C.J. Adrien's Blog, page 25
May 18, 2014
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May 15, 2014
Growing Up Viking
The Icelandic Sagas tell of two boys who wrestled each other in the mud while their mothers chatted amiably. As the children rolled about, they quickly turned from playful to bellicose. One of the children raised a rock and bludgeoned the other to death with repeated skull-crushing blows. The mother of the victim rose to her feet. Rather than cry out, she turned to the other mother and said, “your son will make a good Viking some day.”
This tale indicates the extent to which the Vikings sought to create an image of strength and prowess for themselves. Yet, this is a story from a saga, and we know that Viking Age Scandinavians embellished their stories to impress their audiences. Thus, the tale of the murder of a child by a child can safely be considered a fiction. What would childhood have looked like to the children of the Vikings? As it turns out, they would have experienced a similar childhood to those children who grew up in the Frankish Empire.
The Vikings were first and foremost farmers. Their warrior culture emerged from the function of a farm in relation to its inhabitants and neighbors. Scandinavia’s farming season historically was short, therefore food was often in short supply. It is no surprise that conflicts over food created a great deal of the political strife among petty kingdoms and farmsteads of the Viking Age. In Scandinavian culture, men held the responsibility of defending the farm from outsiders, and thus had to train for war constantly. Women could take this role if their husband had died, but as a general rule men did the fighting. Women and children, with the occasional help of the men, had the key responsibility of farming.
Boys began training with weapons in their teenage years when their muscular development allowed for them to lift heavier objects. Girls trained to take over the farm: they learned to manage slaves, food stocks, cooking, clothes-making, grooming, among other things. Each had a set role, and each child’s future was more or less preordained by society’s structure. The expectations of the children would have been rigid, and the Vikings had little tolerance for those who broke the mold. Considering the high mortality rate among children — which was consistent across Europe — children would have been highly valued by their parents, and thus the family unit would have been much closer than what we even see in today’s society. Archeological digs have turned up dolls and toy ships, demonstrating the Viking culture of highly investing in the rearing of their children.
To think that the Vikings were mere savages is a travesty. To believe that the afore mentioned saga story was a factual account of how Scandinavians treated each other is wrong. Yet, it is this image that we are left with today. Historians continue to mend the damaged reputation of the Vikings, which was terribly skewed by the biases of 19th century historians. As it turns out, Viking children were no more violent or evil than the Christians to their south.
May 10, 2014
King or Earl? Quirks of the Viking Hierarchy
The conclusion the the History Channel’s Vikings left audiences with the impression that their fictional protagonist Ragnar had attained greater status as a result of slaying his former ally King Horik. Is he King? Is he still Earl? What’s the difference? Ambiguity on the part of the writers seems appropriate considering the historical structure of hierarchy in Viking Age Scandinavia. Titles among the ruling class remained inconsistent across Scandinavia throughout the Viking Age, which would eventually cause dissolution and discord among rival kingdoms whose claims of legitimacy over the other partly rested in their self-concept of their title and power.
Each region in Viking Age Scandinavia operated slightly differently than the other. Preceding the Viking Age, Vestfold (modern Norway), and Jutland (modern Denmark) were loose confederations of smaller farm owners who elected a chieftain or leader to make certain legal decisions typically regarding land disputes, feuds, and rights of inheritance. As the weather improved and population soared closer to the outset of the Viking Age, the dynamic of the political structure of each changed dramatically. In Jutland, a presiding king ruled by consent over Jarls — or earls — who managed each individual settlement. For example, in 815 A.D. Jutland was ruled by a certain King Horik, and his time was primarily spent visiting with and ruling through the various Jarls under him. Most prominent among these Jarls was the Jarl of Hedeby who frequently contended with the encroaching and bellicose Frankish army based outside of Hamburg.
In Vestfold, every farmstead leader seems to have thought of himself as king. In the sagas pertaining specifically to Vestfold, we encounter petty kings, but still all self proclaimed kings. For example, the ruler of a small region on the coast of Vestfold named Agder was known as King Harald Granraude. Agder had but one farmstead named Tromoy, thus making King Harald king of one farmstead. We must keep in mind, however, that the term farmstead when referring to the Viking Age signifies a larger than average agricultural settlement; a town of sorts. Further inland, Harald Granraude’s rival Gudrod the Magnificent (Halfdansson) was also king. He presided over more farmsteads and more people, but the title remained the same. This division in the political system of Vestfold which allowed any man with the least amount of power to proclaim himself a king caused constant inter-farmstead warfare. This warfare would not be resolved until much later in the Viking Age when Norway was united under Harald Fairhair.
If this all seems somewhat confusing, that is because it is. There was a lack of consistency across the Viking world and the acquisition of new lands abroad made matters even more confusing (such as the case of Rollo in Normandy). It appears that, with the exception of some places, most petty rulers were legally allowed and encouraged to proclaim themselves king. Thus, it seems, the terms king and Jarl are partly interchangeable (with exceptions of course), if not altogether illogically allocated.
Would you like to meet king Horik and Gudrod the Hunter? Then read The Line of His People, and epic historical fiction adventure set in the early Viking Age!
May 2, 2014
The Most Unusual of Miracles
A few days ago I came across a manuscript — Gestes des Saints de Redon — from 9th Century France which made an explicit reference to an oil lamp fueled by whale blubber. It took a few readings to determine that I in fact was no hallucinating. How then could the monks have procured oil from whale blubber if whaling did not exist in Western Europe at this time? I searched and searched for anything that might explain this anomaly that I had discovered. Finally, I found it: the abbot Ermentaire of Saint Philbert mentioned in one of his manuscripts, Vie et Miracles de Saint Philbert, that God had bestowed the most wondrous of miracles on the monks on the abbey in Noirmoutier. A beached whale had appeared on the northern coast of the island. Immediately, the monks rushed to the carcass and pulled it apart. They used the meat for food, the bones for tools, and the blubber was refined into oil for their lamps. One never evokes 9th century Breton monks as having a whale economy, but it turns out they depended on the regular beaching of whales (about one ever two or three years) for a variety of uses, including the lighting of their oil lamps.
April 26, 2014
A Finished Viking Shield
After painting with the colors of the shields of my protagonist in The Line of His People, I finished this bad boy up with rawhide around the edges. I am proud of myself, and I have also learned a great deal. Making shields is hard work, especially with the knowledge that they do not last long in battle. My shield has taken powerful hits already, and it has held firm; but a few weeks in the field would certainly destroy it. For now, it will be used decoratively, and for photo shoots. It has been a wonderful journey.
April 25, 2014
Early Resistance to the Vikings
In the early years of the Viking Age — 793-843 C.E. — the Scandinavian raiders used hit and run tactics to obliterate their foe. They also only attacked weak targets with highly mobile troops who had the ability to appear and disappear before any resistance could be mounted. The sensationalization of the early raids evoked fear in the populations of Western Europe who had not yet witnessed the horrors of Norse pirates; however, most people during these years were utterly safe from the clutches of the heathens. Charlemagne, the emperor of the Frankish empire, built coastal defenses to the mouths of rivers and along vulnerable settlements on the Atlantic. He had experience in dealing with raids as the Danes of Jutland had frequently plundered the coasts of Frisia (modern day Netherlands) as early as three decades before Lindisfarne. In the British Isles, the kingdoms of Wessex, Kent, Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria were a tightly controlled and highly militarized autocracies locked in a perpetual state of warfare. While the first Viking raids shocked them due to the random nature of the first attacks, the kingdoms mounted fairly effective resistance to the Norwegian raiders (mentioned as Vestfaldingi, or men of Vestfold, in the Chronicles of Bertin).
Looking back at this early period in the Vikings Age, one might conclude that the early raids were a dismal failure characterized by a spattering of attempted attacks on well fortified positions accompanied by severe casualties and loss of ships. Furthermore, no notable historic leaders appear to have taken part in any raids: kings and wealthy earls had no incentive to leave their lands and risk defeat at the hands of the Christians. Thus, the Vikings in the early days of raiding were less important free men who yearned at a chance for glory and wealth through their violent enterprise. It was not until the dissolution of the Frankish Empire under the treaty of Verdun in 843 C.E. that Scandinavian raiders began to effectively pillage the coasts of Europe, and even sail up river to sack major cities such as Nantes (in 843 C.E.), Paris (in 845 C.E.), Utrecht (in 850 C.E.), and York (in 866 C.E.). It was during this second phase that the Vikings began to leave their mark on history.
April 22, 2014
The Viking Hauberk
DID YOU KNOW that the Vikings seldom used Hauberks? For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term hauberk, it is simply a chain mail shirt described as “reaching to the hip and with sleeves”. Indeed, the Vikings did not commonly wear such armor for economic reasons. Hauberks in the time of the Vikings were exceedingly expensive. Thus, only the wealthiest, most powerful warriors could afford to make and field such armor. Then again, to wear a Hauberk into battle could prove dangerous because the enemy might target the wearer specifically to steal the hauberk! It should be noted, however, that a vast contrast exists between the eastern and western Scandinavians of the Vikings Age. Archeological digs in the east, such as along the Dnieper and Volga rivers, have uncovered far fewer Hauberks compared to their other artifacts than in western digs. The Rus disliked the confinement of a hauberk, and the Varangian guard in Constantinople has never been described as wearing a full hauberk. Conversely, western Vikings wore a great deal more chain mail. A possible reason for this may have been the availability of hauberks across the Frankish Empire. Hauberks could be taken from the slain in battle, as well as be stolen from weapon stores in fortified areas. The Franks equipped a large portion of their soldiers with chain mail.
In the novel The Line of His People the protagonist Abriel encounters this interesting fact of history when he is gifted a hauberk, which sets him apart from the other Northmen who preferred hardened leather. In his ignorance, Abriel wore the hauberk.
April 21, 2014
C.J. Adrien on Location
Above is C.J. Adrien standing in front of the Abbey of Saint Philbert on Grand Lieu Lake. The abbey was originally a satellite priory to the monastery of Saint Philbert on the island of Noirmoutier, but following the Viking raids which began in 799 A.D. the order of monks moved inland to avoid their aggressors. The relics from the original monastery were thought to have been lost during the Scandinavian raids, but were recovered in the mid 9th century and brought to the abbey seen here, and then dispersed amongst the multitude of churches and monasteries devoted to Saint Philbert thereafter. In recent history, the monastery had been abandoned for many years until the local municipality decided to renovate in the last twenty years. Archeological digs on the grounds have revealed many interesting artifacts. This small abbey is the site of the first chapter of C.J. Adrien’s novel, “The Line of His People”.
April 20, 2014
The Building of My First Viking Shield
I began with a question: could I build a viking shield using nothing but materials I have at my house? What began as a question endured as a quest to test how far I was willing to go for my passion for vikings. A good starting place was my woodpile out back. There I found leftover planks from the building of the back porch, all still in relatively good condition. Using a sharpie and some measuring tape, I outlined the round shield from seven planks. I measured the radius at 16 inches, so three inches longer than my forearm. Then came the sawing. How hard in sawing in a curve? Let’s just say it’s not as fun as one might think. Once the pieces were cut, I assembled them in order and formed the shield. I used advice from a few aficionado sites to make the strongest design and hammered everything into place. And voila!
Next came the hard part: the shield boss. Where would I find an iron boss to fit a Viking shield in a small rancher town in Oregon? Well, it turns out ranching supply stores have everything you can think of, including a cast iron range top cover that looked, felt, and acted like a real shield boss. I used a jigsaw to cut my hole in the center of the shield, and bolted the boss on without difficulty. Finally, I fashioned a piece of wood into a handle with a file and hammered everything together to great my first functional viking shield:
We bashed it with axes, shot it with arrows, and it is still in great shape. Next I will paint the shield and trim it with rawhide, but more or less this adventure is complete. I feel accomplished. Using the shield has also taught me a great deal about the feeling of wearing a shield, and has informed my writing tremendously. What will my shield and I do next? We shall see!
April 19, 2014
Remembering Joshua the Pacifist
Tomorrow is Easter, and while I will not personally celebrate the holiday for my own reasons, I will make it a point to remember an inspirational story about a man who fought for peace in times of war; for equality in times of oppression. I am of course referring to Joshua from Galilee — Jesus is a Greek translation of the Hebrew name — a humble carpenter’s son with a vision for a better world. Israel at the time of the crucifixion was under foreign occupation. The Romans controlled many aspects of daily life in a well managed oligarchy under the rule of an ambitious soldier-turned-politician named Pontius Pilot. Resources were scarce, and the Romans drained the local economy for their own gain.
Joshua was a pacifist who objected to the brutality of Rome’s authoritarian rule. To combat the oppressors, he took the path of non-violence (as Ghandi would 2000 years later against the British Empire). In an age of violence, non-violence seemed foreign to the denizens of Jerusalem. With charisma, cunning, and a little touch of showmanship Joshua gathered support from many people — not the masses as the Bible would have us believe — and offered the first real resistance to the Roman Empire since the conquests carried out by Flavius Josephus. I like to think of the Pharisees as an insecure institution dependent on their overlords, comparable to the Vichy collaboration government in France in World War II.
Today, the story of Joshua is relatively well known, but his message has been twisted around in some horrendous ways. Son of God? I cannot say. But I guarantee the Bible cannot say either. The name Jesus is a greek translation for Joshua, given to us in that form because the first new testament Bibles distributed were created in Greece. Since then the new and old testaments have undergone many, many translations and rewritings, the end product of which is a document that is very different than what was originally written. Anyone who speaks more than one language knows that everything does not always translate exactly, and thus substitutions must be made, particularly when dealing with idiomatic expressions. Anyone who has ever played the game “telephone” also knows that even among speakers of the same language, simple phrases can and will change dramatically. Bibles are no different. In the Middle Ages, monks copied bibles for distribution and often changed parts of the text. One need look no further than preserved Bibles from the medieval period to find texts riddled with marginal notes, each changing some small piece of the previous version. Later on, kings ordered changes in Bibles for their own purposes which made new versions still available today (like the King James Bible). Have you ever wondered why there are so many different versions of the Bible on the book shelf at your local book store? Any literal interpretation of the Bible is a mistake. Anyone who says the Bible is the direct word of God is terribly misinformed. The Bible itself confirms it: it is recognized in the story of the Tower of Babel that languages would divide human populations; and this applies to the written word as well.
In any case, the story of Joshua is one to be remembered. Like the Norse, Greek, and Babylonian myths it has a lesson to teach for our betterment. It serves as a reminder of what people are capable of in times of oppression. We learn about love, compassion, peace, and non-violence. As a lesson, the story of Joshua is an informative piece that explores human nature and the terrible things people are capable of in the presence of fear. It is perplexing to me that this story be so well known and worshipped by many, yet our world has still come too close to self annihilation in war, greed, and discord. It would seem the same traits of human nature displayed by the antagonists to Jesus’ story are still in play today. This Easter, I will remember the man, his message of peace, and most of all, his efforts to end corruption in human organizations. Help thy neighbor, lay down your arms, love thyself and others. These are good messages, let us not use them for hate.
