There was much noise of merriment. And when the king saw
that Egil was come in, he bade the lower bench be cleared for
them, and that Egil should sit in the high seat facing the king.
Egil sat down there, and cast his shield before his feet. He had
his hehn on his head, and laid his sword across his knees; and
now and again he half drew it, and then clashed it back into the
sheath. He sat upright, but with head bent forward. Egil was
large-featured, broad of forehead, with large eye-brows, a nose not
long but very thick, lips wide and long, chin exceeding broad, as
was all about the jaws ; thick-necked was he, and big-shouldered
beyond other men, hard-featured, and grim when angry. He
would pot drink now, though the horn was borne to him, but
alternately twitched his brows up and down. King Athelstan
sat in the upper high-seat. He too laid his sword across his knees.
When they had sat there for a time, then the king drew his sword
from the ^eath, and took from his arm a gold ring large and good,
and placing it upon the sword-point he stood up, and went across
the floor, and reached it over the fire to Egil. Egil stood up and
drew his sword, and went across the floor. He stuck the sword-
point within the round of the ring, and drew it to him ; then he
went back to his place. The king sate him again in his high-seat.
But when Egil was set down, he drew the ring on his arm, and
then his brows went back to their place. He now laid down
sword and helm, took the horn that they bare to him, and drank
it off. Then sang he :
'Mailed monarch, god of battle,
Maketh the tinkling circlet
Hang, his own arm forsaking.
On hawk-trod wrist of mine.
I bear on arm brand-wielding
Bracelet of red gold gladly.
War-falcon's feeder meetly
Findeth such meed of praise.'
"Thereafter Egil drank his share, and talked with others.
Presently the king caused to be borne in two chests; two men
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bare each. Both were full of silver. The king said: 'These
chests, Egil, thou shalt have, and, if thou comest to Iceland, shalt
carry this money to thy father ; as pa3rment for a son I send it to
him : but some of the money thou shalt divide among such kins-
men of thyself and Thorolf as thou thinkest most honourable.
But thou shalt take here payment for a brother with me, land or
chattels, which thou wilt. And if thou wilt abide with me long,
then will I g^ve thee honour and dignity such as thyself mayst
name.'
^'Egil took the money, and thanked the king for his gifts and
friendly words. Thenceforward Egil began to be cheerful; and
then he sang :
'In sorrow sadly drooping
Sank my brows close-knitted ;
Then found I one who furrows
Of forehead could smooth.
Fierce-frowning clifiFs that shaded
My face a king hath lifted
With gleam of golden armlet :
Gloom leaveth my eyes. ' "
Like many of his kind in Iceland and Norway, this fierce
man was a poet. Once he saved his life by a poem, and
he had made poems as gifts. It was when the old Viking's
life was drawing to its close at his home in Iceland that
he composed his most moving lay. His beautiful beloved
son was drowned. After the burial Egil rode home, went
to his bed-closet, lay down and shut himself in, none daring
to speak to him. There he lay, silent, for a day and night.
At last his daughter knocks and speaks; he opens. She
enters and beguiles him with her devotion. After a while
the old man takes food. And at last she prevails on him
to make a poem on his son's death, and assuage his grief.
So the song begins, and at length rises clear and strong —
perhaps the most heart-breaking of all old Norse poems.^
In the portrayal of contrasted characters no other Saga
can equal the great Nj&la, a Saga large and complex, and
doubtless composite ; for it seems put together out of three
stories, in all of which figured the just Njal, although he is
> These poems are in the Saga, and will be found translated in Mr. Green's edition.
They are also edited with prose translations in C.P.B., vol. i. pp. 266-280. With
Egil one may compare the still more truculent, but very different Grettir, hero of the
Grettis Saga. The Story of Grettir the Strong, trans, by Magnusaon and Morris (and
ed., London, 1869).
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CHAP, vm TEUTON QUALITIES 165
the chief personage m only one of them. The story, with
its multitude of personages and threefold subject-matter,
ladLs unity perhaps. Yet the different parts of the Saga
successivdy hold the attention. In the first part, the in-
comparable Gunnar is the hero ; in the second, Njal and his
stms engage our interest in their varied characters and
common fate. These are great narratives. The third i>art
is perhaps epigonic, excellent and yet an aftermath. Only
a reading of this Saga can bring any realization of its power
of narrative and character delineation. Its chief personages
are as dear as the day. One can ahnost see the sunlight of
Gunnar's open brow, and certainly can feel his manly heart.
The foil against which he is set off is his friend Njal, equally
good, utterly different: unwarlike, wise in counsel, a great
lawyer, truthful, just, shrewd and foreseeing. Hallgerda of
the long silken hair is Gunnar's wife; she has caused the
deaths of two husbands already, and will yet prove Gunnar's
bane. Little time passes before she is the enemy of Njal's
high-minded q>ouse, Bergthora. Then Hallgerda b^;inning,
Bergthora following quick, the two push on their quarrel,
instigating in counter-vengeance alternate manslayings,
each one a little nearer to the heart and honour of Gunnar
and Njal. Yet their friendship is unshaken. For every
killing the one atones with the other ; and the same blood-
money passes to and fro between them.
Guimar's friendshq> with the pacific Njal and his warlike
sons endured till Gunnar's death. That came from enmities
first stirred by the thieving of Hallgerda's thieving thrall.
She had ordered it, and in shame Gunnar gave her a slap in
the face, the sole act of irritation recorded of this generous,
forbearing, peerless Viking, who once remarked: "I would
like to know whether I am by so much the less brisk and
bold than other men, because I think more of killing men
than they?" At a meeting of the Althing he was badgered
by his ill-wishars into entering his stallion for a horse-fight,
a kind of contest usually ending in a man-fight. Skarphe-
dinn, the most masterful of Njal's sons, offered to handle
Gunnar's horse for him :
^^ Wilt thou that I drive thy horse, kinsman Gunnar?''
''I will not have that," says Gunnar.
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''It wouldn't be amiss, though/' says Skaiphedmn ; ''we
are hot-headed on both sides."
"Ye would say or do little," says Gunnar, "before a
quarrel would spring up; but with me it will take longer,
though it will be all the same in the end."
Naturally the contest ends in trouble. Gunnar's beaten
and enraged opponent seizes his weapons, but is stopped by
bjrstanders. "This crowd wearies me," said Skarphedinn;
"it is far more manly that men should fight it out with
weapons." Gunnar remained quiet, the best swordsman
and bowman of them all. But his enemies fatuously pushed
on the quarrel; once they rode over him working in the
field. So at last he fought, and killed many of them. Then
came the suits for slaying, at the Althing. Njal is Gunnar's
coimsellor, and atonements are made: Gunnar is to go
abroad for three winters, and imless he goes, he may be slain
by the kinsmen of those he has killed. Gunnar said nothing.
Njal adjured him solemnly to go on that journey: "Thou
wilt come back with great glory, and live to be an old man,
and no man here will then tread on thy heel; but if thou
dost not fare away, and so breakest thy atonement, then
thou wilt be slain here in the land, and that is ill knowing
for those who are thy friends."
Gunnar said he had no mind to break the atonement,
and rode home. A ship is made ready, and Gunnar's gear
is brought down. He rides around and bids farewdl to
his friends, thanking them for the he^ they had given him,
and returns to his house. The next day he embraces the
members of his household, leaps into the saddle, and rides
away. But as he is riding down to the sea, his horse trips
and throws him. He springs from the ground, and says
with his face to the Lithe, his home : "Fair is the Lithe ; so
fair that it has never seemed to me so fair; the cornfields
are white to harvest, and the home mead is mown ; and now
I will ride back home, and not fare abroad at all."
So he turns back — ^to his fate. The following simmier
at the Althing, his enemies give notice of his outlawry. Njal
rides to Gunnar's home, tells him of it, and offers his sons'
aid, to come and dwell with him : "they will lay down their
lives for thy life."
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CHAP.vni TEUTON QUALITIES (i^
'^I will not/' says Gunnar, ''that thy sons should be
slain for my sake, and thou hast a right to look for other
things from me"
Njal rode to his home, while Gunnar's oionies gathered
and moved secretly to his house. His hoimd, struck down
with an axe, gives a great howl and expires. Gunnar awoke
in his hall, and said : ''Thou hast been sorely treated, Sam,
my fosterling, and this warning is so meant that our two
deaths will not be far apart." Single-handed, the beset
chieftain maintains himself within, killing two of his enemies
and wounding eight. At last, wounded, and with his bow-
string cut, he turns to his wife Hallgerda: "Give me two
locks of thy hair, and do thou and my mother twist them
into a bowstring for me."
"Does aught lie on it?" she says.
"My life Kes on it," he said ; "for they will never come
to dose quarters with me if I can keq> them off with my
bow."
"Well," she says, "now I will call to thy mind that slap ^
on the face which thou gavest me ; and I care never a whit
whether thou boldest out a long while or a short."
Then Gunnar sang a stave, and said, "Every one has
something to boast of, and I will ask thee no more for this."
He fought on till spent with wounds, and at last they killed
him.
Here the Njila may be left with its good men and true
and its evil plotters, all so differently shown. It has still
to tdl the story and fate of Njal's unbending sons, of Njal
himself and his high-tempered dame, who will abide with
her spouse in their burning house, which enemies have
surroimded and set on fire to destroy those sons. Njal
himself was offered safety if he would come out, but he
would not.
Perhaps we have been beguiled by their unique literary
qualities into dwelling overlong upon the Sagas. These
Norse compositions belong to the Middle Ages only in
time; for they were uninfluenced either by Christianity or
the antique culture, the formative elements of mediaeval
development. They are interesting in their aloofness, and
also important for our mediaeval theme, because they were
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i68 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i
the ultimate as well as the most admirable expression of the
native Teutonic genius as yet integral, but destined to have
mighty part in the composite course of mediaeval growth.
More q)ecifically they are the voice of that falcon race which
came from the Norseland to stock England with fresh strains
of Danish blood, to conquer Normandy, and give new
courage to the Celtic-German-Frenchmen, and thence went
on to bring its hardihood, war cunning, and keen statecraft
to southern Italy and Sicily. In all these countries the
Norse nature, supple and pliant, accq)ted the gifts of new
experience, and in return imparted strength of puipose to
peoples with whom the Norsemen mingled in marriage as
well as war.
This chapter has shown Teutonic faculties still integral
and unmodified by Latin Christian influence. Their partici-
pation in the processes of mediaeval development will be
seen as Anglo-Saxons and Germans become converted to
Latin Christianity, and apply themselves to the study of
the profane Latinity, to which it opened the way.
\
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CHAPTER IX
THE BRINGING OW CHRISTIANITY AND ANTIQUE
KNOWLEDGE TO THE NORTHERN PEOPLES
I. Ibish AcnvmEs; Columbanus of Luxeuil.
n. CONVEKSION OF THE ENGLISH; THE LEARNING OF BeDE
AND Alfred.
m. Gaul and Gesmany; from Clovis to St. Winifried*
Boniface.
The northern peoples, Celts and Teutons for the most part
as they are called, came into contact with Roman civiliza-
tion as the great Republic brought Gaul and Britain under
its rule. Since Rome was still pagan when these lands were
made provinces, an unchristianized Latinity was grafted upon
their predominantly Celtic populations. The second stage,
as it were, of this contact between Rome and the north, is
represented by that influx of barbarians, mostly Teutonic, ^T
which, in both senses of the word, quickened the disruption
of the Empire in the fourth and following centuries. The
religion called after the name of Christ had then been
accepted; and invading Goths, Franks, Burgundians,
Lombards, and the rest, were introduced to a somewhat
Christianized Latindom. Indeed, in the Latin-Christian com-.,
bination, the Christian element was becoming dominant, and
was soon to be the chief means of extending the antique
culture. For Christianity, with Latinity in its train, was
to project itself outward to subjugate heathen Anglo-Saxons
in England, Frisians in the Low Countries, and the imkempt
Teutondom which roved east of the Rhine, and was ever
pressing southward over the boundaries of former provinces,
now reverting to unrest. Li past times the assimilating
energy of Roman civilization had imited western Europe in .-
a common social order. Henceforth Christianity was to be '
X69
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'the prime amalgamator, while the survivals of Roman
institutions and the remnants of antique culture were to
assist in secondary rdles. With Charles Martd, with Pippin,
and with Charlemagne, Latin Christianity is the sjmibol of
civilized order, while heathendom and savagery are identical.
The conversion of the northern peoples, and their
incidental introduction to profane knowledge, wrought upon
them deeply; while their own qualities and the conditions
of their lives affected their understanding of what they
received and their attitude toward the new religion. Obvi-
ously the dissemination of Christianity among rude pec^les
would be unlike that first spreading of the Gospel through
the Empire, in the course of which it had been transformed
to Gredc and Latin Christianity. Italy, Spain, and Gaul
made the western region of this primary diffusion of the
Faith. Of a distinctly missionary character were the further
' labours which resulted in the conver^on of the fresh masses
of Teutons who were breaking into the Roman pale, or were
still moving restlessly beyond it. Moreover, between the
time of the first diffusion of Christianity within the Empire
and that of its missionary extaision beyond those now
decayed and fallen boimdaries, it had been formulated
dogmatically, and given ecclesiastical embodiment in a
Catholic church into which had passed the conquering and
organizing genius of Ropie. This finished s}rstem was pre-
sented to simple pe(q)les, sanctioned by the authority and
dowered with the surviving culture of the civilized world.
It offered them mightier supernatural aid, nobler knowledge,
and a better ordering of life than they had known. The
manner and authority of its presentation hastened its accq>t-
ance, and also determined the attitude toward it of the new
converts and their children for generations. Theirs was to
be the attitude of ignorance before recognized wisd<Mn, and
that of a docility which revered the manner and form as
well as the substance of its lesson. The development of
mediaeval Europe was affected by the mode and drcum*
stances of this secondary propagation of Christianity. For
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CHAP. DC CONVERSION OF THE NORTH 171
centuries the northern peoples were to be held in tutelage
to the form and constitution of that which they had received :
they continued to revere the patristic sources of Christian
doctrines^ and to look with awe upon the profane culture
accompanying them.
Thus, as imder authority, Christianity came to the
Teutonic peoples, even to those who, like the Goths, were
converted to the Arian creed. Likewise the orthodox belief
was brought to the Celtic Britons and Irish as a superior
religion associated with superior culture. But the qualities
or circumstances of these western Celts reacted more freely ^
upon their form of faith, because Ireland and Britain were ^
the fringe of the world, and Christianity was hardly fixed in
dogma and ritual when the conversion at least of Britain
b^an.
Certain phrases of Tertullian indicate that Christianity
had made some progress among the Britons by the beginnings'
of the third century. For the next hundred years nothing
is known of the British Church, save that it did not su£Fer
from the persecution imder Diocletian in 304, and ten years
afterwards was rq)resented by three bishops at the Council
of Aries. It was orthodox, accepting the creed of Nicaea^ '
(aj>. 325) and the date of Easter there fixed. The fourth
c^itury seems to have been the period of its prosperity.
It was affiliated with the Church of Gaul; nor did these
relations cease at once when the Roman legions were with-
drawn from Britain in 410. But not many decades later ^
the Saxcm invasion began to cut off Britain from the Christian
world. After a while certain divergences appear in rite and
custom, though not in doctrine. Th^^ seem not to have been
serious when Gildas wrote in 550. Yet when Augustine
came, fifty years later, the Britons celebrated Easter at a
different date from that observed by the Roman Catholic
Church; for they followed the old computation which
Rome had used before adopting the better method of
Alexandria. Also the mode of baptism and the tonsure
differed from the Roman.
At the close of the sixth century the British Church .-
exbted chiefly in Wales, whither the Britons had retreated
before the Saxons. Formerly there had been no unwiUing-
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ness to follow the Church of Rome. But now a long p^iod
had elapsed, during which Britain had been left to its mis-
fortimes. The Britons had been raided and harassed; thdr
country invaded; and at last they had been driven from
the greater portion of their land. How they hated those
Saxon conquerors ! And forsooth a Roman mission i^pears
to convert those damned and hateful heathen, and a some-
what haughty summons issues to the expelled or down-
trodden people to abandon their own Christian usages for
those of the Roman communion, and then join this Roman
mission in its saving work among those Saxons whom the
Britons had met only at the spear's point. Love of andoit
and familiar customs soured to obstinacy in the face of such
demands; a sweeping rejection was returned. Yet to
\ conform to Roman usages and join with Augustine in his
mission to the Saxons, was the only way in which the
dwindling Britis h Church could link itself to the Christian
world, and save its people from exterminating wars. By
refusing, it committed suicide.
A rdusal to conform, although no refusal to undertake
missions to the Saxons, came from the Irish-Scottish Church.
As Ireland had never been drawn within the Roman world,
its conversion was later than that of Britain. Yet there
would seem to have been Christians in Ireland before 431 ;
for in that year, according to an older record quoted by
Bede, Palladius, the first bishop {primus episcopus), was sent
by Celestine the Roman pontiff ''ad Scottos in Christum
credentes."^ The mission of Palladius does not a|^>ear to
have been accq>table to the Irish. Some accounts have
confused his story with that of Patrick, the "Apostle of
Ireland," whose apostolic glory has not been overthrown by
criticism. The more authentic accoimts, and above all his
own Confession, go far to explain Patrick's success. His
early manhood, passed as a slave in Antrim, gave him
understanding of the Irish; and doubtless his was a great
missionary capacity and zeal. The natural approach to
such a people was through their tribal kings, and Patrick
^Bede, Hist. Eu. i. 13. Moreover, the chief partisan of Pelagius (a Briton)
was Coelcstinus, an Irishman whose restless activity falls in the thirty years preceding
the missbn of Palladius.
L
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^
CHAP. DC CONVERSION OF THE NORTH 173
\
ai^>ears to have made his prime onslaught upon Druidical .
heathendom at Tara, the abode of the high king of Ireland.
The earliest accoimts do not refer to any authority from
Rome. ' Patrick seems to have acted &om spontaneous ,
inspiration; and a like independence characterizes the ^^
monastic Christianity which sprang up in Ireland and over-
leapt the water to lona, to Christianize Scotland as well as
northern Anglo-Saxon heathendom.^
Irish monasticism was an ascetically ordered continuance ^
of Irish society. If, like other early western monasticism,
it derived suggestions from Syria or Egypt, it was far more
the product of Irish temperament, customs, and conditions.
One may also find a potent source in the monastic com-
munities alleged to have existed in Ireland in the days of I
the Druids. Doubtless many members of that caste became
Christian monks.
The noblest passion of Irish monastic Christianity was;^
to peregrinare for the sake of Christ, and spread the Faith
among the heathen; the most interesting episodes of its
history are the wanderings and missionary labours and
foimdations of its leaders. The careers of Columba and '
Coliunbanus afford grandiose examples. Something has
been said of the former. The monastery which he foimded
on the Island of lona was the Faith's fountainhead for^
Scotland and the Saxon north of England in the sixth and
seventh centuries. About the time of Columba's birth, men
from Dalriada on the north coast of Ireland crossed the
water to found another Dalriada in the present Argyleshire,
and transfer the name of Scotia (Ireland) to Scotland.
When Coltunba landed at lona, these settlers were hard^
pressed by the heathen Kcts xmder King Brude or Bridius.
Accompanied by two Pictish Christians, he penetrated to
Bfude's dwelling, near the modem Inverness, converted that
monarch in 565, and averted the overthrow of Dalriada.
For the next thirty years Columba and his monks did not
cease from their labours; numbers of monasteries were
founded, daughters of lona ; and great parts of Scotland ^
became Christian at least in name. The supreme authority
1 On Patrick see Bury, Thi Life ef 5/. Patrick and Hs Place in History (London,
1005).
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174 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i
> was the Abbot of lona with his coiindl of monks ; '' bishops **
performed their fimctions mider him. Early in the seventh
^^century, St Aidan was ordained bishop in lona and sent to
convert the Anglo-Saxons of Northumberland. The story
of the Irish Church in the north is one of effective mission
v^work, but imsuccessful organization, wherein it was inferior
to the Roman Church. Its representatives suffered defeat at
*, the Synod of Whitby in 664. Fifty years afterward lona
gave up its separate usages and accepted the Roman Easter.^
The missionary labours of the Irish were not confined
to Great Britain, but extended far and wide through the
west of Europe. In the sixth and seventh centuries, Irish
^ monasteries were founded in Austrasia and Burgundy, Italy,
Switzerland, Bavaria ; they were established among Frisians,
Saxons, Alemanni. And as centres of Latin education as
well as Christianity, the names of Bobbio and St. Gall will
occur to every one. Of these, the first directly and the
second through a disdple were due to Columbanus. With
him we enter the larger avenues of Irish missions to the
heathen, the semi-heathen, and the lax, and upon the
question of their efficacy in the preservation of Latin educa-
tion throughout the rent and driven fragments of the western
Roman Empire. The story of Columban's life is illuminat-
ing and amusing.'
> Ab for the Irish Church in Ireland, there were many differences in usage be-
tween it and the Church of Rome. In the matters of Easter and the tonsure the
southern Irish were won over to the Roman customs before the middle of the seventh