Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland

Downham Clare

Description

Vikings plagued the coasts of Ireland and Britain in the 790s. By the mid-ninth century vikings had established a number of settlements in Ireland and Britain and had become heavily involved with local politics. A particularly successful viking leader named Ivarr campaigned on both sides of the Irish Sea in the 860s. His descendants dominated the major seaports of Ireland and challenged the power of kings in Britain during the later ninth and tenth centuries. This book provides a political analysis of the deeds of Ivarrs family from their first appearance in Insular records down to the year 1014. Such an account is necessary in light of the flurry of new work that has been done in other areas of Viking Studies. In line with these developments Clare Downham provides a reconsideration of events based on contemporary written accounts.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Reino Unido
• Ireland
• United Kingdom
• British Isles
• Stephen Ireland
• Great Britain
• History
• 1500
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Dunedin Academic Press
• Date de parution: 03 octobre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781906716752
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

V IKING K INGS OF B RITAIN AND I RELAND
V IKING K INGS OF B RITAIN AND I RELAND
The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014
Clare Downham
Lecturer in Celtic
School of Language and Literature
University of Aberdeen
For two women of great character
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Prefatory note: Ethnicity and Viking-Age Politics
1 Ívarr and his Dynasty
2 Ireland
3 England: from the Conquest of York to the Battle of Brunanburh , 866-937
4 England: from the Battle of Brunanburh to the Danish Conquest, 937-1013
5 North Britain
6 The Kingdom of the Isles
7 Wales
8 Conclusion
Appendix: Prosopography of Viking-leaders named in Irish Chronicles to A.D. 1014
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations Figure 1 : Ireland c . A.D. 1000 Figure 2 : England c . A.D. 1000 Figure 3 : Direct References to Male Descendants of Ívarr in Irish Chronicles Figure 4 : Ninth-century Chronicle-References to Viking-Camps in Ireland Figure 5 : The Family of Ívarr Figure 6 : The Grandsons of Ívarr and Royal Succession at Dublin to 1014 Figure 7 : Dublin in the Tenth Century Figure 8 : Tenth-century Chronicle References to Viking-Camps in Ireland Figure 9 : The Royal Dynasty of Limerick Figure 10 : The Royal Dynasty of Waterford Figure 11 : England during the Reign of Edward the Elder, 899-924 Figure 12 : The Royal Dynasty of Man and the Isles, 940-1014 Figure 13 : Vikings in Wales Figure 14 : Descendants of Rhodri Mawr
Credits
Figure 1 : C. Downham, ‘Ireland c . 1000’, Atlas of Medieval Europe , edited by David Ditchburn et al ., second edition (Abingdon, 2007), p. 37, reproduced with kind permission from Routledge publishers.
Figure 2 : C. Downham, ‘England c . 1000’, Atlas of Medieval Europe , edited by David Ditchburn et al ., second edition (Abingdon, 2007), p. 35, reproduced with kind permission from Routledge publishers.
Figure 11 : Image prepared by Reginald Piggott and devised by S.D. Keynes; reproduced with kind permission from Professor S.D. Keynes, Trinity College, Cambridge.
Figure 13 : Image prepared by Don Williams of Bute Cartographics after a hand-drawn map by Clare Downham.
Abbreviations AB The Annals of Boyle; or, The Annals in MS. Cotton Titus A xxv AClon The Annals of Clonmacnoise AFM The Annals of the Four Masters; or, Annála Ríoghachta Éireann AI The Annals of Inisfallen ALC The Annals of Loch Cé ALL The Annals from the Book of Leinster; or, Do Fhlaithesaib Hérend iar Creitim ARC The Annals of Roscrea ASC The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle AT The Annals of Tigernach AU The Annals of Ulster ByS Brenhinedd y Saesson ByT Brut y Tywysogyon CS Chronicum Scotorum FAI The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland
Acknowledgements
This book is largely the product of my doctoral research. No person deserves greater thanks for their input into this project than David Dumville. It was his idea that I research this topic and he read sections of text as they emerged, providing many valuable corrections, comments, criticisms, and insights. Latterly I have been grateful for his support as my closest friend, and in the Easter vacation when the final chapter of this book was written, he assisted by looking after our baby daughter Jennifer so that I could spend uninterrupted hours typing on the computer.
The funding-bodies and institutions which made this work possible are the University of Cambridge, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. I am particularly grateful to Fergus Kelly, Director of the School of Celtic Studies, who oversaw the completion of my doctoral dissertation. I benefited greatly from the opportunity to study at both Dublin and Cambridge, and also the University of St Andrews where my interest in mediaeval history was cultivated as an undergraduate.
Others who provided valued assistance include my mother, Liz Ridout, who generously typed large numbers of translated chronicle-entries into the database which was developed alongside my doctoral dissertation. Lesley Abrams, Julia Barrow, Kristin Bornholdt-Collins, Nick Evans, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Ralph O’Connor, Donnchadh Ó Corráin and Oliver Padel have all helped by reading and commenting on work included in this book. There are also many others who have contributed in an indirect way. It is hard to list them all upfront, but credits to them may be found scattered in footnotes throughout the book. I should also like to thank my colleagues in Dublin and my colleagues and students in Aberdeen for generating pleasant work environments which have been conducive to research.
In practical matters I am extremely grateful to Nancy McGuire who set the pages and to Dunedin Academic Press who have worked with amazing speed to get the book published, and who have been very accommodating and pleasant to work with.
This work is dedicated to Granny (Elizabeth Christina Cook, née MacDougall) and Nan (Freda Annie Downham, née Inman). I feel such great love for these two women who provide, in their different ways, examples of everything I should aspire to be. I am unable to express my gratitude in more words; despite numerous attempts at this sentence, my mind gets overwhelmed with memories and emotions. In your quiet way of understanding so many things, may it just suffice to say thank you for all the good things you represent for me and I do not require that you read this book .
Prefatory Note: Ethnicity and Viking Age Politics
I need to clarify my use of the term ‘viking’. The name has acquired many shades of meaning and been used in a variety of ways in both scholarly and popular literature. 1 It is widely known that the word is derived from Old Norse víkingr which is usually translated as ‘sea-rover’ or ‘pirate’. 2 However, it is clear that not every pirate from the past can be called a ‘viking’. In this book the word is used to describe people of Scandinavian culture who were active outside Scandinavia. I have used the term with reference to Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Hiberno-Scandinavians, Anglo-Scandinavians or the inhabitants of any Scandinavian colony who affiliated themselves more strongly with the culture of the coloniser than with that of the indigenous population. Such an umbrella-term seems necessary to avoid the semantic difficulties posed by ethnic labels. For example, when did the families of Scandinavian settlers become English, and how Scandinavianised were the English? There are problems of being over-specific with ethnic terminology as identities are subjectively, not just objectively, created or assigned. 3 The historian risks using ethnic categories which may not have been universally recognised or rigidly applied, and who belonged to a particular group may have been a matter of debate in the past, and not just now.
The partial nature of ethnic designations is exemplified in the primary sources. In Ireland the inhabitants of viking-settlements were called ‘Foreigners’ ( Gaill , echtrainn , allmuire ), until they were displaced by a different group of foreigners in 1171. 4 Nevertheless, from the tenth century, when inhabitants of the viking-settlements in Ireland went abroad, they were sometimes identified with the land of their abode. 5 John Hines has concluded in a recent study that ‘It is indeed quite clear that the adjective írskr (‘Irish’) itself could apply in the Old-Norse sources to Scandinavians from Ireland as well as to the native Irish’. 6
There has been controversy over the Irish terms Finngaill and Dubgaill , Gall-goídel and Lochlannaig , which were used in the Viking Age to distinguish rival groups of vikings. Some discussion of these terms is found within the body of this book. 7 However, it seems necessary to deal with Finngaill and Dubgaill at the outset. The interpretation of these terms is quite fundamental to the interpretation of the history of vikings in Ireland. These terms literally mean ‘Fair Foreigners’ and ‘Dark Foreigners’ respectively. The colour terms are found in Irish and Welsh chronicle-entries from the ninth and tenth centuries. 8 Historians have long speculated whether these distinctions referred to physical features (in particular hair-colour), weaponry, or dress-colour. 9 However, the prevalence of distinctions of this sort between two viking-armies seems unconvincing.
Alfred Smyth has drawn attention to the fact that ‘dark’ was used in Irish genealogical literature to denote newer or later groups or individuals in contrast to ‘fair’ or earlier ones. 10 This link is made explicit in ‘The Annals of Clonmacnoise’, a seventeenth-century translation, which describes ‘new and old Danes’. 11 Smyth’s argument has provided the starting point for David Dumville’s analysis of the meaning of ‘Dark Foreigners’ and ‘Fair Foreigners’. Dumville has questioned the primary assumption made by most historians, that they represent separate cultural groups. He has noted that Smyth’s argument shows that the colour-terms were not ethnic identifiers and has argued that the received racial interpretation is over-simplistic, anachronistic, and generally misleading. 12
The earliest ethnic definitions of ‘Dark Foreigner’ as Dane and ‘Fair Foreigner’ as Norwegian emerge after the terms fell out of use. 13 They appear in the eleventh-century ‘Osraige Chronicle’, elements of which are embedded within ‘The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland’. 14 It can be argued that, when this text was composed, political changes in Scandinavia made people in Ireland aware of a distinction between Norwegians and Danes. 15 Thus a new interpretation was imposed on the earlier terms ‘Fair Foreigner’ and ‘Dark Foreigner’ which were found in the Irish chronicles mined for the Osraige Chronicler’s account of ninth-century viking-affairs. 16
Dumville has suggested, as an alternative to the conventional interpretations, that Dubgaill and Finngaill identified viking-groups under different leadership. The ‘Fair Foreigners’ or ‘old vikings’ were labelle