CHAPTER VIII.

Review of the State and History of Denmark and Norway at the Accession of Ethelred, and of the last Stage of the Northern Piracy.

As the second year of the reign of Ethelred was distinguished by the re-appearance of those enemies whom the courage and wisdom of Alfred and his successors had subdued or driven from the Eng

Edward the Martyr. But there is a tract on the life of Dunstan, written by Bridforth, a priest, who knew him, and who calls himself, "Vilis Saxonum indigena," which exists in the Cotton MS. Cleop. b. 13., and which has been printed from another MS. of st. Vedast's monastery at Rome, in the Acta Sanctorum for May, vol. iv., p. 346. This gives the fullest account of the earliest incidents of his life that exists, but scarcely mentions his transactions as archbishop. It omits all notice of the synod at Calne, and therefore of what happened there. If this omission had not extended to Dunstan's other transactions as archbishop, it might have raised a doubt if there had been any such a meeting at all. But as the author has also not chosen to mention other important actions of Dunstan's later life, the silence on this peculiar event is no argument against it. On the contrary, it may be alleged that the transaction was omitted because its consequences had excited so much enmity or suspicion against Dunstan that one living at that period did not choose, either for his friend's sake or his own, to revive its recollection. There is also another MS. life of Dunstan addressed by Adelard to Elphegus the archbishop, who was killed in the reign of Ethelred, and this also omits the meeting at Calne, as it does most other details of Dunstan's archiepiscopal conduct. 'The above remarks apply also to this author's silence. The omission is not peculiar, and is exposed to an unfavourable inference.

But that there was a meeting at Calne of the Saxon Witan, or of the distinguished men, both nobles and clergy, of the nation, and that the floor suddenly gave way, and precipitated all but Dunstan to the earth, maiming some, and killing others, rests satisfactorily on the following historical documents :

The Saxon Chronicle, admitted to be "a faithful register of the times," thus briefly notices it :-978. "Here in this year all the oldest (noblest) Witan of the English nation fell at Calne from an upper floor: but the holy archbishop Dunstan stood alone upon a beam, and some there were very much maimed, and some did not survive." Gibs. Sax. Chr. 124. Ingr. S. C 163. The ancient Latin Chronicles of Florence, p. 361. Sim. Dun. p. 160. Hen. Hunt. 356., and Hoveden, 427., which seem to me to have been all taken from Saxon Annals; the Chron. Peterb. p. 29., Bromton, 870., and Gervase, 1647., mention these events in terms nearly similar to the passage cited from the Saxon Chronicle.

But though the historical fact of the calamity is thus certain, there is so far no direct imputation upon Dunstan for its occurrence. There is only the singularity that he escaped while others suffered, and if no more than this had appeared in our historical remains, we might be satisfied with supposing, that, both the calamity and his preservation were the undesigned and fortuitous effects of the state of the building in which the Saxon Witena-gemot was assembled. But the preceding facts are not the only circumstances which our old historians have transmitted to us upon the subject; and it is on the additions which they have supplied-all writers friendly to their respected saint-that the suspicion and the charge have ultimately been founded.

One of the most valuable and intelligent of our ancient chronographers is William of Malmsbury; and thus he details what he mentions of the incident :

"Edgar being dead, the clergy formerly expelled from the churches excited re

lish coasts, and who now succeeded in obtaining the English crown, it is expedient that we should turn our eyes upon the Baltic, and

newed battles. From this thing a prejudice, raised into clamour and passion, was directed against Dunstan; the lay nobles joining in the outcry, that the clergy had suffered unjustly. One of them, Elfere, pulled down almost all the monasteries which Ethelwold, the bishop of Winchester, had built in Mercia. The first synod was convened at Winchester, where the dominical image expressly spoke and confounded the clergy and their supporters. But the minds not being yet appeased, a council was appointed at Calne; where, the king being absent from his youth, as the senators were all sitting in the chamber, the matter was agitated with great conflict and controversy; and the darts of many reproaches were thrown on Dunstan, that most firm wall of the church; but could not shake him, persons of every order defending him with all their might. Suddenly all the floor with its fastenings and beams started out and fell down. All were thrown to the earth. Dunstan alone, standing upon a beam that remained, entirely escaped; the rest were either killed or detained in the fetter of perpetuai languor. This miracle gave peace to the archbishop." De Gest. Reg. I. ii. p. 61. Matthew of Westminter's statement of the calamity is to the same purport, and nearly in the same words, p. 377., and so is Rudborne's, 1 Angl. Sax. p. 225.

These authorities attach to the event the suspicious circumstances, that it happened in the midst of a violent discussion in the Anglo-Saxon parliament, in which Dunstan's future power and safety were at stake that it followed a preceding parliamentary dispute which had been dogmatically and not willingly decided in his favour, by what must have been either miracle or fraudulent contrivance; and that by the afflicting catastrophe, all future opposition to his measures was silenced. "This miracle gave peace to the archbishop." The historical authorities referred to do not pretend that it was an accident; they declare that it was supernatural.

The evidence thus far will create in many minds an irresistible suspicion against him. But, however justly this may seem to be entertained, we must still recollect that the impeaching deductions of histor; are not actual evidence, and do not of themselves justify a positive charge of decided guilt. This charge arises from the account of two other authors, who are not the enemies, but the admirers and biographers of Dunstan, and who detail these facts as articles of their warm panegyric.

There are two lives of this singular man, as ancient as any of the preceding chronicles, and written by persons who in their own days were respectable. These were Osberne, the friend and counsellor of the Archbishop Lanfranc, a great admirer of Dunstan; and Eadmer, a disciple of Anselm, the successor of Lanfranc. Osberne lived about a century after Dunstan, and Eadmer a little later; they detail the following account:

OSBERNE, after mentioning the deciding effect of the speaking crucifix, states that his opponents" taking Beornhelm, a Scottish bishop, as a defender of their iniquity, a man almost unconquerable, both in his ingenuity, and in his loquacity, pressed on Dunstan in the town called Calne, and proposed their scandal with a swelling spirit. Dunstan, broken by age and ecclesiastical labours, had laid aside all things but prayer. Yet, lest the wicked party, defeated before by a divine miracle, should now boast of obtaining a victory, he darted this answer upon his enemies :- Since you did not in such a lapse of time bring forward your accusation, but now that I am old and cultivating taciturnity, seek to disturb me by these antiquated complaints, I confess that I am unwilling that you should conquer me. I commit the cause of his church to Christ as the judge.' He spoke, and the wrath of the angry Deity corroborated what he said; for the house was immediately shaken; the chamber was loosened under their feet; his enemies were precipitated to the ground, and oppressed by the weight of the crushing timbers. But, where the saint was reclining with his friends, there no ruin occurred.” Osb. Angl. Sax. vol. ii. p. 112.

EADMER.—His editor, Wharton, remarks that he had never seen Osberne's work;

inquire what nations and what sovereigns possessed at this time the means of such formidable aggressions.

but like him had drawn his facts from some more ancient author. Eadmer, therefore, stands before us not as a copyist of Osberne, but as an independent narrator of what he has recorded. After mentioning Beornhelm's opposition, Eadmer thus states Dunstan's final reply, and its consequences :

"This calumnia which you are agitating has been already settled by the Divine voice; nor do we think it should be again recalled into a new conflict. I, indeed, am aged; and I desire to pass the remainder of my life, which, I am aware, cannot be long, in peace, if it be possible. I have laboured as long as I have been able. Now, unfitted for all toil, I commit to the Lord God the cause of his church, to be defended against the insurgent enemies.' He spoke, and, lo, the floor under the feet of those who had come together against him fell from beneath them, and all were alike precipitated; but where Dunstan stood with his friends no ruin of the house, no accident happened." Vit. Dunst. Anglia Sax. vol. ii. p. 220. Capgrave gives the words that are so remarkable in Osberne, with this slight change, "I confess that I am unwilling to be conquered." Leg. Nov. fol. 94. It is this speech of Dunstan, which implies that he expected some extraordinary event to follow it, that would benefit his side of the question, and it is also the alleged preservation of his supporters, as well as of himself, without which it would not have served him, which prevent us from ascribing the calamity to any accident, and which attach to Dunstan the charge of a foreknowledge of what was to ensue. Such a foreknowledge must have been either a miracle or a premeditated villany.` That the parts of the floor on which his opponents were placed should only fall, while the station of himself and his upholders remained safe, would justify any one for believing that the destruction was not a natural casualty. But the speech fixes on Dunstan a personal foresight, which warrants un historian for connecting him with the planning and with the perpetration of the crime. The above evidence is all that now remains on this subject; and every reader must determine from it for himself, whether it is most probable that this catastrophe was the result of accident, miracle, or crime. That the chroniciers do not detail this speech like the two biographers is not extraordinary, because they omit all the other speeches which were made on this angry discussion. But Osberne and Eadmer, who have transmitted to us this speech, record it as the accounting cause of what followed, and as indicating the event to have been the Divine answer to his appeal. They insert it for no hostile purpose, nor obtrusively, but as a regular part of the real transaction. There is a particularity in their both mentioning a Scottish prelate as the eloquent adversary whom the saint thus endeavoured to refute, which Norman or Saxon monks were not likely to have invented. My own inference is, that there is no more reason to doubt the authenticity of this speech than of any other of Dunstan's extraordinary actions.

I have looked into the two most ancient lives of him, those of Athelard and Bridferth, to see if either Osberne or Eadmer have been peculiarly credulous, or more inclined to the marvellous than their predecessors on Dunstan's biography. But I find in ATHELARD an account that Dunstan, one night when he was overcome with sleep at his vigils, was rapt up, as it were, into heaven, and heard the saints hymning the Trinity, and singing "Kyrie eleison," or Lord have mercy upon us!" He also narrates, that as the prelate was one day sitting with his attendants engaged in some manual work, his harp that was hanging on the wall began playing of itself, and, though untouched, performed the whole antiphon of " Gaudent in calis" to the very end. BRIDFERTH, who declares that he was personally acquainted with Dunstan, outdoes even these fancies; for he mentions, that as the saint was one night in his cloisters, Satan came to him in the shaggy form of a horrid bear; being driven away, he returned in the figure of a dog; again expelled, he came back as a viper; and being forced out, he burst in once more as a furious wolf. This tale is soon followed by another, that as Dunstan once fell asleep from fatigue before the altar of St. George, the devil came to him like a rugged bear, and, placing

DENMARK.

The state of

Denmark.

The history of Denmark, from the death of Ragnar Lodbrog to the accession of Harald Blaatand, or Blue Tooth, is confused and inaccurate (1). Harald was the son of Gormo the Aged, and Thyra the Saviour of Denmark. He acceded in 936, on his father's demise. He suffered from a calamitous invasion of Jutland by the emperor Otho (2), who married Athelstan's sister.

City of Jomsburg.

He built the famous city of Jomsburg (3) near the great Pomeranian lake, made by three rivers, in their conflux to the sea. This city became very distinguished for the courage of its inhabitants, their depredations and opulence (4). It was perhaps the only instance in the world of a government of pi

his paws on each shoulder, opened his jaws to devour him; when he fortunately awoke, shook him off, struck at him with his staff, and, by chanting the 68th Psalm, drove him away. After this, a great stone was hurled at him, which carried away with it his cap; and this he ascribed to the evil being.

He seems to have been distinguished for his intercourse with devils, and for his power of discerning them; for as he was travelling with a nobleman to a royal banquet, he suddenly perceived his enemy running playfully about among the royal trumpeters; he bade the dux, who saw nothing, make the sign of the cross on his eyes, who then beheld a devil leaping about in the shape of a little black man. It was from seeing him again wandering about among the servants of the household, that he declared the king would die in three days; and he beheld him a third time carrying great rolls of writing in his hands, at the very moment when his sovereign Edmund was passing from mass to the banquet in which he was stabbed. These tales must have been invented for him, or told by himself; if the latter, we must suppose either that he had a diseased imagination, or that he wilfully fabricated them.

From these narratives of Bridferth and of Athelard, the contemporaries of Dunstan, we have a right to say, that there is no anile credulity nor peculiar love of the marvellous in Osberne in what he relates, more than in any other of the Catholic hagiographers. All these report analogous improbabilities in greater or less number. Even the popes have distinguished themselves in this line of narration; for no miracles exceed those recorded by Gregory the Great, in his Dialogues, and by Calixtus II. in his Miracles of St. James. All the Catholic clergy not only accredit the miracles of their saints, but even build an argument for the superiority of their church upon their occurrence. The late Dr. Milner's works display fully as much of that quality, which has been called anile credulity in Osberne, as those of this now depreciated biographer. With every desire to be as impartial as I can be, I see, therefore, no sufficient reason for discrediting this portion of their friendly biography.

(1) The confusion of this part of Danish history was observed and complained of by Adam of Bremen. "Tanti autein reges, immo tyranni Danorum, utrum simul aliqui regnaverunt, an alter post alterum brevi tempore vixit incertum est." c. xliv. p. 17. Many chronicles and histories have appeared since Adam's time, but they have only made the confusion of the period more visible to all who collate their accounts.

(2) To protect Denmark from the Germans, he completed the celebrated trench and wall called Dannewirke. See Snorre's description of it, vol. i. p. 217.; and see Stephanius, 199-201.

(3) Saxo, 182.

(4) See Bartholin, 446.

rates (1). Its first legislator, Palnatoko, enacted it as one of his laws, that no man should live at Jomsburg who breathed a word of fear, or who showed the least apprehension in the most critical danger (2). Their depredations were conducted on a principle of equality; for all the plunder, whether small or great, was brought to the spear and divided (3). The modern Wollin, which has succeeded the ancient city, is not one-thirtieth part of its size. Ploughs now cut the soil on which splendid buildings stood. It became the emporium of the north. It was the last state of the north which admitted Christianity. All nations but Christians, who were interdicted on pain of death, were allowed to inhabit it, and each people had a separate street. They were idolaters, and for the most part polygamists (4). Their riches at last introduced factions, disorders, and civil fury, till Waldemar took and destroyed it in 1170 (5).

Harald Blaatand had a successful war with Haco of Norway, but towards the close of his life, the discontent of his subjects (6) enabled his son Svein to commence an unnatural warfare against him (7). Svein required of his father a share of his dominions (8). This demand.being refused, he pretended to be collecting a fleet against the pirates, and with this surprised Harald. The old king fled to Normandy with sixty ships, and the son of Rolla entertained him hospitably, until he prepared a fleet capable of regaining his kingdom (9). A reconciliation for a while suspended the immoral war (10), and Harald gratefully returned to Richard of Normandy the aid which he had received from his father (11). The conflict was soon renewed between Harald and Svein, whose tutor, Palna

(1) Inter omnes vero Vikingos quos historiæ nostræ celebrant famosissimi erant Jomsvikingr dicti qui Julini olim Jomsburg sedem fixam et rempublicam certis ac firmis legibus constitutam habebant. Wormius, Mon. Dan. 270.

(2) Jomsvikingr Saga, c. xiv., cited by Bartholin, p. 3. This Saga gives a curious account of the answers of eight men of Jomsburg who were captives, on their being brought out to be slaughtered: Bartholin, 41-51. If they can be credited, they evince a horrible fearlessness. They were taken prisoners in a great invasion of Norway by their countrymen. Snorre narrates the aggression, p. 231-240., and gives extracts from the Scallds who mention it.

(3) Bartholin gives extracts from the Hirdskra and the Jomsvikingr Saga, on this subject, p. 16.

(4) See the descriptions of Munster and Chrytæus, cited by Stephanius, 197, 198. Chrytæus was so interested by it, as to make a particular survey of its site and remains.

(5) The ancient Sveno Aggo thus mentions its fate : "Whose walls I Sveno beheld levelled to the ground by the Archbishop Absalom," c. iv. p. 51.

(6) Sveno Aggo, p. 51. Saxo, p. 185.

(7) Adam Brem. 25.

(8) Snorre, vol. i. p. 229.

(9) Will. Gemmet. lib. iii. c. 9. p. 237. Pontanus dates Harald's arrival in Normandy in 943. Hist. Dan. lib. v. p. 135.

(10) Will. Gemmet. lib. iv. c. 9. p. 243. Sveno mentions the agreement, though, in his additions to it, I think he confuses several distinct incidents.

(11) Dudo, lib. iii. p. 122. Gemmet. p. 246.