Dragon Lords

by Eleanor Parker

  28 The best accounts of Cnut’s reign are Lawson, Cnut, and Bolton, The Empire of Cnut the Great.

  29 On Cnut’s use of the English language see Treharne, Living Through Conquest, pp. 16–43; M. K. Lawson, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the homiletic element in the laws of Æthelred II and Cnut’, in Alexander Rumble (ed.), The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway (London, 1994), pp. 141–64.

  30 Jan Gerchow, ‘Prayers for King Cnut: the liturgical commemoration of a conqueror’, in Carola Hicks (ed.), England in the Eleventh Century (Stamford, 1992), pp. 219–38; T. A. Heslop, ‘The production of de luxe manuscripts and the patronage of King Cnut and Queen Emma’, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990), pp. 151–95; Lawson, Cnut, pp. 111–47; Bolton, The Empire of Cnut, pp. 77–106; Nicole Marafioti, The King’s Body: Burial and Succession in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto, 2014), pp. 192–229; Ridyard, Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 150–4, 194–6, 224–6.

  31 See Roberta Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, in Rumble (ed.), The Reign of Cnut, pp. 106–24; Judith Jesch, ‘Knútr in poetry and history’, in Michael Dallapiazza et al. (eds), International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Trieste, 2000), pp. 243–56; Jesch, ‘Skaldic verse in Scandinavian England’, pp. 313–25; R. G. Poole, Viking Poems on War and Peace: A Study in Skaldic Narrative (Toronto, 1991), pp. 86–90; Matthew Townend, ‘Contextualizing the Knútsdrápur: skaldic praise-poetry at the court of Cnut’, Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2001), pp. 145–79.

  32 Townend, ‘Contextualizing the Knútsdrápur’, pp. 175–6.

  33 Dietrich Hofmann, Nordisch-englische Lehnbeziehungen der Wikingerzeit (Copenhagen, 1955), pp. 75–9, 88–93; Russell Poole, ‘Skaldic verse and Anglo-Saxon history: some aspects of the period 1009–1016’, Speculum 62 (1987), pp. 265–98; Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, pp. 108–9.

  34 Judith Jesch, ‘Scandinavians and “cultural paganism” in late Anglo-Saxon England’, in Paul Cavill (ed.), The Christian Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 55–67; Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, pp. 115–24.

  35 Óttarr svarti, Knútsdrápa, ed. and trans. Matthew Townend, in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c.1035 (Turnhout, 2012), Part 2, pp. 767–83; see Poole, ‘Skaldic verse and Anglo-Saxon history’, pp. 265–98.

  36 Óttarr svarti, Knútsdrápa, in Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, Part 2, p. 771.

  37 Poole, Viking Poems on War and Peace, pp. 99–107; Bolton, Cnut the Great, pp. 76–8.

  38 Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, pp. 110–13.

  39 Sigvatr Þórðarson, Knútsdrápa, ed. and trans. Matthew Townend, in Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, Part 2, pp. 649–63 (651); see Roberta Frank, ‘Viking atrocity and skaldic verse: the rite of the bloodeagle’, English Historical Review 99 (1984), pp. 332–43.

  40 On Ælla and his later reputation, see Neil McGuigan, ‘Ælla and the descendants of Ivar: politics and legend in the Viking Age’, Northern History 52 (2015), pp. 20–34. The name Ælla appears in later skaldic verse as the defining element in a kenning for England or the English (Matthew Townend, ‘Ella: an Old English name in Old Norse poetry’, Nomina 20 (1997), pp. 23–35).

  41 Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, p. 111.

  42 Roberta Frank, ‘Skaldic verse and the date of Beowulf’, in Colin Chase (ed.), The Dating of Beowulf (Toronto, 1981), pp. 123–39 (126–9); see also Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, pp. 111–12.

  43 Ted Johnson South (ed.), Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 48–51. This text dates to the tenth or eleventh century; for discussion of its date see pp. 25–36.

  44 In Óttarr’s Knútsdrápa, Edmund Ironside is referred to as the ‘descendant of Edmund’, which might refer to either St Edmund or Edmund, brother of Æthelstan, king of England between 939 and 946 – or indeed both [Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, Part 2, pp. 775–6].

  45 Alistair Campbell (ed.), Encomium Emmae Reginae, reprinted with an introduction by Simon Keynes (Cambridge, 1998). On the context of the Encomium, see Eric John, ‘The Encomium Emmae Reginae: a riddle and a solution’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 63 (1980), pp. 58–94; Andy Orchard, ‘Literary background to the Encomium Emmae Reginae’, Journal of Medieval Latin 11 (2001), pp. 157–84.

  46 On Emma’s life see Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 2001).

  47 Elizabeth M. Tyler, ‘Talking about history in eleventh-century England: the Encomium Emmae Reginae and the court of Harthacnut’, Early Medieval Europe 13 (2005), pp. 359–83, and Eleanor Parker, ‘So very memorable a matter: Anglo-Danish history and the Encomium Emmae Reginae’, in Ian Giles et al. (eds), Beyond Borealism: New Perspectives on the North (London, 2016), pp. 41–53.

  48 See Elizabeth M. Tyler, ‘Fictions of family: The Encomium Emmae Reginae and Virgil’s Aeneid’, Viator 36 (2005), pp. 149–79.

  49 Campbell (ed.), Encomium, pp. 9–11.

  50 ‘Cui dum multa de regni gubernaculo multaque hortaretur de Christianitatis studio, Deo gratias illi uirorum dignissimo sceptrum commisit regale’ (ibid., pp. 14–15).

  51 See Peter Sawyer, ‘Swein Forkbeard and the historians’, in Ian Wood and G. A. Loud (eds), Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to John Taylor (London, 1991), pp. 26–40.

  52 Campbell (ed.), Encomium, pp. 24–5.

  53 ‘þe hi ræfen heton’ [Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS. C (Cambridge, 2001), p. 62].

  54 See David Dumville and Michael Lapidge (eds), Annals of St Neots (Cambridge, 1985), p. 78. For a description of the relevant sources, see N. Lukman, ‘The raven banner and the changing ravens: a Viking miracle from Carolingian court poetry to saga and Arthurian romance’, Classica et Medievalia 19 (1958), pp. 133–51.

  55 Matthew Townend, ‘Cnut’s poets: an Old Norse literary community in eleventh-century England’, in E. M. Tyler (ed.), Conceptualising Multilingualism in Medieval England, 800–1250 (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 197–215 (208–11).

  56 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, trans. Swanton, p. 152.

  57 Óttarr svarti, Knútsdrápa, in Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, Part 2, p. 779.

  58 Frank Barlow, The Godwins: The Rise and Fall of a Noble Dynasty (London, 2003); Emma Mason, The House of Godwine: The History of a Dynasty (London, 2004).

  59 Matthew Townend, ‘Knútr and the cult of St Óláfr: poetry and patronage in eleventh-century Norway and England’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 1 (2005), pp. 251–79.

  60 Dominic Tweddle et al. (eds), Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Volume IV: South-East England (Oxford, 1995), pp. 314–22; for other evidence for a Scandinavian presence in Winchester see Barbara Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995), pp. 143–5; Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle and R. I. Page, ‘A Scandinavian rune-stone from Winchester’, The Antiquaries Journal 55/2 (1975), pp. 389–94; Martin Biddle, ‘Excavations at Winchester 1965: fourth interim report’, The Antiquaries Journal 46/2 (1966), pp. 308–32; Signe Horn Fuglesang, Some Aspects of the Ringerike Style: A Phase of 11th-Century Scandinavian Art (Odense, 1980), pp. 47–69.

  61 Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Danish royal burials in Winchester: Cnut and his family’, in Ryan Lavelle and Simon Roffey (eds), Danes in Wessex: The Scandinavian Impact on Southern England, c.800–c.1100 (Oxford, 2016), pp. 212–49.

  62 Lene Demidoff, ‘The death of Sven Forkbeard – in reality and later tradition’, Medieval Scandinavia 11 (1978–9), pp. 30–47.

  63 Herman the Archdeacon and Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, ed. Tom Licence and Lynda Lockyer (Oxford, 2014). This part of the text may have been written at an earlier stage, perhaps in the 1070s; on the d
ate, see pp. liv–lix. On Herman and the abbey of Bury St Edmunds in this period, see Tom Licence, ‘History and hagiography in the late eleventh century: the life and work of Herman the Archdeacon, monk of Bury St Edmunds’, English Historical Review 124/508 (2009), pp. 516–44; Licence (ed.), Bury St Edmunds and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 2014).

  64 John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. R. R. Darlington, P. McGurk and J. Bray (Oxford, 1995), vol. 2, pp. 476–7.

  65 Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, pp. lxxviii–lxxix.

  66 ‘ubique ponit tributum, quod infortunium hodieque luit Anglia multum, felix, diues, ac dulcis nimium, si non forent tributa suorum regum’ (ibid., pp. 14–15).

  67 E. O. Blake (ed.), Liber Eliensis (London, 1962), pp. 212–13.

  68 Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 37.

  69 Ibid., pp. 56–9.

  70 See Licence’s comments in Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, pp. xxxvii–xxxviii.

  71 Lawson, Cnut, pp. 132–3; Marafioti, The King’s Body, pp. 206–12.

  72 ‘nequaquam lupum sicut putatur tam magnum fore’ (Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, pp. 40–1).

  73 Ibid., p. 42.

  74 The name corresponds to ON Ásbjörn; see John Frankis, ‘Sidelights on post-Conquest Canterbury: towards a context for an Old Norse runic charm (“DR” 419)’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 44 (2000), pp. 1–27 (17–19). Frankis also discusses the evidence for a small Scandinavian presence at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the years after the Norman Conquest. On Osbern’s life, see Jay Rubenstein, ‘The life and writings of Osbern of Canterbury’, in R. Eales and R. Sharpe (eds), Canterbury and the Norman Conquest (London, 1995), pp. 27–40.

  75 On the context for Osbern’s work at Canterbury, see Jay Rubenstein, ‘Liturgy against history: the competing visions of Lanfranc and Eadmer of Canterbury’, Speculum 74 (1999), pp. 279–309; R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and his Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought 1059–c.1130 (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 246–53; J. Hobson, ‘National-ethnic narratives in eleventh-century literary representations of Cnut’, Anglo-Saxon England 43 (2014), pp. 267–95.

  76 ‘quousque regnum tuum transferatur in regnum alienum cujus ritum et linguam gens cui praesides non novit’ [Osbern, Vita Sancti Dunstani, in William Stubbs (ed.), Memorials of Saint Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1874), pp. 69–128 (115), my translation].

  77 Simon Keynes, ‘The burial of King Æthelred the Unready at St Paul’s’, in David Roffe (ed.), The English and Their Legacy, 900–1200: Essays in Honour of Ann Williams (Woodbridge, 2012), pp. 129–48.

  78 For the Vita, see Osbern, Vita S. Elphegi, in Henry Wharton (ed.), Anglia Sacra (London, 1691), vol. 2, pp. 122–42, and Osbern’s Life of Alfege, trans. Frances Shaw (London, 1999). The Translatio is edited and translated by Rosemary Morris and Alexander Rumble as an appendix in Rumble (ed.), The Reign of Cnut, pp. 283–315.

  79 ‘Jacet itaque terra prædonum furori obnoxia … Rex namque Anglorum Ethelredus imbellis quia imbecillis, Monachum potius quam militem actione prætendebat’ (Osbern, Vita S. Elphegi, p. 131; Life of Alfege, p. 51).

  80 Campbell (ed.), Encomium, pp. 10–11; for discussion of the story see Campbell’s comments at pp. 73–4; Simon Keynes, ‘Cnut’s earls’, in Rumble (ed.), The Reign of Cnut, pp. 43–88 (54–60); John, ‘The Encomium Emmae Reginae’, pp. 68–70. A story about Thorkell’s revenge also appears in Scandinavian sources, where Thorkell’s brother Heming is said to have been killed in London during an uprising against the Danes after the death of Svein (see Encomium, pp. 92–3). Adam of Bremen provides another example of such a story from the eleventh century: he says that Svein came to England to avenge his brother Hiring, who ruled part of Northumbria but was betrayed and killed by the Northumbrians (Lawson, Cnut, pp. 29–30).

  81 Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, pp. 158–9.

  82 ‘Sufficeret namque ad communem regni perniciem aut sola pontificis injuria, aut funesta urbis excidia, ne dum utroque Anglia decore privata, esset nunquam deinceps ad priorem statum reformanda’ (Osbern, Vita S. Elphegi, p. 136; Life of Alfege, p. 63).

  83 Osbern, Life of Alfege, p. 76; the Latin verb used is radicare.

  84 The ceremony is described in MS. D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [G. P. Cubbin (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS. D (Cambridge, 1996), p. 64].

  85 Lawson, Cnut, pp. 130–2; Bolton, The Empire of Cnut, pp. 79–81; Marafioti, The King’s Body, pp. 192–7.

  86 It is possible that the date was not known at Canterbury; it is recorded in the Annals of Lindisfarne, but the date given in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle D and E is the erroneous 8 January (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, trans. Swanton, p. 57). The archbishop who arranged for the translation, Æthelnoth, had been consecrated on a similarly resonant anniversary of Anglo-Danish conflict: St Brice’s Day, 13 November. Æthelnoth was a loyal supporter of the Danish regime, and according to Osbern had consecrated Cnut as king (Osbern, Translatio Sancti Ælfegi, p. 301).

  87 ‘consilium sequitur diuinæ propitiationis declaratio. Non post multos etenim dies Cnut pacem obtinuit, post pacem regni dimidium, post dimidium totum’ (Osbern, Translatio Sancti Ælfegi, pp. 300–1).

  88 Ibid., pp. 306–7.

  89 ‘regia nauis aureis rostrata draconibus’ (ibid., pp. 308–9).

  90 ‘quos lingua Danorum huscarles uocant’ (ibid., pp. 302–3). On Osbern’s use of huscarl see Townend, Language and History in Viking Age England, pp. 185–6.

  91 ‘ab omnipotenti Deo terribiliter occiso’ (Osbern, Vita S. Elphegi, p. 131; Life of Alfege, p. 50); for comment see Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 22, n. 98.

  92 Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, pp. 152–3.

  93 ‘aurum … divinae sapientiae’ (Osbern, Vita S. Elphegi, p. 140).

  94 Eadmer of Canterbury, Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, ed. Andrew J. Turner and Bernard J. Muir (Oxford, 2006), pp. xxxv–xliv.

  95 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

  96 Ibid., pp. 12–15.

  97 On other versions of the story, which sometimes attribute the miracle of the sword to St Aldhelm instead of Oda, see Eadmer, Lives, pp. xliii–xliv.

  98 Ibid., pp. xliv–liii.

  chapter 2: the sons of ragnar lothbrok

  1 Heather O’Donoghue, English Poetry and Old Norse Myth: A History (Oxford, 2014), pp. 40–6.

  2 Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West: The Legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók and His Sons (Wien, 2012); Rory McTurk, Studies in Ragnars saga Loðbrókar and its Major Scandinavian Analogues (Oxford, 1991); Alfred Smyth, Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles 850–880 (Oxford, 1977); Niels Lukman, ‘Ragnarr Lothbrok, Sigifrid, and the saints of Flanders’, Medieval Scandinavia 9 (1976), pp. 7–50; Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland; Jan de Vries, ‘Die Entwicklung der Sage von den Lodbrokssöhnen in den historischen Quellen’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 44 (1928), pp. 117–63.

  3 For this argument and discussion of the English narratives see Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 107–9; Smyth, Scandinavian Kings, pp. 54–67; McTurk, Studies in Ragnars saga Loðbrókar; C. E. Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (Edinburgh, 1939), pp. 107–44.

  4 Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 178–80.

  5 His dying speech is the subject of the Old Norse poem Krákumál; see McTurk, Studies in Ragnars saga Loðbrókar, pp. 125–33.

  6 For a full survey of texts which refer to Ragnar and his sons, see Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 13–109. For Ragnars saga see Magnus Olsen (ed.), Völsunga saga ok Ragnars saga Loðbrókar (Copenhagen, 1906–8); Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, ‘Ragnars saga loðbrókar, Ragnarssona þáttr, and the political world of Haukr Erlendsson’, in Agneta Ney, Ármann Jakobsson and Annette Lassen (eds), Fornaldarsagaerne: Myter og virkelighed (Copenhagen, 2009), pp. 347–60. Saxo’s narrative of Ragnar and his sons is told in Book IX of the Gesta Danorum: Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen and Peter Fisher (Oxford, 2015), vol. 1, pp. 628–69. For t
he date see vol. 1, pp. xxxiii–xxxv.

  7 Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 111–64; Smyth, Scandinavian Kings; Downham, Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland.

  8 ‘Bier Costae ferreae’ [William of Jumièges, The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, ed. Elisabeth M. C. van Houts (Oxford, 1992–5), vol. 1, pp. 10–27].

  9 Elisabeth van Houts, ‘Scandinavian influence in Norman literature of the eleventh century’, Anglo-Norman Studies 6 (1983), pp. 107–21; for an alternative view see Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 166–9.

  10 Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, ed. Georg Waitz (Hanover, 1876), p. 28; History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 1959), p. 37.

  11 Ari Þorgilsson, Íslendingabók and Kristni Saga, trans. Siân Grønlie (London, 2006), p. 3 and note; see Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 168–71.

  12 Dumville and Lapidge (eds), The Annals of St Neots, p. 78.

  13 Ibid., pp. xv–xvi.

  14 For discussion see Hart, ‘The East Anglian Chronicle’; Eric John, ‘The Annals of St Neots and the defeat of the Vikings’, in R. Evans (ed.), Lordship and Learning: Studies in Memory of Trevor Aston (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 51–62.

  15 On such statements in medieval chronicles see van Houts, ‘Genre aspects of the use of oral information’, pp. 303–5.

  16 See Ashman Rowe, Vikings in the West, pp. 82–4.

  17 Judith Jesch, ‘England and Orkneyinga saga’ in C. Batey, J. Jesch and C. Morris (eds), The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney and the North Atlantic (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 222–39 (232–5).

  18 Charlotte D’Evelyn and Anna J. Mill (eds), The South English Legendary (London, 1956), vol. 2, p. 512.

  19 John Frankis, ‘Views of Anglo-Saxon England in post-Conquest vernacular writing’, in Herbert Pilch (ed.), Orality and Literacy in Early Middle English (Tübingen, 1996), pp. 227–47 (235); see also Page, ‘A Most Vile People’.