, .,

Universitetets Oldsaksamlings Skrifter Ny rekke Nr.9 Proceedings of the Tenth Viking Congress Larkollen, Norway, 1985

Edited by James E. Knirk

Oslo 1987

Printed with financial support from Letterstedtska Foreningen, Stockholm

© Universitetets Oldsaksamling

Printed by Harald Lyche & Co., A.s, Drammen

ISBN 82-7181-062-6

Cover illustration: Strap-end from the Vrerne Kloster hoard, 0stfold, Norway

Peace and Non-Peace in the Viking Age -Ottar in Biarmaland, the Rus in Byzantium, and Danes and Norwegians in England

Niels Lund

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of peace in the Viking Age and, in the light of that to argue that the treaty concluded in 994 between JEthelred, king of England, and Olaf, Jostein and Guthmund, son of Steita, and known as II JEtheired, is not, as Sir Frank Stenton claimed (1971, 541-2), an international treaty concerned with possible encounters between the Vikings and the subjects of King JEtheired abroad; rather, it is essentially a separate peace treaty serving to divide JEthelred's major enemies, Swein Forkbeard and Olaf Tryggvason, and to ensure that law and order would obtain between the latter and those English who had paid to be rid of his plundering. I have suggested this very briefly before (Lund 1976, 190-1), but an occasion for setting out the argument in greater detail has now been provided by Professor C.E. Fell's recent paper "Unfrio: An Approach to a Definition" in which she analyses the concepts of frio and unfrio. The understanding of peace and non­peace here proposed has interesting implications in several contexts.

If asked for a definition of peace most people today would probably come up with a suggestion like'absence of war', that is, a negative definition. We know what peace is not, but not what it is. Medieval man did know that, as an examination of the way the Vikings and their contemporaries handled the concept will show.

The problem which apparently prompted Chris Fell to undertake her investigation of frio and unfrio is that facing the Norwegian chieftain and explorer attar vis-a-vis the Biarmians. On his well-known journey from his home somewhere in the north of Norway round the North Cape, recorded in the Old English Orosius (14-15), attar travelled past vast stretches of land with no permanent settlement, exploited only by hunters and fishermen visiting it during appropriate seasons. Somewhere in the White Sea, however, he reached the lands of the Biarmians who, he records, had settled their land well. Here his journey stopped, at a great river apparently forming the boundary of their territory: for pzm hie ne dorstan forp bi pzre ea siglan for unfripe (14/19). Until recently this passage has been taken to mean that attar feared hostilities from the Biarmians, although it was noticed long ago that he seemed to get on well with them and was told many stories by them, but Chris Fell has now argued convincingly that attar's problem was not that the Biarmians were hostile but that he did not have an arrangement with their authorities by which he could travel and carryon trade within their territory. Unfrio here means the lack of a frio, that is, a set of rules, a treaty (Fell 1982-3, 94-5; 1984,63).

255

There are instances of the word unfrio where it can hardly carry this meaning, where it must, in fact, mean 'hostilities' or 'absence of peace', such as its use in one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 1001: Her on pysum geare wzs micel unfrio on Angel cynnes londe purh sci phere, & wel gehwzr hergodon & bzrndon, ... (ms.A; Plummer I, 132). It also seems likely that the compound unfrioflota (ms.E, 1000; Plummer I, 133) means 'hostile fleet' rather than 'fleet with which no frio :~.'

arrangement existed', although it is possible that the Viking fleet is so designated to

distinguish it from the English fleet mentioned under 999, which was of little more benefit to the people than the Danish fleet (Plummer I, 133).

Peace Agreements in the Ninth Century There are many more instances, however, in which the interpretation of frio as a positive concept implying some set of agreed terms will lead to a much improved understanding of texts and situations. On many occasions in the ninth century the Vikings forced the Anglo-Saxons or the Franks to establish peace with them; & hie him friP wiP namon is a recurrent phrase in the chroniCle of these years. Little is known of the terms of these settlements although it is likely that generally they stipulated a payment to the Vikings as well as arrangements for their provisioning during winter (Lund 1981, 149-50; Alfred the Great, 224, n.97); most often these agreements would also probably arrange for places where the Vikings could spend the winter peacefully. This seems to have been implied in 865, when the heathen army encamped on Thanet and made peace with the people of Kent, and it would follow naturally after the failure of the English siege of Nottingham in 868. According to the chronicler JEthelweard, the Vikings were granted the right of remaining without challenge, manendi sine ealumnia (36). On other occasions the agreement would include an obligation on the Vikings to leave the kingdom of Alfred; this was the case in 876, when they violated it, and in 878, when they honoured it by taking winter quarters just out of Wessex in Cirencester. A place where the Danes could spend the winter by treaty would probably be what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls a frioswl (ms.E, 1006; Plummer I, 136). Other elements in peace agreements might include permission for the Vikings to trade with the opposite party at certain places or times. There is an example of this from France where, in 873, King Charles the Bald after a successful siege of Angers made the Vikings accept such terms and swear such oaths as he pleased: Petierunt autem, .ut eis in quadam insula Ligeris fJuvii usque in mense Februario residere et mereatum habere lieeret, ... (AB 873). This provision hardly justifies us to regard these Vikings as merchants; commercial treaties in a truer sense of the word were concluded between Byzantium and Russia, and there are commercial elements in the peace treaty betwen Alfred, king of Wessex, and Guthrum, king of East Anglia. They differ from those so far mentioned in being concluded between neighbours, the Vikings party to them having a fixed territorial basis, and will be examined below.

A further element that might form part of these peace agreements is a time limit. In 884 the Frankish magnates, acting on behalf of the infant king, decided to offer some Vikings, who had established themselves in Amiens, a tribute to make them leave; they accepted an offer of twelve thousand pounds of silver and apparently the Franks were allowed the time from the second of February to the end of October to produce

~, ~

256

it. During this time mutual security was granted and the Franks would seem to have undertaken not to cross the Oise until the money had been paid. Both sides kept the deal, the Vikings setting off to Boulogne from where some of them went on to Louvain in the kingdom of Louis the Younger while others crossed the sea to attack Rochester (AV884; ASCWhitelock, 51).

Agreements of this kind were not concluded in writing; the Scandinavian parties to them were not familiar with diplomas and probably were unable to read them, let alone draft them. In a treaty concluded in 945 between the Byzantine emperor and the Rus it is said that previously envoys from Russia to Byzantium had carried golden seals and the merchants seals of silver but by now the Russian prince had learnt to compose letters to the Byzantine emperor (Nestors Kmnike, 51; RPC, 74). Not being committed to parchment these agreements could not be confirmed by witnesses and seals, either; they were normally confirmed by means of oaths and hostages. Their role may be studied in the context of Alfred's relations with the Vikings in the 870's and it is interesting to note that the Anglo-Saxons were aware of the different values of oaths sworn by the Vikings. In 875-6 the Vikings had landed themselves in a tight position in Wareham and made peace with Alfred, and although they paid money for this they had to swear on their holy ring that they would leave Wessex quickly. This oath was so solemn that they had never before been willing to take it before the English (ASC Whitelock, 48). On this occasion the Danes also had to confirm their pledge by giving hostages to King Alfred, and even very valuable ones the chronicles say. At Wareham hostages were no doubt exchanged, but three years later the balance had tipped so much in Alfred's favour that he was able to demand hostages from the Vikings without giving any himself (Alfred the Great, 245, 246, 249, 285; Keynes 1986, 199-200). Hostages were also involved in 1013 when the English submitted to Swein Forkbeard. He was given hostages in all counties north of Watling Street and later in Oxford, Winchester, Devon and London, and for these hostages matters became grave. After Swein's death in Gainsborough they were taken over by Cnut but the loyalty for which they had been pawned was not transferred to him. Instead, the English recalled ftthelred from Normandy and, when he outlawed all Danish kings from England, Cnut set the hostages ashore in Sandwich less hands, ears and noses (ASC White­lock, 93). Later in the century Heming's Cartulary mentions one lEthelwine, nephew of Earl Leofric of Mercia, "who had his hands cut off by the Danes while a hostage" (Williams 1980, 182).

Very soon after the Vikings had settled permanently in East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria, treaties between them and the English began to be written down. The treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, discussed below, was made in writing and confirmed with oaths as well; oaths are referred to both in the preamble and in the final clause. And in the time of Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder, relations between him and the Danish part of the British Isles were determined by some friogewritu (2 Edw 5.2); these are not extant but it is clear that they took account of much the same problems as Alfred's agreement with Guthrum.

The confirmation of the Russo-Byzantine treaties vividly illustrates the meeting of different cultures. Of the 912 treaty two identical versions were prepared on parch­ment, and one of these, possibly written in Slavonic (Nestors krf(Jnike, 257 n.33; RPC, 236 n.39), was handed by the Greeks to the Russians with the cross on it, while on

17 ~ Viking Congress 257

their side the Russians swore, in accordance with the law and their customs, that they would not violate any part of the treaty. By 945 the Russians had become literate and were able to send letters to the emperor themselves, so of this year's treaty, also written on two parchments, each party received a signed copy from the opposite side. But still the Greeks required the Russians to confirm the treaty with oaths and there is an elaborate description of the solemn procedures, both regarding the Christian Russians who took their oath in St Elias in Kiev, and regarding the pagan ones who swore on their arms and their gold (Nestors kmnike, 54-5; RPC, 76-7).

A friostol on the Isle of Wight The friostol mentioned above must be considered afresh if the notion of frio implies an agreement. Under 1006 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the achievements of a Viking army, apparently identical with the one that had been making havoc in 1004 but had returned to Denmark in 1005 because of a famine in England. The English attempts to repel it were rather unsuccessful, the Vikings ravaged as they pleased - and the English fyrd itself caused the population much harm. The chronicle then goes on: "When winter approached, the English army went home, and the Danish army then came after Martinmas to its sanctuary (fryostole), the Isle of Wight, and procured for themselves everywhere whatever they needed; and then towards Christmas they betook themselves to the entertainment waiting them (to heora garwan feorme), out through Hampshire into Berkshire to Reading; and always they observed their ancient custom, lighting their beacons as they went. They then turned to Wallingford and burnt it all, and were one night at Cholsey, and then turned along Ashdown to Cuckhamsley Barrow, and waited there for what had been proudly threatened, for it had often been said that if they went to Cuckhamsley, they would never get to the sea. They then went home another way. The English army was then gathered at the Kennet, and they joined battle there, and at once they put that troop to flight, and afterwards carried their booty to the sea. There the people of Winchester could see that army, proud and undaunted, when they went past their gate to the sea, and fetched themselves food and treasures from more than 50 miles from the sea" (ASC White­lock, 88). This passage is normally construed as a piece of irony (Plummer II, 184; Keynes 1978, 234), and the whole context, as Dr Keynes shows, affords good arguments for this. It is arguable, however, that this is another case where we should try to distinguish between the actual events recorded and the interpretation imposed on them by the chronicler. Dr Keynes has recently given an example of the way in which the account of events in MSS C, D and E of the Chronicle is coloured by the author's hindsight and shown how he often tells less than the full story (1986,201-3). If the irony is strained out of this account we are left with a few basic pieces of infor­mation which may be seen as parts of a series of events and measures which contempo­raries would have regarded as perfectly sensible. The following would be a reasonable account of the facts on which the chronicler based his sneers: 1. When winter approached in early November, the fyrd wanted to go home; they could hardly leave just like that: some SOrt of truce had to be arranged with the enemy. The Vikings, therefore, were granted a friostol on the Isle of Wight and allowed to satisfy their needs there. 2. From midwinter they would be supplied in a more organized manner:

~ I, 258

further supplies were to be kept ready for them at Reading. The word feorm suggests that they were to come out of the royal revenue which would be ready at this time anyway; the king himself was collecting his feorm in Shropshire at midwinter; in any case, a certain time would be required to arrange for these supplies. 3. Hampshire and Berkshire were more or less abandoned to the enemy, although they were probably not supposed to ravage these counties, as they had not in Winchester, and they were not to go beyond certain points, such as Cuckhamsley. The whole account reads very much as if the English had won a breather and wanted to utilize the winter to prepare themselves to resume efforts against the enemy; but when the Vikings successfully violated the terms they lost heart and once more decided to pay rather than fight them off. An arrangement like this would parallel the one, admittedly also hypothetical, made between the Franks and a Viking force in 884, discussed above.

The Foreigner and the Peace The provisions of thi~ sort of treaty would, however, hardly be really relevant to someone like Ottar. Although it is probably true to say that he was a merchant, not the leader of an army, we must admit that we know next to nothing about the sort of company with which he was travelling. He obviously must have had some compan­ions and very probably he even travelled with more than one ship. It did not strike Beaduheard as unlikely that three ships arriving together would bring merchants (JEthelweard, 26-7), and therefore the Biarmians may well have been faced with a force of between sixty and one hundred men. We can only guess at the reasons why Ottar could not obtain satisfactory conditions to continue his voyage, for in later sources there is evidence that companies like this, led by one or two great men, could obtain temporary trade permits. One example is the story of Thorer Hund's visit to Biarmaland in an uneasy partnership with Karle from Hruogaland. Karle had 25 men on board his ship while Thorer had eighty housecarles. When they reached Biarma­land they held a market with the Biarmians, obviously having obtained a peace arrangement with them in advance, and when they had conducted their trade they sailed down the Dvina to the sea. The peace was now denounced and it was decided to make a raid on the temple of the Biarmians, the seat of their god Jomala (Olav den Helliges saga, kap. 133). This is late evidence and it may reflect conditions at a much later time than Ottar's and the notion of a temporary trading peace may be anachronis­tic for late ninth-century Biarmaland. But there can be little doubt that it is what Ottar required. And, as we do not know more about the nature of his expedition, it is difficult or impossible to say whether the guarantees he wanted would be of the same nature as those extended to merchants visiting a port abroad, or they might in fact have a good deal in common with the agreements made with larger or smaller Viking forces to prevent or stop hostilities.

A good d~al may be learnt about the position of foreign merchants, or foreigners in general, from the Anglo-Saxon law-codes, and the subject is by no means a neglected one in literature. It is dealt with in general books like, for example, Whitelock 1952, Loyn 1962 or Sawyer 1978, as well as in specialized papers like Sawyer 1977 and 1981. These works all give further references, and many helpful articles about conditions in Scandinavia may be found in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder.

259

In principle, a stranger or foreigner lacked legal protection. Wherever he went he would therefore have to seek such protection and normally found it with the king or other lord of the province in which he was travelling and wished to conduct trade. The ideology of medieval kingship was deeply influenced by the church, which itself depended heavily on royal protection and on such peaceful conditions as kings were able to create through the enforcement of law, and among those kings were particu­larly required to protect, alongside widows, orphans etc., the stranger- and of course the special kind of stranger called a pilgrim - rarely fails to appear.

At a very early stage in European history it formed part of the king's office to protect traders and their markets. In return for this protection he claimed various tolls and dues as well as prerogatives like the right of pre-emption, and he might also expect gifts in some cases (Sawyer 1981, 153).

The basic problem facing a stranger would seem to be that he could not take part in legal procedure in his own right. He therefore needed someone who could appear on his behalf and who could assume responsibility for him and vouch for his appearance in court should he be charged with' any offence; one who'could, in short, afford him something practically amounting to mund and act for him as lords did for their men in court. This person was not necessarily the king himself but might be some other magnate, as suggested by the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, kings of Kent: "If anyone harbours a stranger, a trader or any other man who has come across the frontier, for three nights in his own home, and then supplies him with his food, and he then does any injury to any man, the man (the host) is to bring the other to justice or to discharge the obligations for him" (HIlS). There are many indications, however, of the special relationship between the strangers and the king himself. If a stranger was killed in Wessex, then by the laws of Ine, the king was entitled to two thirds of his wergild, his relatives to the rest (Ine 23). This is a clear indication that in relation to the stranger the king had assumed the role of his lord, but these laws still foresee that this function might be discharged by a lay magnate or by an abbot or abbess (Ine 23.2). Many travellers will have been ecclesiastics.

The wergild of the stranger is not given but there is other evidence to suggest that strangers were in fact treated like members of the aristocracy. The laws of Wihtred, king of Kent, lay down that "A stranger is to purge himself with his own oath on the altar; similarly a king's thegn", while a ceorl is to do so with three of the same class (Wi 20).

This is the sort of legal position with which Ottar as a stranger would be familiar in Wessex and probably elsewhere in western Europe, and which explains why the Old English Orosius describes King Alfred as Ottar's hlaford (13129).

The Anglo-Saxon laws contain many provisions for the conduct of trade. One of the most important and frequent ones, aiming at the prevention of theft, lays down that trade must take place before witnesses. This enabled the buyer to vouch to warranty the man who had witnessed the sale of the goods under dispute, and it facilitated the levying of royal dues on trade. Persons unable to produce witnesses in favour of lawful possession of their goods were assumed to be thieves. There are rules on this in the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric (7; 15; 16), and they are repeated again and again in later centuries. Kings Edward the Elder and Athelstan attempted to limit all trade to recognized markets or boroughs and to ensure it took place before royal officers who

260

would serve as official witnesses (I Edw 1; II As 12; Whitelock 1952, 122-3), but this endeavour failed. Similar rules are found in medieval Scandinavian laws, for example in A.ldra Viistgota Lag (Wikstrom 1974, 476). Strangers were, in fact, treated with great suspicion, and this is not just something the Vikings had taught the peoples of western Europe. The laws of Wihtred and those of Ine rule that a stranger going through the wood off the track must shout or blow his horn; otherwise he will be assumed to be a thief (Wi 28; Ine 20). There was also a fear that strangers might be spies (Loyn 1962, 99); this risk greatly concerned Louis the Pious when he was asked to allow a Rus embassy to return home from Byzantium via Frankia (AB 839).

Provisions like these are often claimed to serve the interests of peace. According to King Edgar, for example, they were intended to promote oearfe ond frioe (IV Edg 2) or gebeorge ond frioe eallum leodscipe (IV Edg 12.1).

Alfred's Treaty with Guthrum It comes as no surprise, then, that they also form part of the contents of a document describing itself as a frio. This is the treaty concluded, probably in 886, between Alfred, king of Wessex, and Guthrum, king of East Anglia 880-90. The text of this treaty has come down to us in two Old English versions, one shorter than the other but both in the same Cambridge manuscript, Corpus Christi College 383, which Ker dated to the late eleventh or the early twelfth century (1957, 110--3), and which has recently been described as the work of an inaccurate copyist who made many careless omissions (Page 1985, 215). These omissions are rarer in the later part of the manu­script, where the longer of the two versions is found and this, together with the fact that the treaty is also found in the Quadripartitus, which is based on a different manuscript (Liebermann III, 82), in a Latin version corresponding well with the longer Old English version, inspires some confidence in the authenticity of the text. Lieber­mann, in discussing it, ruled out the possibility of forgery on the grounds that no one in the eleventh century would possess the historical and linguistic knowledge required to do it, and that no answer to the question cui bono? could be suggested (III, 84).

The preamble to this treaty runs like this: Dis is oxt frio, oxt klfred cyninc &: Gyomm cyning &: ealles Angelcynnes witan &: eal seo oeod Oe on Eastxnglum beoo ealle gecweden habbao &: mid aoum gefeostnod for hy sylfe &: for heora gingran, ge for geborene ge for ungeborene, Oe Godes miltse reccen oOOe ure (AGu Pro!.); the Latin version begins: Haec sunt pads agenda . .. (Liebermann I, 127).

The first clause of this frio is a boundary clause, and this is followed by clauses on the size of wergilds and on legal procedure, how many people were required to swear what quality of oaths. The frio, that is, lays down a compensation system by which future problems between English and Danes might be settled peacefully rather than lead to vengeance or fresh hostilities. This will be recognized as the key endeavour in all medieval peace legislation (Fenger 1971), and the individual rules are paralleled in previous and later Anglo-Saxon laws.

The fourth clause is also familiar: it says that each man is to know his warrantor, getyman, when buying men, horses or oxen. It is not quite clear, however, under what circumstances such trade was supposed to take place. One would imagine that it regarded cases where Danes were trading in Alfred's kingdom, or his subjects in East

261

Anglia, but the final clause of the treaty deals with this as if it were an entirely new problem. After forbidding both parties to accept runaway slaves and others from the opposite side, clause five goes on to deal with trade between the two sides: "But if it happens that from necessity any of them wishes to have traffic with us, or we with them, for cattle or goods, it is to be permitted on condition that hostages shall be given as a pledge of peace (frid) and as evidence so that one may know no fraud is intended (to swutelunge, pxt man wite, dxt man c1xne bxc hxbbe)" (AGu 5).

Apparently, then, it was not enough for Danes wishing to trade in Wessex to enter it under the normal conditions and to follow the normal rules for trade there, that is, to conduct their business before witnesses that might afterwards be vouched to war­ranty. Keynes and Lapidge suggest that the danger from Alfred's point of view was that raiders might enter Wessex in merchant's disguise (Alfred the Great, 313), and certainly the insistence on hostages is an indication that neighbourly relations were coloured with a good deal of suspicion. This is hardly surprising, considering the number of occasions on which the East Anglians as well as the Northumbrians had already violated agreements with Alfred, as they also continued to do for two or three decades. But the involvement of hostages in border relations is by no means unique. About a generation later, possibly in 927 (Davies 1982, 204-5), the English made a treaty with the Welsh, known as the "Ordinance of the Dunsxte", in which the Dunsxte request that fridgislas be given them in addition to, or out of, those hostages which the Welsh were giving the king of Wessex (Duns 9.1).

The first provision of clause five, "that no slaves nor freemen might go without permission into the army of the Danes, any more than any of theirs to us", may well, as suggested by Keynes and Lapidge (Alfred the Great, 312-3) constitute an attempt to reduce the risk of clashes between the two peoples by stopping them from visiting or settling in each other's countries. Alternatively, however, it might form the necessary international counterpart or complement of such provisions as Ine 39 and Alf 37 which deal with those cases in which a person wishes to seek a new lord in a different scir. The reason for doing so, Alf 37 reveals, might be a wish to evade the consequences of crime, the payment of fines and composition money, and to prevent this sort of thing it was laid down that a man could only leave his lord with his permission, witnessed by the ealdorman of the scir. And to deter the prospective lord from accepting such persons in his mund, he was made responsible for the payment of such compensations as his new man was trying to evade and made to pay a fine to the ealdorman. Interpreted in this way this provision forms a parallel to II Atr 6.2: "And neither they nor we are to receive the other party's slave, or thief, or person concerned in a feud".

If someone stole into another scir, and was discovered there, then, by Ine 39, he was to return to where he was before and to pay 60 shillings to his lord; this fine is the same as the one payable by a gesith-born man who owned no land for neglect of military service (Ine 51). This, perhaps, suggests that those most likely to go across borders in search of new lords were young, landless retainers with more to gain than to lose and that, therefore, they are the particular group of freemen aimed at in clause five.

The problem with runaway slaves would be a different one. Persons enslaved in Guthrum's East Anglia might often have been captured in Alfred's Wessex; for them to escape across the border would, but for this rule, amount to regaining their freedom. That the West Saxons agreed to this rule is an implicit measure of the extent

262

to which the effects of war had to be accepted, as they were explicitly in II Atr 6.1: "Concerning all the slaughter and all the harrying and all the injuries which were committed before the frio was established, all of them are to be dismissed, and no one is to avenge it or ask for compensation". Slaves running away from the English might perhaps hope for social emancipation by joining the Danes, but if the Danes accepted such persons they would be inflicting an economic loss on their proper owners; this they pledged to abstain from. There are comparable provisions in the treaties between the Rus and the Byzantines. The 912 treaty lays down that captives were to be exchanged or ransomed; those who had bought them were to be indemnified when releasing them. Slaves running away from the Russians to the Greeks were to be returned by the Greeks (Nestors kronike, 42-3; RPC, 68). In case they could not be retrieved the Greeks were, by the 945 treaty, to pay the Rus owner two rolls of silk per slave (Nestors kronike, 51; RPC, 75). This reads like a tacit admission that if a runaway slave was not found and returned, it was a fair guess that Greek cooperation might have been less than heartfelt.

Treaties between Kievan Russia and Byzantium Treaties are known to have been concluded between the Greeks and the Russians on four occasions: 907,912,945 and 971 (Sorlin 1961); they are all recorded in the Russian Primary Chronicle. The last of these treaties is a peace treaty in the ordinary sense of the word, an agreement that the parties would not wage war on each other but keep eternal friendship, and it was committed to parchment and sealed (Nestors kronike, 70--1; RPC, 89-90). It is therefore of little interest from a comparative point of view. This also applies to the first treaty, which, although concerned with matters of trade, takes account of matters relating rather particularly to conditions in Constantinople. The Russian merchants coming to the city were allowed to stay outside the walls of the town for six months, and while staying there they were to be given provisions and allowed to bathe as much as they pleased. But they were not to enter the city except through one gate, under the control of an imperial officer, unarmed, and no more than fifty at a time; no tolls were to be paid by them. This treaty was confirmed by oaths, the Greeks kissing the cross and the Russians, according to their custom, swearing on their weapons, by their gods Perun and Volos (Nestors kmnike, 39-40; RPC, 64-5).

The two other treaties are more specific and therefore contain more that may be compared with English material. The problems they try to solve in order to achieve and preserve peace are very similar to those causing concern in England. The 912 treaty begins with a provision about oaths and sanctions for swearing false oaths, and then deals with homicide, wounds and with theft; if a thief is caught red-handed and killed because he resists arrest, he is to lie uncompensated for (Nestors kmnike, 41-2; RPC, 67). This is familiar from Anglo-Saxon laws.

The rules laid down for cases of shipwreck are interesting. The treaty of 945 states merely that if the Russians encounter a Greek ship stranded somewhere they may not apprehend goods or men (Nestors kmnike, 52; RPC, 76); similarly, IEthelred agreed with his Norwegian counterpart that if any of his subjects were shipwrecked and managed to make their way into a borough comprised by the treaty, they were to have peace (II Atr 2.1). The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 912 goes much further than this in that, if the Russians came across a wrecked Greek ship, or a Greek ship otherwise in

263

trouble, they were not only to refrain from harming the ship and the men on board, they were to assist them in every way to get back to Greece or, if the ship was beyond repair, to get their goods ashore so that they might sell them (Nestors kmnike, 42; RPC, 67; Davidson 1976, 91).

After this come the provisions dealing with runaway slaves already mentioned and rules for the administration of the estates of Russians who had died in the service of the emperor, most likely as mercenaries (Davidson 1976, 92). It was to be returned complete to his heirs or those favoured by his will. Finally there is a clause about the mutual returning of criminals (Nestors kmnike, 43; RPC, 68), which seems to serve the same purpose as the clauses in Ine's and Alfred's laws forbidding people to seek new lords in other counties, in Alfred-Guthrum forbidding them to go across to the other side without permission, and in II iEthelred forbidding the parties to receive the other party's slave, or thief, or person concerned in a feud.

This treaty in many ways gives the impression that, whereas in 907 and 912 the Russians were able to dictate the terms and got some extraordinary concessions from the Byzantines (Davidson 1976, 92), they were now in a Jess favourable position and had to accept some unilateral obligations. This is most obvious in the final clause by which the emperor is given the right to ask for military support from the Russians and not pay for it, and not give similar help if the Russians needed it. By contemporary west European standards this would amount to the establishment of an overlordship by the Greeks over the Russians. The latter also undertook to keep their hands off the Crimea.

In spite of the similarities and common problems found, Constantinople must have been a very special place to visit for a Scandinavian merchant. Trade, both internal and external, was highly regulated and tightly controlled, and the most interesting aspect of these treaties probably is their implications for our understanding of the Russian party (Arbman 1955, 118-25). The 945 treaty lays down that only merchants carrying a written introduction from the Russian prince were to be admitted; others would be detained until their credentials had been established, and if they refused they were to

be killed and no compensation claimed for them. This implies that Russian merchants visiting Constantinople must have been licensed by their own ruler and were, in a sense, his official merchants - and what an extraordinary ruler he would have had to be not to exploit this position financially. After 945 proof of their license would be a letter, before that it used to be a silver seal.

II JEthe/red The last treaty to be discussed, and to be interpreted in the light of what we know about frio, is the one known as II iEthelred, which has already been referred to

several times above. The manuscript authority for this treaty is the same as for Alfred's treaty with

Guthrum, i.e. CCCC 383, where it occupies fols. 88-93 (Ker 1957, 112), and the Quadripartitus. It is thus found in the least careless part of CCCC 383, preceded by a text known as Becw:l:o (also found in the Textus Roffensis) and followed by Duns:l:te; Liebermann had no hesitations about its authenticity or completeness (III, 150). Both manuscripts include some clauses not originally belonging to the treaty;

264

they are treated by Liebermann as an appendix and normally omitted by translators. II JEthelred was concluded between JEthelred, king of England, and a force of

Vikings whose leaders were Olaf Tryggvason, future king of Norway, Jostein, and Guthmund Steitasson. It has most often been assigned to the year 991 after the battle of Maldon, but a convincing case was made for 994 by E.V. Gordon in 1937.

In 994 England saw the advent of a Viking fleet under the co-leadership of Olaf Tryggvason and Swein Forkbeard. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this fleet first failed to conquer London, and the Vikings then turned their attention towards Essex, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire and finally took winter quarters in Southampton. Provisioning of them was arranged for and they were paid 16,000 pounds cash. After this, sometime during the winter, King JEtheired sent one of his bishops and an ealdorman, the well-known chronicler JEthelweard, for Olaf, who, hostages having been given to the ships, came to Andover with much ceremony, "and the king stood sponsor to him at confirmation and bestowed gifts on him royally" (ASCWhitelock, 83). The chronicle does not mention any treaty being concluded on this occasion; nevertheless it seems most likely that II JEthelred originated at this meeting.

This treaty declares itself to be based on some local agreements negotiated for their respective areas by Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, JElfric, ealdorman of Hamp­shire, and JEthelweard, ealdorman of the western provinces. It is the mentioning of Sigeric that has caused the dating problems. He died before the end of October 994 and could therefore hardly negotiate a treaty in the winter 994-995. In fact, the treaty does not say he did. I says that he negotiated a settlement for Kent, his diocese, which was attacked immediately after the Vikings had failed to take London, and that this was later, together with similar settlements negotiated by JEifric and JEthelweard for their provinces, taken as a model when the king wished to make a national settlement. It is perfectly plausible that Sigeric negotiated his terms in early October and then died ­and that later in the winter JEthelred used them as a point of departure for his own negotiations, together with those agreements negotiated by the ealdormen. It may be assumed that, had Sigeric still lived, he, the most prominent of the bishops and already at peace with the opposite party, and not bishop JElfheah would have been sent for Olaf together with JEthelweard, who was the most prominent of the ealdormen between 992 and 998 (Keynes 1980, 157 and table 6) and of course also familiar with the subject to be discussed. After Sigeric's death JElfheah, bishop of Winchester and future archbishop of Canterbury - and future martyr -, was the most prominent among the bishops (Keynes 1980, 131 and table 3).

It is conspicuous that of the two principal leaders of this Viking fleet, Swein and Olaf, only Olaf was invited to sign the treaty. The explanation must be that JEtheired attempted and managed to split his enemies and to hire Olaf's help against Swein. The treaty foresees a situation in which Olaf takes JEthelred's pay against other Vikings (II Atr 1.1) and under the circumstances no forces were more likely to come into question than Swein's. Also it would make good political sense for JEthelred to try to divide his enemies and play on traditional Norwegian resentment against the Danes, who claimed and often upheld the overlordship of Norway. There are indications that later in his reign JEtheired was in alliance with Olaf Haraldsson against his Danish enemies (Keynes 1980, 227).

E. V. Gordon thought the reason why Swein was not invited was that he had left

265

England already and was busy in the Hedeby area having skirmishes with the German emperor (1931, 29). This is hardly so. Gordon referred to Steenstrup, whose story is based on the runic inscription made by Swein in memory of his himjJigi Skarpi, who had gone west and now lost his life at Hedeby (DR 3), but he overlooked that this inscription had already been the subject of much debate and Steenstrup's interpreta­tion thoroughly demolished. A balance sheet of this debate was drawn up by Aksel E. Christensen and Erik Moltke in 1971. It seems preferable to follow the chronicle, which takes care to state that the whole army wintered in Southampton, & com jJa eall se here to Ham tune & jJa:r winter setle namon (Plummer I, 129). And if Swein had left England with an important part of their joint forces, there would certainly have been less pressure on JEthelred to come to terms with Olaf and his followers, perhaps so much less that he would not have bothered.

When interpreting the treaty it is important to bear in mind that it is based on three local treaties that were, so to speak, elevated to national level. It begins by stating that if another sciphere should harry in England, then Olaf and his men were to help 1Ethelred - and be supplied with food as long as they were doing so (1.1). Any regions that might frioian, or give asylum to, those that were harrying England would also be considered enemies, literally outlaws, utlah, by both parties to the treaty. This clause has no international scope and does not make the treaty one between England and Norway. Olaf was not yet king of Norway. What is anticipated is that a fresh Viking force, for example a Danish one - and possibly those Vikings still with Swein in Southampton -, might find sympathy and even support in, say, East Anglia, or Lincolnshire, or Yorkshire, in which case these regions would become un frioland. Evidence that this possibility was by no means remote, and that JEthelred was concerned about it has been submitted elsewhere (Lund 1976, 191).

On the basis of this interpretation the following clauses make good sense. Clause two deals with merchant ships from outside the frio. In spite of their being called unfrioscyp they are by no means hostile ships, for they are to have frio when they enter an estuary, obviously one under JEthelred's control, provided they are not driven ashore. If they are driven ashore, they shall have peace only insofar as they manage to get into a friobyrig, a borough included in the peace (Fell 1982-3, 96-7). The implication is that if visitors from regions outside the peace, and which the Vikings might consider legal prey, came into regions included in the peace, then they should be covered by the frio which JEthelred had purchased for his kingdom, and before him the archbishop and two ealdormen for their provinces. This demonstrates a territorial aspect of the peace, in contradistinction to the next clause which invests 1Ethelred's subjects with a personal peace.

Clause three provides better terms for the king's friomen, that is, those belonging to regions party to the treaty. They are to have peace both on land and on water, both within an estuary and outside. More particularly, it is stated that if one of King 1Ethelred's friomen comes to unfriOland, a region outside the treaty, and the army comes there too, his ship and all his goods are to enjoy peace. This resembles the terms stipulated by the Russo-Byzantine treaties of 912 and 945: "If the Russes find a Greek ship cast ashore, they shall not harm it, and if any person remove any object therefrom or enslave a member of the crew, or kill him, he shall be amenable to both Russian and Greek law"(Nestors kronike, 52, RPC, 76). Still more particularly, the frioman

266

coming to unfrid/and is to have peace if he has drawn his ship ashore or built a shed or pitched a tent. If, however, he has brought his goods into a house together with goods belonging to unfridmen - and this seems a likely event if he was coming to the unfriO/and for trading purposes - he is to forfeit his goods but to salvage his peace and his life, if he announces himself. It seems reasonable that in such circumstances the army could not be expected to distinguish between frid-goods an unfrid-goods. And if the fridman will not announce himself and even flees of fights, then it is fair that he should lie uncompensated for if he is killed. ­

With such complicated rules mistakes could easily happen, and the army might possibly be tempted to take a somewhat restrictive view of someone declaring himself to be a Fridman. The next clause therefore deals with such cases in which a Fridman claims to have been unlawfully deprived of his goods by the army. The steersman of the ship that took the goods then has either to return the property, or to swear with four others that he took it according to the terms agreed, that is, the claimant had brought his goods into a house together with goods belonging to unfridmen.

The fifth clause deals with manslaughter and the compensations to be paid for the slaying of freemen or slaves. As in Alfred's treaty with Guthrum, Danes and English cost the same. These rates apply if fewer than eight men are slain but if eight or more are killed it is a breach of the frid, beyond compensation. If the frid has been violated in this way in a borough, eight or more Vikings having been killed, the citizens are to surrender the slayers or some of their nearest kin, head for head. If they cannot or will not the ealdorman becomes responsible. If he will not force them the king must do it, and if he does not, that ealdormanry, not the kingdom itself, liege on unfride (5.2): an ealdormanry that had so far been friO/and turned into unfriO/and. This rule, making the ealdorman or eventually the king responsible, has a parallel in the Ordinance of the bishops and reeves of London. It is here stated that a reeve who cannot catch a thief who has stolen cattle in a neighbouring district and return the cattle to its proper owner must pay the price of the cattle (VI As 8.4).

The counterpart to II Atr 5.2 is a provision that if the Vikings kill eight "of us", they are then to be outlawed both by the army and by the English, and they are to lie uncompensated for if they are killed (7.1). This may seem unfair, the Vikings getting easier terms that the English, but, for obvious reasons, the English had no interest in stipulating terms that might place part or all of the army beyond the frid. They had, after all, just paid 22,000 pounds to secure their acceptance of it (II Atr 7.2).

This sum is given in the last clause of the treaty as it is now known, but this clause reads more like an annal and in this form perhaps is due to one of the scribes or compilers who have transmitted the text between the original and ecce 383. The amount does not correspond with the sum stated in the chronicle for 994 and this has caused some concern. The chronicle records a payment in 994 of16,000 pounds which were paid to the army wintering in Southampton, before, that is, Olaf was summoned to tEthelred. Two explanations appear possible. Either there were two independent payments, one of 16,000 pounds made to the army when it was still united in Southampton, and a fresh one of 22,000 pounds made to Olaf and his followers when they deserted Swein and took .tEthelred's pay against other fleets that might harry in England and agreed to all the terms set out above. Or the 22,000 pounds could include the 16,000 pounds plus those payments made by Sigeric, tEthelweard and .tElfric when

267

they first purchased peace for their own districts. The first explanation is the more consistent, and, although it is a lot of money, it is no incredible sum. A charter preserved in the registers of Christ Church, Canterbury, gives us some impression of the practical problems involved in raising the money for the Vikings and of the sums involved. The archbishop of Canterbury, Sigeric, had to alienate an estate at Risbor­ough in Buckinghamshire to iEscwig, bishop of Dorchester, to raise his part of the tribute. It was an estate of thirty hides and for it Sigeric was paid 90 pounds of silver and 200 mancuses of gold (EHD, no. 118).

The contents of this treaty rule out every possibility of regarding it as an interna­tional treaty and of using it as evidence of the expansion of English trade. The situations foreseen in it are such as could only occur in England, and one probably comes as close to the truth as possible by regarding it as an agreement between an English king and a force of foreign warriors who had taken his service and would now have to spend some time in England under as peaceful conditions as possible. But the king was in no position to coerce them or get rid of them by force if they did not behave to his satisfaction; that was' his dilemma. The situation was, in fact, much like the situations in the ninth century when English or Frankish kings agreed to let Vikings have winter quarters or sanctuaries for shorter or longer periods during which they were supposed not to pillage or murder, destroy or burn. How, if the Vikings were not sojourning in England, could an English merchant hope to be able to sue them in court for goods he claimed he had been unlawfully deprived of? How would he produce the steersman to swear with four others if they were not based in England? - Would the rules for dealing with manslaughter and compensations make sense under any other circumstances, or is the provision that the killing of eight Vikings could place an ealdormanry beyond the peace imaginable under other than domestic condi­tions?

Acknowledgemen ts I am grateful to all those who contributed to the discussion at the congress and suggested problems that should be taken account of in my work. I also wish to thank Dr Kai H0rby, Dr Simon Keynes, Professor R. I. Page and Professor Peter Sawyer for valuable help and discussions.

REFERENCES

AB: Annales Bertiniani, Quellen II, 12-286. A:thelweard: The Chronicle of-, ed. A. Campbell, London, 1962. AGu: IElfred und Guthrum, ed. Liebermann I, 126-9; trans. Alfred the Great, 171-2, d. EHD no. 34. AU: Laws of Alfred, ed. Liebermann I, 16-89; trans. Attenborough 1922,62-93, d. EHD no. 33. Alfred the Great. Asser's Life ofKing Alfred and other contemporary sources, trans. with an introduction

and notes by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Harmondsworth, 1983. Arbman, H., 1955: Svear i osterviking, Stockholm. As: Laws of Athelstan, ed. Liebermann 1,146-83; trans. Attenborough 1922, 122-69, cf. EHD nos. 35-7. ASC: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Ed.: Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Charles Plummer, 2

vols., Oxford, 1892-9; trans.: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a revised translation ed. by D. White­lock et aI., 2nd impr., London, 1965.

Atr: Laws of IEtheired, ed. Liebermann I, 216-70; trans. Robertson 1925, 52-133, d. EHD nos. 42-6.

268

Attenborough, F.L., 1922: The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, London. AV: Annale$ Vedastini. Quel1en II, 290-337. Christensen, A.E. & Moltke, E., 1971: "Hvilken (kong) Svend belejrede Hedeby?", Historisk Tidsskrift,

12. ra:kke, bind 5, 297-326. Davidson, H.R.E., 1976: The Viking Road to Byzantium, London. Davies, W., 1982: Wales in the Early Middle Ages. (Studies in the early history of Britain), Leicester. DR: Danmarks Runeindskrifter, 2. vols., ed. L. Jacobsen & E. Moltke, Kobenhavn, 1941-2. Duns: The ordinance of the Dunsa:te, ed. Liebermann I, 374-9. Edg: Laws of Edgar, ed. Liebermann 1,192-215; trans. Robertson 1925,16-39, d. EHD nos. 40-1. Edw: Laws of Edward the Elder, ed. Liebermann 1,138-45; trans. Attenborough 1922,114-21. EHD: English Historical Documents c. 500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock, London, 1955, 2nd ed. 1979 (texts here

referred to by number). Fell, C.E., 1982-3: "Unfrio: An Approach to a Definition", Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern

Research XXI, 85-100. Fell, C.E., 1984: "Some questions of language", Two Voyagers at the Court ofKing Alfred. The ventures of

Ohthere and Wulfstan, together with the Description of Northern Europe from the Old English Orosius, ed. N. Lund, York, 56-63.

Fenger, 0., 1971. Fejde og mandebod. Studier over slzgtsansvaret i germansk og gammeldansk ret, Kobenhavn.

Gordon, E. V., 1937: "The Date of .!Ethelred's Treaty with the Vikings: Olaf Tryggvason and the Battle of Maldon", The Modern Language Review XXXII, 24-32.

HI: Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, ed. Liebermann 1,9-11; trans. Attenborough 1922,18-23, d. EHD no. 30.

Ine: Laws of Ine, ed. Liebermann 1,89-123; trans. Attenborough 1922, 36-61, d. EHD no. 32. Ker, N.R., 1957: A Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, Oxford. Keynes, S., 1978: "The Declining Reputation of King .!Ethelred the Unready", Ethelred the Unready,

B.A.R. 59, 227-53. Keynes, S., 1980: The Diplomas of King JEthelred "the Unready" 978-1016. A Study in their Use as

Historical Evidence, Cambridge. Keynes, S., 1986: "A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and .!Ethelred the Unready", Transactions ofthe

Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 36, 195-217. (I am grateful to the author for making this paper available to me in advance of publication.)

KHL: Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk midde1alder I-XXII, Kobenhavn, 1956-78. Liebermann, F., 1903-16: Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen I-III, Halle. Loyn, H., 1962: Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest, London. Lund, N., 1976: "King Edgar and the Danelaw", Medieval Scandinavia 9,181-95. Lund, N., 1981: "The settlers: where do we get them from - and do we need them?", Proceedings of the

Eighth Viking Congress, Arhus 24-31 August 1977, ed. H. Bekker-Nielsen et al., Odense, 147-71. Nestors kronike. Beretningen om de svundne ar, overs. G. O. Svane, Arhus, 1983; matching references are

given to The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text, trans!' and ed. by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, quoted as RPC.

Olav den Helliges saga: Snorre Sturlasson, Kongesagaer, overs. A. Holtsmark & D. Arup Seip, Oslo, 1957, 210-482.

Old English Orosius, ed. J. Bately, (Early English Text Society. Supplementary Series; 6), Oxford, 1980. Page, R.I., 1985: "Gerefa: Some problems of meaning", Problems of Old English lexicography, ed. A.

Bammesberger, Eichstatter Beitrage, Sprache und Literatur 15, 211-29. Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte II, ed. Reinhold Rau, Darmstadt, 1969. Robertson, A.J., 1925: The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, Cambridge. Sawyer, P.H., 1977: "Kings and merchants", Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P.H. Sawyer & LN. Wood,

Leeds, 139-58. Sawyer, P.H., 1978: From Roman Britain to Norman England, London. Sawyer, P.H., 1981: "Fairs and markets in early medieval England", Danish Medieval History, New

Currents, ed. N. Skyum-Nielsen & N. Lund, Kobenhavn. Sorlin, I., 1961: "Les traites de Byzance avec la Russie au x' siecle", Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, 2,

313-60, 447-75. Stenton, F.M., 1971: Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed., Oxford. Whitelock, D., 1952: The Beginnings of English Society, Harmondsworth. Wi: Laws of Wihtred, ed. Liebermann 1,12-14; trans. Attenborough 1922, 24-31, d. EHD no. 31. Wikstrom, L., 1974: "Torgfrid", KHL XVIII, 475-81. Williams, A., 1980: "Land and power in the eleventh century: the estates of Harold Godwineson",

Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman studies, 171-234.

269