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To cite this article: Eldbjrg Haug (1997) The icelandic annals as historical sources,
Scandinavian Journal of History, 22:4, 263-274, DOI: 10.1080/03468759708579356
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03468759708579356
Eldbjrg Haug
Stand. J. History 22
264
Eldbjrg Haug
the form in which they have been left to us? Would it be possible to date them in
relation to each other?
To answer these questions, I first explain something of the research situation.
Then I try to demonstrate source criticism applied to the Icelandic annals. As an
example on how to evaluate a yearbook, I use notices from the Lgmann's annals.
Finally, the source value of the annals is assessed.
Cf. Beda.
Translated from Dahl 1967: 45.
Bolin 1931; Christiansen 1974.
Scand. J. Histo 22
The annals are often written by several generations of different and mostly anonymous
authors. The Fragmented Annals have ten different writers, and the Lgmann's
Annals have five.
Their emphasis is on events, and they give contemporary notices of historical facts
which were important to the annalists.
Doubts about the annals being on-the-spot accounts led to the next popular
belief: As the annalist could not have been present at all the occasions he wrote
about, he must have based his information on oral information and perhaps
rumour. Carried out to their extreme, the annals may be perceived as the
newspapers of the Middle Ages.
The place of origin adds a character to the sources, which could be significant in
explaining certain characteristics and peculiarities. Annals were mostly written in
monasteries and chapter houses, and were intended for internal use. But they were
often copied in one place, and then continued somewhere else. The copyist might
also add new information to the years already described. It is therefore difficult to
create a stemma, as well as to determine each yearbook's place of origin. The
Icelandic Annals were mostly written by clerics in monasteries or at bishop Sees,
and events which are important from an ecclesiastical point of view are given a
relatively large amount of space.
On this background the study of annals belongs to the study of medieval
historiography. The history writing from the Middle Ages and well up to the 17 th
century was a teleological history writing. Building upon Hebrew antecedents,
Christianity introduced a new linear notion of time into the Greco-Roman world.
The Judeo-Christian time line literally began at one moment and would end at
another, and it revealed God's purposes. In the Christian schema, the turningpoints of sacred history- the Creation, the Incarnation, the life and death of Jesus,
and the prospect of the Last Judgement - set the framework for all historical time.
Sacred history gave all of time its meaning. The Christian time schema occupied
scholars right into the 17th century.
Before turning to the next point, it should be noted that there are annals on
Nordic ground other than the Icelandic yearbooks. The Danish chronicle of
Zealand is in the form of a yearbook (Christiansen 1974). The Vadstena Diary is
another example (Gejrot 1988). Lists of kings also belong to this category (Bolin
1931). Although it has been assumed that annalistics was something the Norwegian
clergy did not occupy themselves with, some sources of this kind from Norway are
issued in Volume IV of The Old Norwegian Laws.
2. Research
The first Nordic historian to introduce modern source criticism based on philology
was Gustav Storm. His publication of sources to Norwegian medieval history, with
critical commentaries, is impressive. Among his publications we find the already
mentioned Volume IV of the Old Norwegian Laws {Norges gamle Love), the ten oldest
Icelandic Annals (Storm 1888), and Monumenta Histrica Norwegica (Storm 1880). He
was also the first to issue the Chronicle of Hamar, which is possibly a remnant of
annalistics at the medieval bishop See of Hamar (Storm 1895, 1890a, 1890b). His
Introduction to the Icelandic Annals is of such great value that it may have
Scand. J. History 22
prevented other historians from taking up the subject. He did not himself, however,
consider the theme as exhaustive, as can be seen in his encouragement to other
historians to continue the research on the Icelandic Annals (Storm 1888).
The next important historian in the critical school was the Danish historian
Krislian Erslev, who introduced the dichotomy of narratives and remnants (Erslev
1926/1987). He was succeeded by the Swedish historian Lauritz Wdbull, with his
critical examination of the history of the Nordic countries around the first
millennium. His dissertation was issued in 1911 (Weibull 1911), and in 1913
Halvdan Koht followed up with his radical criticism of the sagas (Koht 1913). In
treating the dichotomy, narrative remnant, Koht's main point was that the sagas
reflect the time in which they were issued. They should therefore be treated as
remnants of their issuing situation, rather than as narratives about the events they
described. In 1931 Sture Bolin, known among historians and archaeologists for his
"History of the Coin", presented a large critical treatise on the oldest Swedish
annals (Bolin 1931, 1962). He showed that these annals from the very beginning
were learned compilations. When an archaeologist finds an old treasure of coins in
the ground, he knows that it could not have been laid there earlier than the year of
issue of the earliest coin in the treasure. Bolin found that the Swedish yearbooks
were constructed in a similar way. From the beginning they were the result of
learned compilations, copied into the annals not much later than their earliest
notices, instead of being written into them consecutively, event by event. The
annalists were historians - they used the sources and evaluated them. Only one
thing was missing - a systematic criticism.
After Storm presented his Introduction no critical treatises on the Icelandic annals,
similar to Bolin's on the Swedish ones, have appeared. It is true that Sven Axelson
held his doctoral dissertation on Sweden in foreign annalistics with a particular view
to the Icelandic Annals (Axelson 1955). His intention was, however, to trace the
origin of the information on Swedish affairs, not to clarify the origin of each of the
yearbooks in the way Bolin had done. If he had discussed that issue, his large body
of work would have had a greater value. Tage E. Christiansen emphasized this
point in his study of the chronicle of Zealand. The question of the origin situation
is crucial to an understanding of the character of the source: The annals are
remnants of the past - all sources are remnants. But are they also narratives? Are
we working with a contemporary or non-contemporary source? Are our sources
first-hand records?
Christiansen 1974.
Scand. J. History 22
were they written? This critical position may give us a clue to understanding the
unintelligible, and may explain errors and peculiarities that we were unable to
explain before.
There is also the question of how to arrive at a date for the manuscript. We
should not take the year of entry of the last notice as the terminus ante quern at face
value. The first thing to do is to read the source in its entirety and look for
discrepancies in the notices. The mistakes may give us a clue. Even if the Skalaholt
annalist writes for the year 1349 that Pope John XXIII was elected, it is worth while
asking whether the notice was written after 1410, when the Council of Pisa elected
a pope of that name. It is also reasonable to assume that no one would record the
death of a person before he or she was actually dead.
If it is possible to prove that the annals were not annotated consecutively year by
year, this may explain why the chronology varies from one piece of work to
another. Even events which would presumably have occurred in the immediate
surroundings of the writer are dated wrongly and described falsely. This is a
consequence of the fact that, contrary to what is believed, the annals were not
written consecutively year by year.
Secondly, we should decide whether our source is biased. Some notices could be
seen in this light. When the annalist suddenly presents the cause of an event, we
should be on the alert. This is not typical of annalistics. Another form of prejudice
could be in the character given to some persons, with their virtues or vices specified.
For example, the characterization of Archbishop Nicholas Rusare in the
Lgmann's annals: He did not perform any of a bishop's tasks before he died.
Or the characterization of Queen Margaret in the Vadstena Diary: She had a very
happy life as to mundane matters.
The bias of a source must be evaluated according to the time in which it was
written, not according to what it describes. The bias of the source is thus important
in itself, and may give us a clue as to the time when the evaluation first appeared. It
is therefore necessary to form an opinion on the bias of the annals and ask for which
historical situation it is typical.
Besides mistakes in the manuscripts themselves, we find, of course, information
from other manuscripts such as the sagas, which we are able to trace in the annals.
This, then, is our third task: to look for information drawn from other written
sources. Are there any elements from other manuscripts which can be found in the
annals? If the answer is yes, this may disappoint us regarding the establishing of one
type of historical fact. It will, however, give us a source to another historical issue.
Haug 1996.
Scand. J. History 22
are based upon, and also older than the Flateyarbk. This assessment depends on
how our concepts are clarified.
The oldest manuscript of the Lgmann's annals dates from the 14th century, and
is written by five different annalists or "hands". This manuscript is considered to be
the original one. The yearbook was continued after 1393, as can be seen from a
copy, and went on until 1430, but the original last part of it is lost. From this,
however, it can be concluded that in its complete form the yearbook was younger
than the Flaty annals, as well as the lost annals from the North Coast.
The first author of the annals is the priest and official principal of Hlar, Einar
Havlidesson. Thus the annals must have been written close to the Northern bishop
see on Iceland. Einar Havlidesson's edition stops in 1362.
Einar Havlidesson also wrote Bishop Laurentius's saga, probably after he had
finished the annals, as they and other annals are referred to and quoted in several
places in the saga. His narrative of the Black Death has been used both by authors
of historical novels and by historians as a contemporary source on how the disease
spread. I would, however, be reluctant to use this narrative as a source before
checking what other contemporary authors had written about the plague. In any
case, Einar Havlidesson's narrative should not be regarded as older than the
description given in the annals from Skalaholt for the year 1348.
When I looked for errors in Einar Havlidesson's annals, I noted the description of
the death of the Swedish king Erik Magnusson in 1359. The annalist writes that
Erik Magnusson died from poisoning. This is considered to be false. Its provenance
is Hbellus de Magno Erici Regis, which was written while Magnus Eriksson was the
prisoner of King Albrecht of Sweden, i.e. between 1365 and 1371. The tendency of
the Libel is to justify the Swedish aristocracy for supporting Albrecht of
Mecklenburg as Swedish king while dethroning Magnus Eriksson. The anonymous
author used material from St. Birgitta's revelations, but the poisoning of King Erik
is an original accusation.
The libel also accused Queen Blanche of being a poisoner. The annals did not
include this accusation. Einar Havlidesson must have sensed the prejudice of his
exhibit and therefore omitted any accusation against the king's mother.
The notice of King Erik's poisoning indicates that Einar Havlideson wrote this
after the Libel had been written between 1365 and 1370. He seems to have written
the annals in one process, and not consecutively, year by year. This indicates 1365
as terminus post quern, and Einar's death in September 1393 as terminus ante quern.
The next four writers of the Lgmann's annals are anonymous. The 2nd hand
started with notices for 1362, and continued until 1380.
One piece of information could give an indication to the provenance. For the
year 1364 the annalist states that King Erik Magnusson and Lady Blanche were
betrayed at the court. This notice may also have been constructed from the Libel,
although not as precisely as the other one. One might therefore suspect that the 2nd
hand was familiar with the serious accusations of the libel, but had not read them
himself. He knew that Queen Blanche was dead, and also that her son was dead.
He had heard about the wedding in Copenhagen between Margaret, King
Valdemar's daughter, and King Hkon VI of Norway, but did not have any exact
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Scand. J. History 22
269
information. Tage E. Christiansen has pointed to the Libel as the source of The
Chronicle of Zeeland concerning its narrative of the wedding in Copenhagen and
Prince Christopher's death at that time. The Icelandic 2nd hand might have mixed
these rumours without having read any of the manuscripts himself. He knew that
Queen Blanche and her son, King Erik, were dead, but was not capable of
evaluating his information, either chronologically or factually.
My hypothesis is that the 2nd hand started his work some time after 1380, which
is the last year of his notices.
The notices of the 3rd hand for the years 1379 and 1380 do not give any clues to
indicate provenance. The 4th hand is of greater interest. This "hand" has written
notices for the years 1380-1383 and 1388-1392, many of them relating to the
church policy of Queen Margaret. Here is the narrative of the provision of the
Dane Nicholas Rusare to the Arch See of Nidaros, contrary to the election of the
chapter. Some errors give us a clue to the date of authorship. The canonization of
St. Birgitta is mentioned for the year 1390, whereas she was actually canonized in
1392, so the notice cannot be older than that. For 1391 it mentions the deaths of
some well-known Norwegian nobles: Hkon Johnson, Hkon Stumpe and Gaute
Eiriksson. Their deaths cannot have been written into the annals before these men
had actually passed away. Gaute Eiriksson lived longest of all. He was alive in 1412,
but mentioned as dead in 1413, his death thus being the terminus post quern for the
writings of the annalist. And since we have already established that these annals
were continued after 1392, a possible hypothesis would be that the 3rd, 4th and 5th
"hands" all belong to that part of the yearbook which is now known only as a copy,
and is often referred to as the New Annals. All the errors in the chronology indicate
that the notices must have been written down a relatively long time after the events
had occurred.
The 5th hand in the Lgmann's annals fills in the gaps from 1384 to 1387, 1388
and 1389. It is this "hand" who has written the famous aftermath of Archbishop
Nicholas Rusare: He did not perform any of a bishop's duties while being in
Norway, therefore he did not perform any consecrations and did not confirm any
children. The 5th annalist also made a mistake in his chronology. From the fact that
he wrote his notices in the gaps left by the 4th hand, we conclude that they were
written after that writer had stopped. We have already demonstrated that 1413 was
terminus post quern for number 4. But since the manuscript ends in 1393, we cannot
tell from palaeographical indications exactly when annalist No. 4 put his quill
down.
We may, however, get somewhat further by studying the annals' place of origin.
Einar Havlidesson was a priest on the Northern Coast of Iceland, close to the
bishop See of Hlar. According to Storm, his successor should be traced in the
same circles. But from about 1380, or with the 3rd hand, the manuscript must have
been continued at Skalaholt. Its continuation, only known through our copy, has so
much information on Bishop Vilkin of Skalaholt, that someone close to him
probably wrote those notices. My hypothesis is that this annalist is identical with the
3rd hand. It is difficult to say exactly when he stopped he may have continued for
some years after Vilkin's death. But from 1403 and up to 1420 another
ecclesiastical character dominates the text - the next bishop at Skalaholt, Arni
Olafsson. My next hypothesis, therefore, is that a person close to this bishop
Scand. J. History 22
continued the annalistics, and that he is identical with the 4th hand. Since this hand
began his writing after 1413,1 am inclined to believe that he started after the death
of the bishop in 1420.
If my other hypotheses are correct, who is the last annalist, who is identical with
the 5th hand? Let us take a look at the dramatic events at Skalaholt after Bishop
Arni's death. The vacancy lasted until 1426, when he was succeeded by John
Gereksson Lodehat. The new bishop had been dismissed as archbishop of Uppsala
in 1421, owing to misconduct. Before becoming archbishop, he had been
Chancellor to Erik the Pomeranian. From the narrative of the Icelandic Annals we
learn that the infamous archbishop and bishop ended his days in 1433, when
rebellious Icelanders drowned him. The rebellion was linked with a proposal to
Margaret Vigfusdatter, daughter of the Icelandic "hirdstjore" and sister of Ivar
Vigfusson. The suitor was the bishop's son, but Margaret turned down the
proposal, and her brother supported her. As a revenge their house was set on fire.
Ivar perished, while Margaret survived. She took an oath that she would only
marry a man who would avenge her brother.
Elements of this dramatic narrative echo throughout the Icelandic family sagas.
There is little else to read about John Gereksson in the last parts of the new annals.
However, they do not present a positive image of conditions on Iceland. The
church at Skalaholt is reported to be in a bad state, as it has been without a bishop
since the death of Arni Olafsson. The official principal is old and almost blind. The
new bishop arrives from England, bringing with him a great many Danes who are
of no use. Only two priests are mentioned by name, probably because they
collected tithes for the bishop in great haste, to take to England to be sold. These
are not events that one would expect to be written at the bishop See, in close
proximity to the new bishop. I would rather suspect that the annalist belonged to
the same circle that drowned the bishop in July 1433.
If we assume that the compilation of the last part of the annals took place at the
bishop see after the drowning of the bishop, we arrive at the time of the Council of
Basle, where the drowning ofjohn Gereksson was treated. On a more homely base,
the Dala rebellion raged from 1434 to 1436. In Norway, Amund Sigurdsson Bolt
rebelled in 1436. And on Iceland, the English behaved like pirates towards the
inhabitants. If we see this political climate in connection with the 5th hand of the
annals, new light is thrown on the notices from the 1380s. The Norwegians and
Icelanders were in conflict with Danish bailiffs and English merchants and pirates.
Since Nicholas Rusare was also a foreigner, actually a German, although according
to the annals a Dane, this could be used against him in the actual situation of
conflict with foreigners. The annalist's rather biased summing up of the archbishop
office of Nicholas Rusare probably reflects the political situation in Iceland at the
time that it was written.
My hypothesis concerning the last part of the yearbook, which is only preserved
as a copy, cannot be considered as proven. What is established, though, is that the
yearbook was not finished until the middle of the 1430s.
Haug 1995.
DN VIII 74; Hamre, col. 513.
Scand. J. History 22
There are, however, several notices in the annals about the bishops leaving the
island with their followers. Their destination was Norway, their mission in most
cases to visit the archbishop. It is likely that these visits resulted in both oral and
written information about events which could later be written into the annals.
Although we cannot always trust the information in the annals, the fact that an
event is written down at least gives us a source concerning the diffusion of
information.
Obituaries in the annals, and also information about bishop successions, are
often of such a character that even when we lack other sources, they can be
assumed to be correct. This is of course most likely for events on Iceland, but
events recorded for Bergen or Nidaros may also be true. The problem is usually the
dating, particularly of the year, as the annals cannot be considered to be
contemporary sources in a strict sense.
Before I finish, let me point to another area of interest - the history of mentality.
Events which we would not consider significant nowadays, the annalists found to be
so important that they took notes about them. Often it is impossible to decide
whether or not the event is true. One of Queen Margaret's dreams is recounted in
the Fragmented Annals. Although it is not significant as such, it gives an interesting
glimpse of a way of thinking and imagining. From Heimskringla we know the
dreams of Queen Ragnhild. King Sverre used his dreams consciously in his political
propaganda. Dreams have always had a great symbolic value, not only in the
Nordic Middle Ages. The annalistic notice of Queen Margaret's dream was
probably meant to throw light on her life and work. However, it tells us more about
the writer and his world of thoughts than about Queen Margaret.
6. Conclusion
I have maintained that the Icelandic annals should be studied as historical remnants
before we use them as narratives. We date the annals, we establish the place in
which they were written, we identify the anonymous writers; in short we establish
the situation of origin. I have demonstrated that one of the annals is not written
consecutively. All the Icelandic annals I have studied so far, give the same
conclusion. And I have proved the annals to be an interesting source category,
although more interesting as remnants than as narratives.
My final remarks are about the benefit of studying the annals. When studying
them as remnants we perform a historiographical research, or a literary criticism.
Since the event's imprints cannot be properly interpreted unless we first put them
back into the cultural system which they influenced at the time, it is necessary to
bear in mind everything that is known about this culture in order to evaluate the
accounts that have come down to us. The study of the annals is a hermeneutical
process of knowledge, which gradually reveals to us other aspects of medieval
culture and society which were formerly hidden.
The annals are interesting sources in the study of the medieval mentality. The
characteristics of each of them tell us what the anonymous annalist considered
9
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Scand. J. History 22
important. In the words of Georges Duby, we seek to observe "the impact that the
imaginary and oblivion have on information, the insidious penetration of the
marvellous, of the legendary, and, in the course of a sequence of commemorations,
the fate of a memory in the midst of a changing set of mental representations."
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