the context I will not go into
them
> >now.
> >
> >The only dissenting evidence is the dating of the suggested body of Gorm
> >found at the site of the church in Jelling. Both this identification and
> >the reliability of the age estimation at death of 30 to 50 are very
> >uncertain, and his isolated burial without wife or presence of other
royal
> >burials makes me suspicious, so I am not willing to accept this as being
> >Gorm yet.
>
> I agree that some have jumped the gun in assuming that the skeleton
> was Gorm's (I lean toward Andersen's suggestion that it was Harald).
> However, regarding the age estimate, note that a fairly wide range of
> error has ALREADY been allowed in giving a range of possible ages. I
> find it difficult to believe that someone as old as almost seventy (or
> older) would be estimated by experts as being 35 to 50.
>
> Stewart Baldwin
Regarding the identity of this skeleton, I reiterate: Why must it be Gorm?
Or why Harald? What evidence do we have, apart from the scrambled bones
suggesting removal, that it is even a royal burial? Why an isolated lone
burial for a king? Does a man born ca.910-925 even fit a possible
chronology for Gorm?
I look forward to further input from you and others on this list.
Peter Murray
______________________________
Peter E. Murray
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
>
> >Imagine that Guillaume of Jumičges wrote this:
> >
> >""When the bravery and piety of this great prince (William I) had become
> >known through his reputation, King Harald of Denmark arrived in Normandy
> >expelled from his kingdom by his son, Gorm, ...
>
> The problem, of course, is that he didn't write that, so it is
> completely irrelevant.
The only purpose, showing why "does not even look remotely
plausible" ought to be explained a little, was relevant.
>
> But the chronological blunder scenario is BY FAR the simplest
> explanation of the evidence at hand. Your attempts to argue against
> it by putting hypothetical circular arguments in my mouth which I
> never said simply are not valid.
>
I just tried to clarify what might be the point of dispute in the Platonic
way, I didn't think of it as actually putting words in your mouth, sorry. My
self-ironical final remark was supposed to neutralize any possible offensive
undertone.
>
> To look at your example from another perspective, suppose an author
> writing today mentioned an American President named Harry Truman as a
> contemporary of Napolean III. I claim that the natural assumption
> would be that the said author made a blunder regarding the chronology
> of Harry Truman. Do you claim differently,
NO! Most people c.2001, especially older people, would not just assume the
same thing, they would know for sure. And so would I ...
> ... and if not, why does the
> same not apply to Guillaume?
It most certainly does!
Most people in Normandy c.1070, especially older people, would not just
assume that he made a blunder, they would know for sure.
That is why I don't believe that he could have made it!
So this is MY very best argument!?
>
> I'm sorry, but I find your suggestion FAR to unbelievable to take
> seriously. If we accept the scenario given by you over the past
> several postings, then Gorm, who was also called Svend, was the son of
> Cnut, who was also called Harald, etc., ... I just don't see that as
> a reasonable possibility.
I guess that this makes it even in the game of putting words in mouths :-).
I better summarize:
"Knut was king of the Danes in the Danelaw 904-918. When he was killed, his
son Gorm was his successor for a short while. Because he was a boy people
called him Gorm Svend. Later c.930 he returned to Denmark directly from
England or from somewhere on the continental coast of the Channel. With base
in Jelling he first establish a kingdom in Northern Jutland, then he
defeated the other kings of the divided kingdom, so that he eventually could
move eastwards and settle at the old center on Selandia."
That is the scenario. I really don't see how this can justify your use of
capital letters.
You are of course entitled to your oppinion, and please don't feel obliged
to pursue this any further. It is not important to me to know the degree of
some individual unbelief, but I would still like to discuss the quality of
my arguments.
The arguments of my last posting were not very convincing, I guess, but why
not?
Kristian Nyrup
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
hit by stroke of lightening). I realize that I've missed some important
exchanges, and that it has come in somewhat askew.
Sorry...
Kristian Nyrup
RAY Montgomery
Kristian
Please be patient with Stewart!
You will find that he does not believe any thing that is not written in
stone, (and even at times rune stones :)) How ever, when he makes a
assertion it is also written in stone and can be trusted.
How ever I feel that in his separating the wheat from the chaff, He flails
every thing to shreds, leaving but the very bare minimum, but that does not
mean that we, (those enjoying this thread) can not put the flesh to the
skeleton that he leaves.
Stewart (a note to you) May I humbly suggest that in your straining of data
that your indulge in a little more scenario building which you do not do. I
think you will find it very beneficial for pursuing a case of circumstantial
evidence, some what a kin to other posts that have been show lately.
RAY
>From: "Kristian Andersen Nyrup" <k.a....@mobilixnet.dk>
>To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
>Subject: Re: Sv: Guthrum II
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
I see that you are a congenial spirit as to making scenarios as jig-saw
puzzles, that we evaluate the pieces very differently, and that the picture
resulting from your efforts do not at all look like mine.
I hope that you don't mind my interference here, your very interesting and
thorough analysis calls for a lot of comments, and especially two important
pieces of evidence I would like to discuss with you.
I have taken the liberty to cut away most of your message, maintaining only
the parts of most relevance to that discussion, and to insert my own
comments:
Peter E. Murray <murr...@attcanada.ca> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:2001060214...@attcanada.ca...
...
>
> I indeed consider it probable that Harald was king of Denmark in his
> father's lifetime. I will list the main suggestive evidence below which
> taken together is very suggestive despite the nature of the sources. I am
> not aware of any contemporary evidence that contradicts it so I will leave
> it to you to add that part in order to provide the other side of the
story.
> - The 50 year reign suggested by Adam by coincidence or design takes his
> accession back to 936 when he is said by Adam to have interceded to
protect
> christians despite his father's hostility to them....
1) Father and son?
I think that it is necessary to have the exact text at hand, so I have
borrowed this English translation of Adam of Bremen's text from
GEN-MEDIEVAL/soc.genealogy.medieval: "Gorm of Denmark and his immediate
predecessors based on the earliest authorities" by Stewart Baldwin, which
should be lesson 1 for anybody interested in this topic.
(I hope that I am not violating any copyrights here, I know that readers
will be
spared a lot of Denglish).
"Thereafter the confessor of God [Archbishop Unni] came to the Danes over
whom, as we have said, the most cruel Worm then held sway. The latter,
indeed, he could not win over on account of his inborn savagery, but he is
said by his preaching to have won the king's son, Harold. Unni made him so
faithful to Christ that, although he himself had not yet received the
sacrament of baptism, he permitted the public profession of Christianity
which his father always hated."
To me this does not sound like a believable description of a father and
his son. I see no straightforward explanation of why a father and a son
should react so differently to the visit of the archbishop. It is not even a
believable description of two kings sharing the reign of the same kingdom.
And I think that the following shows that it is not the same kingdom:
"And so, after the saint of God had ordained priests for the several
churches in the kingdom of the Danes, he is said to have commended the
multitude of believers to Harold. Seconded also by his aid and by a legate,
Unni went into ALL THE ISLANDS OF THE DANES, preaching the Word of God to
the heathen and comforting in Christ the faithful whom he found captive
there."
In the mid 930's the islands of the Danes did not - according to the
scenario I see - belong to Gorm's kingdom.
If e.g. Selandia was a part of it, when Thyra died, there probably would not
have been any Jelling Monuments at all.
If Gorm was king in Jutland, if he and the Germans were quarreling about the
border region around Hedeby, if Gorm was trying to expell (or already had
expelled) the kings in Southern Jutland (Sillendi), who had been proteges of
Henry the Fowler, if the German king was acting more or less on behalf of
the archbishop, who was trying to incorporate the Danes under his
jurisdiction (all of these premises are very much likely) then Gorms
hostility against a visiting archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen would be quite
understandable.
If Harald was king in Denmark (Scania, Halland, and the islands) with no
conflict with the Germans, then his friendlyness would be equally
understandable.
In short, I do not believe that this is Harald, son of Gorm.
2) Fifty years?
Adam probably did not know that there was a second Harald. If he read some
account about Unni's journey in the archive of his church telling that Unni
met a hostile Gorm and a friendly Harald, it was very obvious for him to
assume that the friendly Harald was Harald Blurtooth, the one king that he
already knew as a friend of the Church. And it would be a natural
consequence of the role that he assigns to Harald Bluetooth in the fairytale
that he is fabricating about the successful Hamburg-Bremenian missionary
work among the Pagan Scandinavians:
Gorm, failure, Pagan - Harald, success, Christian - Sven, failure, Pagan.
The great break-through happened in the days of Archbishop Adaldag, and
there was nothing but success during his episcopate. But since the Danish
king was Harald Bluetooth, when the break-through occured, he had to rule
just as long as Adaldag.
I think that the number 50 is secondary to this propagandistic manoeuvre of
Adam.
3) Old father?
All we know of Svend Forkbeard, his children and his carreer, indicate that
he is born c.960. I have not checked if the same goes for his siblings, but
I am pretty sure that it does. If Harald was old enough to be a co-regent in
opposition to his own father in the 930's, he must have been born not later
than c.910-915. Of course, he may have had 25 years of unknown family life
(I wouldn't blame him considering how much publicity seems to damage the
private life of royalties), and of course no laws of biology are broken, but
isn't it a bit strange that his son and successor is born that late?
4) Harald Klak?
These accounts of Adam of Bremen have survived 100 years of the most
critical critisism by the severest source criticists. It has for a long time
been considered to be the only reliable written source to the history of
Gorm and the reason for all the "c.936", the only fixpoint of Gorm's
chronology.
If the dating of the skeleton in Jelling contradicts this account, one
possible reaction is of course to dismiss it totally. But then one would
have to argue against all the good reasons for considering it to be reliable
stated so far. Removing the only really contradicting detail - the
father/son relation - which was not very likely even before the dating of
the skeleton - saves the rest.
I think that this is the simplest way of dealing with this argument (one of
Harald Andersen's) against the skeleton being Gorm's.
If there actually were two kings called Harald, both friendly to the
Christians, it would explain a whole lot of understandable confusion among
the historians: they simply mixed the two, gave the first of them a wrong
father, gave the last of them a length of reign equal to the "sum". And if
the first king Harald was expelled, went southwards, and was baptized there,
it would also explain why he was deprived of both his name and existence.
For the sake of identification, I think one should give the older Harald the
nickname Klak.
...
> - Athelstan is said to have visited Gorm in Denmark soon before his
> accession as king of Wessex. This was probably when he was threatened with
> assassination ca.924 (date from memory but I will look it up).
I would very much like to hear some more about this. If Gorm was king in
"Denmark" already in 924, it would damage my picture severely, and I would
as a minimum have to reconsider the chronology.
> Regarding the identity of this skeleton, I reiterate: Why must it be Gorm?
> Or why Harald? What evidence do we have, apart from the scrambled bones
> suggesting removal, that it is even a royal burial? Why an isolated lone
> burial for a king? Does a man born ca.910-925 even fit a possible
> chronology for Gorm?
To me Jelling is nothing but the burial place of Gorm and Thyra, and the
skeleton is Gorm's because he is the only male candidate. When Harald
decided to move his fathers body, he probably didn't have a chance to locate
his mother's grave and move her body as well. She had died 20-30 years ago,
perhaps when he was just a child, Gorm's gravechamber in the northern mound
was his own responsibility. Perhaps he let the church of Jelling be placed
on its awkward position between the runestone and the southern mound,
because that was the only way of securing consecrated ground for his mothers
body.
Adam of Bremen writes that Harald Bluetooth was brought home from Jumne to
be buried in Roskilde. I don't see why this should be questioned, Roskilde
was still the royal burial place, when Adam was in Denmark, Svend Estridsen
was buried there himself, Svend Forkbeard was brought back from England to
be buried there. Adam may have seen the grave with his own eyes. My guess
is, that Gorm would have been buried in Roskilde too, if it had not been for
Thyra and the memorials already commenced in Jelling, and Harald Bluetooth's
plans to make something even more grandious with his long dead mother in an
important role.
Once again "Jelling was a bridgehead, Roskilde was the aim" does it.
> I look forward to further input from you and others on this list.
I hope this was usable input.
Kristian Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin
wrote:
...
>The identity and dating of the skeleton indeed has the potential to be
>compelling evidence, but it is very new evidence that has still not been at
>all adequately assessed. The uncertainty as to whose body it is offsets the
>objective worth of the measurements, whereas the lack of individual
>reliability of the other sources is somewhat compensated by the mutual
>compatibility of the stories from varied sources that survive.
Unreliable sources often copy their falsehoods from one another, and
the fact that unreliable sources agree on a certain issue counts for
nothing.
>I indeed consider it probable that Harald was king of Denmark in his
>father's lifetime. I will list the main suggestive evidence below which
>taken together is very suggestive despite the nature of the sources. I am
>not aware of any contemporary evidence that contradicts it so I will leave
>it to you to add that part in order to provide the other side of the story.
Coming up with a scenario that does not directly contradict the
contemporary evidence does not make something "probable". We know
from other examples during this period that the usual procedure was
for the son to become king on the death of the father. Thus, in the
absence of good evidence to the contrary, it must be regarded as
probable that Harald did not become king until Gorm's death. This is
certainly the picture painted by the contemporary sources (i.e., the
Jelling monuments), in which Gorm is shown as king (without mention of
Harald) in the monument he erected, and Harald is shown as king after
Gorm's death.
>- The 50 year reign suggested by Adam by coincidence or design takes his
>accession back to 936 when he is said by Adam to have interceded to protect
>christians despite his father's hostility to them. More on this in
>connection with your further comment below.
Adam is hardly contemporary, and he is at his weakest when it comes to
chronology. The large round number reign, given to an admired king
whom Adam was eulogizing at the time, is suspicious in the extreme.
Also, the apparent death date of 958 for Gorm is clear evidence
AGAINST the 50 year reign.
>- When king Hakon of Norway invaded Denmark his opponent was Harald
>Bluetooth. All attempts to date this event place it inevitably somewhere in
>the interval 950-954, probably closer to 950, all of which is in Gorm's
>lifetime.
None of which comes from any reasonable contemporary source.
>- Cnut, corresponding apparently to Gorm's son, is mentioned by Lambert of
>Ardres as brother of the king of Denmark who by inference must be Harald
>Bluetooth. This would be sometime before 962 when this Cnut's friend and
>kinsman Sigfred (Sigurd) killed himself (we discussed this on this list a
>few years ago). If indeed Cnut perished soon before his father Gorm, as
>Saxo and Sven say, then it is significant that Harald was already king. I
>am taking the sources at face value that this Cnut existed, but would be
>interested in any specific evidence that he didn't.
IF this legendary story of Lambert's history of the counts of Guînes
(very late twelfth century) is to be regarded as somehow having a
historical prototype, then the Cnut mentioned by Lambert question
would almost certainly be the Cnut whom we know was minting coins at
Quentovic (only a few miles from Guînes) in the early tenth century.
Some of the coins minted by this Cnut (though not the ones minted at
Quentovic) indicate a joint reign with a certain Sigfrid. (Note that
coins are a contemporary source, although often hard to interpret.)
The relationships given by Lambert are obviously confused and
contradictory (Cnut is the nephew of Sigfrid, who is the nephew of the
king of Denmark, who is the brother of Cnut), and cannot be taken as
accurate. (Here, "nephew" translates "nepos", but the other
definitions of "nepos" also give contradictory relationships.) Thus,
the characters in Lambert appear to involve known historical
individuals (including probably two Sigfrids combined as one) who have
been badly garbled. The important point here is that the Cnut who
issued the coins cannot have been born much later than 880, and would
therefore not make a chronologically feasible son of a man who died in
958.
It should also be noted that your acceptance of the stroy regarding
Gorm's alleged elder son Knut is in serious contradiction with your
story that Harald was effective king during much of Gorm's life. The
saga story of Knut son of Gorm calls him the eldest son (and from the
context, Gorm's expected heir), who dies just before Gorm, making it
hardly likely that both this story and your scenario of a joint reign
of Harald with Gorm could be valid.
>- Bishoprics were founded in Denmark in 948, which could hardly have been
>done without royal support. This is at a time when Harald is believed to
>have been sympathetic and Gorm unsympathetic to Christianity, suggesting
>that Harald was calling the shots.
...
This is hardly the case. Allowing a bishopric may have been a
politically pragmatic move, and one need only assume that those
favoring the bishopric had sufficient influence to convince the king
to allow it, not that they were "calling the shots". (Successful
politics has always involved compromise.)
>We must not be troubled that the evidence is legendary. While the truth is
>certainly beyond our reach, determining the scenario that is most
>consistent with the evidence may not be and is an exercise that is
>worthwhile in itself.
The problem is that trying to make a scenario consistent with evidence
that is known to be faulty virtually guarantees poor results.
>I do not share your suspicion of the date 936 for Unni's visit. Unni's date
>is confirmed by his death the same or next year in Sweden in 936, an event
>which is credible in its details and is widely accepted by historians. I am
>in full agreement with your other comments about Adam's approach.
I am not arguing about Unni's date, which I think is well founded.
However, we do not know for sure that Adam's source had the events in
question placed in Unni's time. If Adam's source was vague about the
chronology, then placing the events in Unni's time could very well
have been a "deduction" by Adam, based on a faulty 50 year reign for
Harald.
...
>It is not possible to discuss Gorm without considering late sources, since
>little else of any chronological use survives. The issue here is not the
>reliability of late sources, but what we get when considering the various
>sources and pieces of information side by side. This integrative approach
>is akin to enhancement of forensic drawings of suspects by combining
>descriptions from multiple witnesses who individually may have been poor
>observers.
...
>Despite your unease, can I suggest that we start by looking at the
>consequences of assuming, as most of the sources do, that the son of Gorm
>also existed, and reject this scenario only if we are left with no choice.
>In a dark age with little non-legendary information my experience is that
>it is risky to disregard even poor sources before attempting a complete
>overview of the evidence, especially in a period where the
>legend overwhelms the few pitiful scraps of solid information.
...
Unfortunately, I consider what you suggest to be extremely poor
methodology. The idea that information from bad sources should only
be rejected if we have no other choice has resulted in a LOT of bad
history (and bad genealogy). If we have to admit that we don't know,
then so be it. I consider that much better than having "history"
polluted with a bunch of stories that, in all probability, never
happened.
>Regarding the identity of this skeleton, I reiterate: Why must it be Gorm?
>Or why Harald? What evidence do we have, apart from the scrambled bones
>suggesting removal, that it is even a royal burial? Why an isolated lone
>burial for a king? Does a man born ca.910-925 even fit a possible
>chronology for Gorm?
There is no reason why the skeleton MUST be Gorm's or Harald's, but
they are the obvious candidates.
The 35-50 age range would give a birth between 908 and 923 for Gorm,
assuming that the death date of ca. 958 for Gorm is correct
(probable), that the age estimate is correct (reasonable, given that a
range of error has already been allowed), and that the skeleton was
Gorm's (subject to significant doubt). It would be hard to come up
with a chronology for a birthdate of 923 that is consistent for Gorm,
but I see no difficulty in making a 908 birthdate consistent with both
the contemporary evidence and with Adam of Bremen (with the exception
of the 50 year reign for Harald). (Since I regard the sagas as
completely unreliable on this point, I make no attempt to agree with
them.)
The following hypothetical chronology is for illustration purposes
only, and need not be correct.
908 Birth of Gorm.
928 Birth of Harald, son of Gorm.
934 Knuba is reigning in Denmark, according to Widukind
934-6 Turbulent period when Knuba and his son Sigtrygg are defeated by
Hardeknut/Hardegon and his son Gorm, followed by a very brief reign
and the death of Hardeknut, and the accession of Gorm.
936 Unni visits Denmark not long before his death, and gets a hostile
reception from Gorm. The eight year old Harald is favorably impressed
by Unni, and tends to have friendly relations with Christians from
that point on, but does not convert at the time.
936x958 Death of Thyre, and erection of monument to her by Gorm.
958 Death of Gorm at age of fifty.
ca. 962 Conversion of Harald.
962x986 Erection of Harald's runestone at Jelling.
1 November 986 Death of Harald.
Stewart Baldwin
Todd A. Farmerie
>
> The relationships given by Lambert are obviously confused and
> contradictory (Cnut is the nephew of Sigfrid, who is the nephew of the
> king of Denmark, who is the brother of Cnut), and cannot be taken as
> accurate. (Here, "nephew" translates "nepos", but the other
> definitions of "nepos" also give contradictory relationships.)
In some cases, "nepos" is extended to "first cousin" or simply
"male kinsman" (like Richard de Redvers being nepos of William
Fitz Osbern). Were this the case, then Cnut could be first
cousin (or kinsman) of Sigfrid, who could be first cousin (or
kinsman) of the King, and Cnut and the king could still be
brothers.
taf
Peter E. Murray
for the length.
Peter
----------
> From: Stewart Baldwin <sba...@mindspring.com>
> To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
> Subject: Re: Gorm's chronology (was: Guthrum II)
> Date: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 1:11 PM
>
> On 2 Jun 2001 08:21:28 -0600, murr...@attcanada.ca (Peter E. Murray)
> wrote:
>
> ...
>
> >The identity and dating of the skeleton indeed has the potential to be
> >compelling evidence, but it is very new evidence that has still not been
at
> >all adequately assessed. The uncertainty as to whose body it is offsets
the
> >objective worth of the measurements, whereas the lack of individual
> >reliability of the other sources is somewhat compensated by the mutual
> >compatibility of the stories from varied sources that survive.
>
> Unreliable sources often copy their falsehoods from one another, and
> the fact that unreliable sources agree on a certain issue counts for
> nothing.
You are correct if there is borrowing or a common source (sometimes it can
only be a matter of judgement that there is not). It is also somewhat risky
if, as you say, we focus only on a specific issue, ie without regard to
context or compatibility with other information. My approach is to consider
a
variety of sources relevant to the issues and if then they agree, in both
fact and context, take the information seriously. Sources may not even be
focusing primarily on the same thing, so it may be, as here where some of
the evidence is indirect, that it is compatibility and not agreement of the
information across sources that matters.
Incidentally, falsehoods, even if duplicated in other sources and perhaps
especially then, will tend to lead to serious incompatibilities with other
evidence when compared with other sources, reliable or not, even if the
author is trying to reconcile the data. The more varied sources and data
you have to compare the better you can see this - an important principle
when dealing with legends and late sources that have a significant level of
error, either deliberate or unintentional.
> >I indeed consider it probable that Harald was king of Denmark in his
> >father's lifetime. I will list the main suggestive evidence below which
> >taken together is very suggestive despite the nature of the sources. I
am
> >not aware of any contemporary evidence that contradicts it so I will
leave
> >it to you to add that part in order to provide the other side of the
story.
>
> Coming up with a scenario that does not directly contradict the
> contemporary evidence does not make something "probable". We know
> from other examples during this period that the usual procedure was
> for the son to become king on the death of the father. Thus, in the
> absence of good evidence to the contrary, it must be regarded as
> probable that Harald did not become king until Gorm's death. This is
> certainly the picture painted by the contemporary sources (i.e., the
> Jelling monuments), in which Gorm is shown as king (without mention of
> Harald) in the monument he erected, and Harald is shown as king after
> Gorm's death.
There was no usual procedure for succession. There are many instances in
which a son, or even someone else, is represented as associated with his
father in a kingship in both Norway and Sweden. Returning to Gorm, one
legend
(Jomsvikinga Saga) does tell us that King Gorm and his son Harald had a
falling out when the latter was grown and that Harald subsequently had his
own
independant following based in Denmark. If so, we can reasonably guess that
it was not long before or after 936 based on Adam's date which I still
accept.
The runestone evidence, in my view implies the opposite of what you say.
Gorm, in commemmorating his wife and himself would hardly want to credit
his son Harald with the achievement of restoring Denmark during his reign
even if (as is possible) the younger man did most of the fighting. Harald
also claims on his runestone to be the one who unified Denmark and doesn't
credit Gorm with any part of this even though he mentions him. Pride and
human nature. Clearly they both had some part in the restoration of Denmark
which happened in Gorm's lifetime.
But taking all the evidence together, whatever the quality of the data, my
point is that not some but all the available evidence is consistent with an
overlap in the reigns of Gorm and Harald.
> >- The 50 year reign suggested by Adam by coincidence or design takes his
> >accession back to 936 when he is said by Adam to have interceded to
protect
> >christians despite his father's hostility to them. More on this in
> >connection with your further comment below.
>
> Adam is hardly contemporary, and he is at his weakest when it comes to
> chronology. The large round number reign, given to an admired king
> whom Adam was eulogizing at the time, is suspicious in the extreme.
> Also, the apparent death date of 958 for Gorm is clear evidence
> AGAINST the 50 year reign.
This is one instance when Adam's information and chronology is generally
regarded as reliable, unlike the information that he obtained from king
Svein but apparently mangled somewhat in the re-telling. Adam is only as
good as his own sources and his memory and understanding of what he
learned. Nor was his work or even this part of it written as an eulogy of
Harald in my opinion. The death date of Gorm is considered (and accepted)
in my argument and in no way conflicts with them.
> >- When king Hakon of Norway invaded Denmark his opponent was Harald
> >Bluetooth. All attempts to date this event place it inevitably somewhere
in
> >the interval 950-954, probably closer to 950, all of which is in Gorm's
> >lifetime.
>
> None of which comes from any reasonable contemporary source.
Right. Runestones do not record this so there are no hard historical facts,
but later Danish and Norwegian sources do record it, without indications of
obvious borrowing.
> >- Cnut, corresponding apparently to Gorm's son, is mentioned by Lambert
of
> >Ardres as brother of the king of Denmark who by inference must be Harald
> >Bluetooth. This would be sometime before 962 when this Cnut's friend and
> >kinsman Sigfred (Sigurd) killed himself (we discussed this on this list
a
> >few years ago). If indeed Cnut perished soon before his father Gorm, as
> >Saxo and Sven say, then it is significant that Harald was already king.
I
> >am taking the sources at face value that this Cnut existed, but would be
> >interested in any specific evidence that he didn't.
>
> IF this legendary story of Lambert's history of the counts of Guînes
> (very late twelfth century) is to be regarded as somehow having a
> historical prototype, then the Cnut mentioned by Lambert question
> would almost certainly be the Cnut whom we know was minting coins at
> Quentovic (only a few miles from Guînes) in the early tenth century.
It is most unlikely that Lambert's Cnut is the same as the Cnut of ca.900
(who may have d ca.903), since he was a friend and apparent contemporary of
Siegfred who was involved in love intrigues ca.960 (d.962) - I would say
biologically almost impossible. But not a bad match of dates for a Cnut who
was of the same generation as Harald Bluetooth and just may have d ca.958.
> Some of the coins minted by this Cnut (though not the ones minted at
> Quentovic) indicate a joint reign with a certain Sigfrid. (Note that
> coins are a contemporary source, although often hard to interpret.)
I would like to know more about the coins minted a Quentovic. It may be of
interest that the Huncdeus who led the last of the viking force that
invaded England in 892-6 back to the Seine has been suggested by some
authors to correspond to Cnut / Horda-Cnut who invaded Northumbria and
perished perhaps ca.903. I would also like to know more in detail about
this Huncdeus after his arrival in Francia. Do you have access to the
relevant annals?
> The relationships given by Lambert are obviously confused and
> contradictory (Cnut is the nephew of Sigfrid, who is the nephew of the
> king of Denmark, who is the brother of Cnut), and cannot be taken as
> accurate. (Here, "nephew" translates "nepos", but the other
> definitions of "nepos" also give contradictory relationships.) Thus,
The usual interpretation of "nepos" here is "kinsman", but I agree it is
often used more precisely so there is reason for caution. But there is no
ambiguity about the relationship of Cnut as brother of the king, precisely
stated and consistent with the relationship given in all saga accounts. To
suggest a different relationship, although possible given the nature of the
sources, would be in the face of ALL of the evidence.
> the characters in Lambert appear to involve known historical
> individuals (including probably two Sigfrids combined as one) who have
> been badly garbled. The important point here is that the Cnut who
> issued the coins cannot have been born much later than 880, and would
> therefore not make a chronologically feasible son of a man who died in
> 958.
>
> It should also be noted that your acceptance of the story regarding
> Gorm's alleged elder son Knut is in serious contradiction with your
> story that Harald was effective king during much of Gorm's life. The
> saga story of Knut son of Gorm calls him the eldest son (and from the
> context, Gorm's expected heir), who dies just before Gorm, making it
> hardly likely that both this story and your scenario of a joint reign
> of Harald with Gorm could be valid.
It is anachronistic to assume primogeniture among the Scandinavians at this
time. I also do not think apart from Jomsvikinga Saga that Cnut is
otherwise represented as the elder son (usually seen as Harald's junior,
but could be wrong) but anyway order of birth is low on the hierarchy of
evidence likely to be well preserved in the retelling.
> >- Bishoprics were founded in Denmark in 948, which could hardly have
been
> >done without royal support. This is at a time when Harald is believed to
> >have been sympathetic and Gorm unsympathetic to Christianity, suggesting
> >that Harald was calling the shots.
>
> ...
>
> This is hardly the case. Allowing a bishopric may have been a
> politically pragmatic move, and one need only assume that those
> favoring the bishopric had sufficient influence to convince the king
> to allow it, not that they were "calling the shots". (Successful
> politics has always involved compromise.)
I disagree. This is not the case of a token Christian presence to satisfy
diplomatic needs, but a large commitment to Christianity with multiple
bishoprics spread throughout Denmark.
> >We must not be troubled that the evidence is legendary. While the truth
is
> >certainly beyond our reach, determining the scenario that is most
> >consistent with the evidence may not be and is an exercise that is
> >worthwhile in itself.
>
> The problem is that trying to make a scenario consistent with evidence
> that is known to be faulty virtually guarantees poor results.
You will find that the worse the evidence the harder it is to make a
consistent scenario. When, as here, almost the only evidence available
other than runestones is potentially untrustworthy, it is remarkable when a
consistent scenario is possible, as it seems to be here. Of course this is
still just a construct and only provides the best available framework for
examining further ideas and data. Even in a better documented age, building
scenarios is an essential part of historical analysis, and in a dark age it
is
all we have.
>
> >I do not share your suspicion of the date 936 for Unni's visit. Unni's
date
> >is confirmed by his death the same or next year in Sweden in 936, an
event
> >which is credible in its details and is widely accepted by historians. I
am
> >in full agreement with your other comments about Adam's approach.
>
> I am not arguing about Unni's date, which I think is well founded.
> However, we do not know for sure that Adam's source had the events in
> question placed in Unni's time. If Adam's source was vague about the
> chronology, then placing the events in Unni's time could very well
> have been a "deduction" by Adam, based on a faulty 50 year reign for
> Harald.
Adam is not vague here. He tells a specific story involving Unni, Gorm and
Harald as the characters - it is difficult to drop Unni from the story, or
Harald. Furthermore, earlier chronicles than Adam I believe imply the same
timeframe for Gorm (or possibly a conciliatory Denmark following invasion
by Henry? - at least this is the picture Turville-Petre painted on
considering these sources), but I have not seen them - perhaps someone can
check these to determine this for sure and whether there is any evidence
(which I very much doubt) that Adam borrowed anything from them. This is
important anyway for the complete picture.
Easy to say. It is a matter of evidence sorting without preconceptions to
determine what evidence is likely to be more reliable across a variety of
sources, each of dubious value individually - exactly the situation we are
faced with here. Of course you are entitled to consider only the runestones
and disregard everything else. Or you can arbitrarily select which sources
you want, say on the basis of date of the source with or without regard to
the content (introducing a bias either way). Whatever method you use you
will have to be very cautious of your conclusions.
>
> >Regarding the identity of this skeleton, I reiterate: Why must it be
Gorm?
> >Or why Harald? What evidence do we have, apart from the scrambled bones
> >suggesting removal, that it is even a royal burial? Why an isolated lone
> >burial for a king? Does a man born ca.910-925 even fit a possible
> >chronology for Gorm?
>
> There is no reason why the skeleton MUST be Gorm's or Harald's, but
> they are the obvious candidates.
How about Gorm's son Cnut (if you insist on a royal burial)?.
My problem with items 1 & 2 is the spector of an 8 year old Harald having
independant talks with Unni in 936, and the unlikelihood of a Gorm born
that late who is already active ca.920, a chronological fix suggested by
the legend. One could disregard this in view of the soft nature of the
source data, except that there are no sources legendary or otherwise that
imply your later timeframe - even though I see you compromised a bit in
moving Gorm's date back as far as 908.
I appreciate your detailed responses even though, as you can see, they
haven't convinced me to change my conclusions. But I would welcome more
data.
>
>
> Stewart Baldwin
>
> ______________________________
Peter Murray
Peter E. Murray
Peter
> From: Kristian Andersen Nyrup <k.a....@mobilixnet.dk>
> To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
> Subject: Re: Gorm's chronology (was: Guthrum II)
> Date: Sunday, June 03, 2001 7:09 PM
>
> ...
>
> Peter E. Murray <murr...@attcanada.ca> skrev i en
> nyhedsmeddelelse:2001060214...@attcanada.ca...
>
> ...
> >
> > I indeed consider it probable that Harald was king of Denmark in his
> > father's lifetime. I will list the main suggestive evidence below which
> > taken together is very suggestive despite the nature of the sources. I
am
> > not aware of any contemporary evidence that contradicts it so I will
leave
> > it to you to add that part in order to provide the other side of the
> story.
> > - The 50 year reign suggested by Adam by coincidence or design takes
his
> > accession back to 936 when he is said by Adam to have interceded to
> protect
Adam plainly states that Worm (Gorm) and Harald were father and son.
Anything other proposed relationship is conjecture and at variance with the
sources. Your argument about the implausibility of father and son not
seeing eye-to-eye is pretty weak considering the large number of father-son
struggles through the ages - even in Denmark we see it happen again with
Harald Bluetooth and Svein Forkbeard, even including a disagreement over
promoting the old vs Christian religion.
> And I think that the following shows that it is not the same kingdom:
>
> "And so, after the saint of God had ordained priests for the several
> churches in the kingdom of the Danes, he is said to have commended the
> multitude of believers to Harold. Seconded also by his aid and by a
legate,
> Unni went into ALL THE ISLANDS OF THE DANES, preaching the Word of God to
> the heathen and comforting in Christ the faithful whom he found captive
> there."
>
> In the mid 930's the islands of the Danes did not - according to the
> scenario I see - belong to Gorm's kingdom.
I subscribe to the standard view that Gorm had some measure of overall
authority over all Denmark while retaining direct rule over the Islands
(and possibly the associated coastal areas such as Scania although they are
not mentioned); his son Harald would have had some direct authority in
Jutland under his father. I further suspect this could have been a
recognition that he had been instrumental in reconquering it for his father
from Gnupa’s family and others. The Jellinge site shows every sign of being
only a temporary royal centre, with much lesser importance (if any at all)
both before and significantly after the period when Gorm and his son Harald
had to co-exist. The father-son relationship indicated by Unni appears to
be one of trust and respect notwithstanding different views. Both Gorm and
Harald seem to have given archbishop Unni an audience, but only Harald was
willing to make any concessions to Christianity and then only in the
regions under his direct influence. This picture is not incompatible with
the saga account (Jomsvikinga Saga) in which Harald had a falling out with
his father Gorm, but was not totally estranged from his father who provided
him with his own fleet and a base in Denmark for independantly having his
own following and expeditions abroad. Sort of like a son being assisted by
his father in getting his own car and apartment nowadays - freedom but not
total independence. Harald’s ability to influence and set policy and his
regional authority argue strongly for his having already reached adulthood
by the time of Unni’s visit in 936, and certainly not an 8 year old as
proposed as a possibility in another post to the list. Adam’s testimony
cannot be dismissed without very good reason, and it makes a late Gorm,
born in the 10th century, a near impossibility.
> If e.g. Selandia was a part of it, when Thyra died, there probably would
not
> have been any Jelling Monuments at all.
> If Gorm was king in Jutland, if he and the Germans were quarreling about
the
> border region around Hedeby, if Gorm was trying to expell (or already had
> expelled) the kings in Southern Jutland (Sillendi), who had been proteges
of
> Henry the Fowler, if the German king was acting more or less on behalf of
> the archbishop, who was trying to incorporate the Danes under his
> jurisdiction (all of these premises are very much likely) then Gorms
> hostility against a visiting archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen would be quite
> understandable.
> If Harald was king in Denmark (Scania, Halland, and the islands) with no
> conflict with the Germans, then his friendlyness would be equally
> understandable.
As explained above, I think you have it the wrong way around, Harald’s
influence should be centred in Jutland and Gorm’s direct rule centred in
the Islands and possibly Skania. Also, Gnupa was not a “protégé” of Henry
the Fowler, but was defeated by him and forced to make peace. Gorm (with
Harald’s help?) Also was induced to make peace with Henry probably at the
same time, and may have profited from this at Gnupa’s expense since Gnupa’s
local kingdom seems to have soon succumbed to his rule. If Gnupa had been
supported by Henry I think he might have survived.
> In short, I do not believe that this is Harald, son of Gorm.
A lot of people including myself have taken a serious look at whether there
could have been a younger Harald who was not middle aged when he had his
son Svein, and therefore the possibility of a younger Gorm. The problem is
that you then have to go through hoops trying to rationalize or explain
away all the other evidence, including Adam’s. The only reason for reviving
the argument at all is the suggestion that the body from the site of the
church, uncertainly judged to be that of a middle aged man of high birth,
could possibly be that of Gorm. This amounts to wishful thinking solely on
the basis apparently that the bones were disarticulated suggesting possible
removal and a scrap of gold thread suggested royalty - a convenient
solution to the empty mound nearby. I am not aware that disarticulated
burials are so uncommon or that a king would be the only person of
substance in the gold-hungry viking age.
>
>
> 2) Fifty years?
> Adam probably did not know that there was a second Harald. If he read
some
> account about Unni's journey in the archive of his church telling that
Unni
> met a hostile Gorm and a friendly Harald, it was very obvious for him to
> assume that the friendly Harald was Harald Blurtooth, the one king that
he
> already knew as a friend of the Church. And it would be a natural
> consequence of the role that he assigns to Harald Bluetooth in the
fairytale
> that he is fabricating about the successful Hamburg-Bremenian missionary
> work among the Pagan Scandinavians:
> Gorm, failure, Pagan - Harald, success, Christian - Sven, failure, Pagan.
Adam’s doesn’t look at all fanciful to me. I presume you got the idea of
the two Haralds mainly from Saxo. Saxo has two Gorms, Gorm Enske (or
Anglus) and the one corresponding to Gorm the Old, each followed by a
Harald. We can be reasonably confident that the two Gorms are the same
because two much earlier sources, Thietmar and Widukind, use the name Gorm
Anglus (son of Cnuto) for the one we know as Gorm the Old. So it is
reasonable to guess that the two Haralds who were sons of Saxo’s two kings
Gorm also represent two memories of one king, namely Harald Bluetooth. You
suggest that the earlier Harald should be called Harald Klak. This may
actually support the one Harald scenario since according to one source the
later Harald also had the epithet Klak before it was replaced with the more
familiar Bluetooth (as mentioned in my previous post). They could therefore
be the same person. This still doesn’t rule out Harald’s maternal
grandfather also possibly being called jarl Harald Klak.
> The great break-through happened in the days of Archbishop Adaldag, and
> there was nothing but success during his episcopate. But since the Danish
> king was Harald Bluetooth, when the break-through occured, he had to rule
> just as long as Adaldag.
I presume then that you agree with me that Harald Bluetooth was probably
king even in his father’s lifetime when archbishop Adeldag created
bishoprics in Denmark in 948. This would be only 12 years into the 50 year
reign that is recorded for Harald by Adam of Bremen.
> I think that the number 50 is secondary to this propagandistic manoeuvre
of
> Adam.
>
> 3) Old father?
> All we know of Svend Forkbeard, his children and his carreer, indicate
that
> he is born c.960. I have not checked if the same goes for his siblings,
but
> I am pretty sure that it does. If Harald was old enough to be a co-regent
in
> opposition to his own father in the 930's, he must have been born not
later
> than c.910-915. Of course, he may have had 25 years of unknown family
life
> (I wouldn't blame him considering how much publicity seems to damage the
> private life of royalties), and of course no laws of biology are broken,
but
> isn't it a bit strange that his son and successor is born that late?
This is not so strange since Svend is said to have been son of a casual
relationship and only reluctantly acknowledged by his father who reportedly
cared little about him. Harald’s marriages anyway seem to have failed to
produce potential heirs, at least in terms of sons. Svend is said to have
been his only son. No wonder Harald’s nephew Gold-Harald thought he could
get away with asking his uncle to share the kingdom with him.
> 4) Harald Klak?
> These accounts of Adam of Bremen have survived 100 years of the most
> critical critisism by the severest source criticists. It has for a long
time
> been considered to be the only reliable written source to the history of
> Gorm and the reason for all the "c.936", the only fixpoint of Gorm's
> chronology.
> If the dating of the skeleton in Jelling contradicts this account, one
> possible reaction is of course to dismiss it totally. But then one would
> have to argue against all the good reasons for considering it to be
reliable
> stated so far. Removing the only really contradicting detail - the
> father/son relation - which was not very likely even before the dating
of
> the skeleton - saves the rest.
It is the dating and proposed identification of the skeleton that
contradicts everything else. The father-son relationship between Gorm and
Harald is integral to all other sources including the runestones, and so is
not the problem.
> I think that this is the simplest way of dealing with this argument (one
of
> Harald Andersen's) against the skeleton being Gorm's.
> If there actually were two kings called Harald, both friendly to the
> Christians, it would explain a whole lot of understandable confusion
among
> the historians: they simply mixed the two, gave the first of them a wrong
> father, gave the last of them a length of reign equal to the "sum". And
if
> the first king Harald was expelled, went southwards, and was baptized
there,
> it would also explain why he was deprived of both his name and existence.
> For the sake of identification, I think one should give the older Harald
the
> nickname Klak.
>
> ...
> > - Athelstan is said to have visited Gorm in Denmark soon before his
> > accession as king of Wessex. This was probably when he was threatened
with
> > assassination ca.924 (date from memory but I will look it up).
>
>
> I would very much like to hear some more about this. If Gorm was king in
> "Denmark" already in 924, it would damage my picture severely, and I
would
> as a minimum have to reconsider the chronology.
The story of Athelstan’s visit to Gorm in Denmark comes from John of
Wallingford. I too would like to learn more about this because I only have
it from secondary sources.
>
> > Regarding the identity of this skeleton, I reiterate: Why must it be
Gorm?
> > Or why Harald? What evidence do we have, apart from the scrambled bones
> > suggesting removal, that it is even a royal burial? Why an isolated
lone
> > burial for a king? Does a man born ca.910-925 even fit a possible
> > chronology for Gorm?
>
>
Another possibility, just for the sake of argument, is that Harald
Bluetooth and his brother Cnut created the mounds for themselves. Cnut was
buried there aged perhaps 40, but was subsequently removed for Christian
reburial since he had acquired Christian sympathies abroad. Their mother
Thyra could easily have visited them often, particularly if this had
formerly been the hub of her father’s jarldom in Jutland, whereas Gorm
continued to rule a kingdom based at Leire (Roskilde) occasionally visiting
Jellinge where his wife and sons had a close association. Gorm’s memorial
to Thyra was on the site of her family roots and in the region so
significantly reconquered in reunifying Denmark. Of course this represents
just one of several possibilities. I have provided it simply to show that
there are alternatives to the one that the proponents of skeleton Gorm have
been trying so hard to support.
Incidentally, none of the obvious scenarios seems to require Gorm to also
have the name Svend, a novel idea that you suggest in your earlier posts.
William of Jumiege, your source for this idea, in my opinion took Dudo’s
story of a campaign by a Danish Harald in Normandy and embellished it with
another story of a Harald who was expelled from Denmark by his son Svend
and who afterwards returned to Denmark - and placed these events too early
without recognizing that this latter story pertained to Harald Bluetooth
and Svein Forkbeard and that the place of exile should have been Wendland
not Normandy. Another possible example of this type of misplacement of
settings is the supposed invasion of England by Harald and Cnut, sons of
Gorm, in the latter years of Athelstan (ie ca.940), which seems to be
confounding these kings with the later Harald and Cnut (the Great) who
together invaded England in similar circumstances in 1016. They were both
present at the siege of London that year, in the time of Aethelred, not
Athelstan.
Harald Bluetooth and Cnut Danaast may indeed have been brothers as claimed,
like their later namesakes, but from what we know it is unlikely that they
invaded England as claimed in the saga.
Peter Murray
Kristian Andersen Nyrup
[lots of cuts]
>
> Adam plainly states that Worm (Gorm) and Harald were father and son.
> Anything other proposed relationship is conjecture and at variance with
the
> sources.
No information given by any medieval historian should evade the
questions:"What are his motives?" and "How did he know?". And if the answers
are: "He is trying to tell the historical "truth"" and "He knew it for some
good reason" then you may take it as a fact (but probably still with some
uncertainty).
The problem with Adam of Bremen is not that he didn't have good reasons to
know. He openly reveals his sources, and we see that he has access to a lot
of material: the archive, the library, and the oral tradition of his
archbishopric, plenty of annalistic works and chronicles by older
historians, etc,etc ...
The problem with Adam of Bremen is that he is not trying to tell the
objective historical "truth" in the modern sense of the word. He may be
telling what he believed was the truth, namely that Scandinavia was
christianized because of the glorious work of the archbishops of
Hamburg-Bremen. But even if he knew that it was not the truth, he could not
have written otherwise. It had to be the truth, because if it wasn't for the
Scandinavian mission, there would be no archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen at
all, and telling that Christianity spread in Scandinavia independently of
the archbishops would be like degrading them to ordinary bishops.
Anything written by Adam is manipulated to fit into that picture.
(To prove his point Adam of Bremen would have made the Lord himself a Pagan
Scandinavian, and St.John the Baptist an envoy from Hamburg-Bremen, had he
not realized the risk of being unveiled.(:-)))
If the story about Unni's mission is historical, there must be a realistic
source through which Adam could have learned about it. It is not difficult
to imagine such a source, he must have found some information about the
mission at home in the archives of the archbishopric, some sort of "Life of
Unni" not known as a whole today. It is hard to see why anyone in
Scandinavia or elsewhere should notice this short visit or passage by a
foreign bishop, which had no lasting consequences. The story can only have
survived because it was true and saved in Hamburg-Bremen.
Therefore I believe that the story should be evaluated as historical in
general, but infected by Adam's manipulations. And what Adam "plainly
states" is not necessarily the true parts. Everything that he writes must be
clear of his manipulations before any valid deductions can be made.
> Your argument about the implausibility of father and son not
> seeing eye-to-eye is pretty weak considering the large number of
father-son
> struggles through the ages - even in Denmark we see it happen again with
> Harald Bluetooth and Svein Forkbeard, even including a disagreement over
> promoting the old vs Christian religion.
>
Right, but...
The suspicious thing is in this case not that the kings disagreed over
matters of religion. In most of the many father-son struggles (of which
history indeed is very rich) there actually was a fight and a clarification
after a short while. This certainly was the case when Sven Forkbeard
rebelled against his father. The suspicious thing is that Gorm and Harald
ruled side by side for more than twenty years in despite of a serious
disagreement that in most other cases rapidly would have evolved into an
open conflict and the death or expulsion of one of the parties.
> > In the mid 930's the islands of the Danes did not - according to the
> > scenario I see - belong to Gorm's kingdom.
>
> I subscribe to the standard view that Gorm had some measure of overall
> authority over all Denmark while retaining direct rule over the Islands
> (and possibly the associated coastal areas such as Scania although they
are
> not mentioned); his son Harald would have had some direct authority in
> Jutland under his father....
In the following [cut away] your scenario contains a lot of details that I
cannot agree with, but neither can I argue against them. That is the
problem, when trying to deduce from different axioms.
In stead of commenting on all these details I think it is more fruitful to
clarify the fundamentals leading us to so different scenarios. It seems to
me that most of the differences originate from different views on the
Icelandic sagas and the archeaological findings at Jelling.
I think that the works of the Icelandic historians have to pass through the
same control as any other medieval source. And if they qualify, i.e. if the
author of some specific story "is trying to tell the historical "truth"" and
"knew it for some good reason", I don't see why the story should not be
considered to be valuable historical information. I don't buy the argument:
"too late, no good" without investigating and trying to understand why the
story was written, and wherefrom the author got his ideas.
But when I read the original story about Gorm the Old in e.g.
Jomsvikingesaga, I am spontaneously filled with unbelief. It has got all the
signs of being a folk tale based on very little true history. It has got the
triple motif, it has got dreams and prophecies, it is a piece of well
structured
entertainement from the marriage of Gorm and Thyra, over the dramatical
Kain-Abel like climax when Harald kills his brother, to the effectful final
when Thyra tells Gorm about it. It may of course contain some real history
(as for instance the plays of Shakespeare), but it is not the work of
someone trying to tell the historical truth, it is entertainment. I think
that it fails the first test.
As for the historical content, any story telling about Thyra Danebod should
be mistrusted. The petname "Danebod" obviously has developed from the not
very idiomatic "Danmark's bod", i.e. the runic inscription on Gorm's
runestone. Any story about Thyra Danebod must ultimately originate from
someone reading the back side text on Gorm's stone, and this person must
therefore have been in Jelling. Now, what impression does the Jelling
monuments give a visitor? Certainly not that this is the burial place of
some mighty king and conqueror called Gorm. Anybody present in Jelling would
automatically think these first thoughts: Wow, this Thyra must have been
something special, she has got her own mound just as big as the king's. She
is called Denmark's adornment (bod). She must have been at least the equal
of the king. And the next thoughts come just as automatical: A king so
obviously outshined by his wife would have to be a pretty miserable king.
Therefore not only Thyra's petname, but also the nicknames of Gorm
indicating that he was "Old" with a young wife,"Lazy" with a diligent wife,
or "Stupid" with a clever wife, and all the stories containing these traits,
may be considered to be nothing but popular interpretations derived from the
(false) impression made by the Jelling Monuments. When you read the oldest
Danish work containing these parts for Gorm and Thyra from c.1180, there is
hardly any room for doubt: that is what happened to Sven Aggesen.
To me it is no big deal to clean out all these stories about Gorm the Old
and Thyra Danebod from the Danish and Icelandic works. In the case of
Jomsvikingesaga you are left with a poor skeleton telling about a conflict
between Gorm and the father of his wife Thyra, Klak Harald, and a conflict
between the two sons of Gorm and Thyra, Knud Dana-ast and Harald. There you
may find some historical evidence, but that does not make the rest of
Jomsvikingesaga true.
If you take away from "Macbeth" everything that Shakespeare made up, there
would probably in the same way be a kernel of historical truth, but would
that be a source of true knowledge about Macbeth? I would answer that
question like this:
- Maybe, if you somehow could make probable that Shalespeare really tried to
make the historical parts of his play correct, and if you could make
probable that he for some reason could know the historical truth.
I think that the same holds true for e.g. Jomsvikingesaga.
I may have more comments, but I would like to know if (or rather why and how
much) we disagree on these observations before I proceed.
Is it not at least a possibility that Gorm the Old as he is presented in the
Icelandic sources may be reduced to a misinterpretation of the Jelling
Monuments?
Kristian Nyrup
Stewart Baldwin
wrote:
... [much snipped]
>You are correct if there is borrowing or a common source (sometimes it can
>only be a matter of judgement that there is not). It is also somewhat risky
>if, as you say, we focus only on a specific issue, ie without regard to
>context or compatibility with other information. My approach is to consider
>a
>variety of sources relevant to the issues and if then they agree, in both
>fact and context, take the information seriously. Sources may not even be
>focusing primarily on the same thing, so it may be, as here where some of
>the evidence is indirect, that it is compatibility and not agreement of the
>information across sources that matters.
>
>Incidentally, falsehoods, even if duplicated in other sources and perhaps
>especially then, will tend to lead to serious incompatibilities with other
>evidence when compared with other sources, reliable or not, even if the
>author is trying to reconcile the data. The more varied sources and data
>you have to compare the better you can see this - an important principle
>when dealing with legends and late sources that have a significant level of
>error, either deliberate or unintentional.
I see some extremely serious flaws with this approach. In the first
place, it is certainly false that falsehoods "... will tend to lead to
serious incompatibilities with other evidence ... ." Writers of
histories and sagas generally did not deliberately introduce known
contradictions into their works, so if they invented something (or
accidently created a falsehood by misinterpreting the evidence), it
was often consistent with what was said in other sources. Following
the approach of accepting things from bad sources simply becasue they
don't contradict known information is an approach that is virtually
guaranteed to give bad history.
...
>The runestone evidence, in my view implies the opposite of what you say.
>Gorm, in commemmorating his wife and himself would hardly want to credit
>his son Harald with the achievement of restoring Denmark during his reign
>even if (as is possible) the younger man did most of the fighting. Harald
>also claims on his runestone to be the one who unified Denmark and doesn't
>credit Gorm with any part of this even though he mentions him. Pride and
>human nature. Clearly they both had some part in the restoration of Denmark
>which happened in Gorm's lifetime.
There is not a single statement on the runestones that suggests that
Gorm and Harald ruled jointly. Your suggestion that facts were
deliberately withheld has no support whatsoever, and the stones
certainly cannot be regarded as implying the opposite of what I said.
>But taking all the evidence together, whatever the quality of the data, my
>point is that not some but all the available evidence is consistent with an
>overlap in the reigns of Gorm and Harald.
This is simply false. The story of Gorm's alleged son Knut (which you
have supported) is in very direct contradiction to this. To my
knowledge, all the sources which mention a son of Gorm named Knut not
only call him the eldest son, but make him more prominent than his
brother Harald. So for example, when the brothers alleged invade
Northumbria, it is Knut and Harald (and not "joint-king Harald" with
his brother Knut) who do it. The entire story as it appears in the
sagas are clearly in the context that Knut was the elder AND favored
son who was expected to succeed, in direct contradiction to the
joint-rule scenario you have been pressing.
...
>> Also, the apparent death date of 958 for Gorm is clear evidence
>> AGAINST the 50 year reign.
>
>This is one instance when Adam's information and chronology is generally
>regarded as reliable, unlike the information that he obtained from king
>Svein but apparently mangled somewhat in the re-telling. Adam is only as
>good as his own sources and his memory and understanding of what he
>learned. Nor was his work or even this part of it written as an eulogy of
>Harald in my opinion. The death date of Gorm is considered (and accepted)
>in my argument and in no way conflicts with them.
When you say that Adam's information "is generally regarded as
reliable" on this point, what do you mean by that? The usual
interpretation of that statement would be that most historians accept
the statement of the alleged 50 year reign as being valid. The
problem is that the recent literature I have read on this matter
expresses exactly the opposite opinion, namely that Adam's reign
length of 50 years must be rejected in light of the new discovery that
Gorm probably died circa 958. (Opinions offered in the literature
before the discovery of the 958 date are not relevant here, since the
people expressing those opinions were missing a crucial piece of
evidence.) In fact, you are the only individual I am aware of who
knows about the 958 date and accepts Adam's statement about the
alleged 50 year reign. If there are citations in the literature that
support your view on this (and took the 958 date into account), I
would be interested in seeing these citations.
...
>It is most unlikely that Lambert's Cnut is the same as the Cnut of ca.900
>(who may have d ca.903), since he was a friend and apparent contemporary of
>Siegfred who was involved in love intrigues ca.960 (d.962) - I would say
>biologically almost impossible. But not a bad match of dates for a Cnut who
>was of the same generation as Harald Bluetooth and just may have d ca.958.
You missed the point. Cnut of York (who minted coins at Quentovic
very near Guînes) is known to have been associated with a king named
Sigfrid. Count Sigfrid of Guînes was almost certainly a different man
who lived sixty years later. Lambert, who was writing more than two
hundred years later and was clearly basing his story on local gossip,
could have easily confused the two Sigfrids as being one when he wrote
his saga-like narrative and introduced Cnut into the story involving
Sigfrid. This identification of Lambert's Cnut with a KNOWN Cnut who
is verified by CONTEMPORARY evidence, AND who was associated with a
man named Sigfrid, AND who is known to have been active in that
geographical location, is by far the most probable one. On the other
hand, NONE of the stories about Gorm's alleged son Knut (whose very
existence depends on late and unreliable sources) place him anywhere
near Guînes, and Lambert is MUCH more likely to have had some sort of
vague information about a Viking who was actually active in the area
than to have had detailed information on the family relationships of
the Danish royal family of 200+ years previously.
...
>> This is hardly the case. Allowing a bishopric may have been a
>> politically pragmatic move, and one need only assume that those
>> favoring the bishopric had sufficient influence to convince the king
>> to allow it, not that they were "calling the shots". (Successful
>> politics has always involved compromise.)
>
>I disagree. This is not the case of a token Christian presence to satisfy
>diplomatic needs, but a large commitment to Christianity with multiple
>bishoprics spread throughout Denmark.
Allowing bishoprics would involve no other commitment on the part of
the king of Denmark other than accepting their presence. In such a
compromise, the resources used would presumably have been those of the
church. The close relationship between church and state would come
later.
...
>... Furthermore, earlier chronicles than Adam I believe imply the same
>timeframe for Gorm ...
To my knowledge, there are no such "earlier chronicles" which mention
Gorm. After the runestones, Adam is the earliest source to mention
Gorm by name. I am also unaware of any source earlier than Adam that
would place Harald as king in a year prior to 958.
...
>Easy to say. It is a matter of evidence sorting without preconceptions to
>determine what evidence is likely to be more reliable across a variety of
>sources, each of dubious value individually - exactly the situation we are
>faced with here. Of course you are entitled to consider only the runestones
>and disregard everything else. Or you can arbitrarily select which sources
>you want, say on the basis of date of the source with or without regard to
>the content (introducing a bias either way). Whatever method you use you
>will have to be very cautious of your conclusions.
The problem in dealing with bad sources is trying to separate the
wheat from the chaff. The problem is that there is seldom a
reasonable way to do this. Considering the large number of
conclusions in your scenario that are based on sources of very poor
quality, I would not regard your approach as being "cautious".
...
>> The following hypothetical chronology is for illustration purposes
>> only, and need not be correct.
>>
>> 908 Birth of Gorm.
>>
>> 928 Birth of Harald, son of Gorm.
>>
>> 934 Knuba is reigning in Denmark, according to Widukind
>>
>> 934-6 Turbulent period when Knuba and his son Sigtrygg are defeated by
>> Hardeknut/Hardegon and his son Gorm, followed by a very brief reign
>> and the death of Hardeknut, and the accession of Gorm.
>>
>> 936 Unni visits Denmark not long before his death, and gets a hostile
>> reception from Gorm. The eight year old Harald is favorably impressed
>> by Unni, and tends to have friendly relations with Christians from
>> that point on, but does not convert at the time.
>>
>> 936x958 Death of Thyre, and erection of monument to her by Gorm.
>>
>> 958 Death of Gorm at age of fifty.
>>
>> ca. 962 Conversion of Harald.
>>
>> 962x986 Erection of Harald's runestone at Jelling.
>>
>> 1 November 986 Death of Harald.
>
>My problem with items 1 & 2 is the spector of an 8 year old Harald having
>independant talks with Unni in 936, and the unlikelihood of a Gorm born
>that late who is already active ca.920, a chronological fix suggested by
>the legend. One could disregard this in view of the soft nature of the
>source data, except that there are no sources legendary or otherwise that
>imply your later timeframe - even though I see you compromised a bit in
>moving Gorm's date back as far as 908.
First, I did not compromise in using the date 908. I simply took the
largest age (50) in the suggested range (958-50=908), correcting your
error in calculation (which should have been 908x923 and not 910x925).
And I never said that Harald had independent talks with Unni, nor does
Adam say that. (Harald's age is not stated, and he need not have been
an adult to have been positively influenced by what Unni said, which
is all that Adam claims.) Your comment about Gorm allegedly being
active ca. 920 is based on no reasonable evidence that I know of, so
that objection is not valid. Note that I did not claim that this
chronolgy was necessarily correct, only that it was consistent with
the contemporary evidence. The fact that it does not agree completely
with certain unreliable sources is not relevant.
Stewart Baldwin
Todd A. Farmerie
>
> On 7 Jun 2001 15:20:41 -0600, murr...@attcanada.ca (Peter E. Murray)
> wrote:
>
> >It is most unlikely that Lambert's Cnut is the same as the Cnut of ca.900
> >(who may have d ca.903), since he was a friend and apparent contemporary of
> >Siegfred who was involved in love intrigues ca.960 (d.962) - I would say
> >biologically almost impossible. But not a bad match of dates for a Cnut who
> >was of the same generation as Harald Bluetooth and just may have d ca.958.
>
> You missed the point. Cnut of York (who minted coins at Quentovic
> very near Guînes) is known to have been associated with a king named
> Sigfrid. Count Sigfrid of Guînes was almost certainly a different man
> who lived sixty years later. Lambert, who was writing more than two
> hundred years later and was clearly basing his story on local gossip,
> could have easily confused the two Sigfrids as being one when he wrote
> his saga-like narrative and introduced Cnut into the story involving
> Sigfrid.
If he was using local gossip, it is not at all unlikely that the
gossip itself had blurred the two Sigfrids, not that this changes
the main point at all.
taf