Gotland,

home of the Varangians

Tore Gannholm
The Varangians 1
By the same author
Gutarnas historia, 1990
Svearnas härkomst, 1991
Beowulf gutarnas nationalepos, 1992
Gutasagan, 1992
Guta lagh, 1994
Svearnas härkomst samt invandringen
till Skandinavien, 1994
© Tore Gannholm
Gotland och den tyska hansan,
1300-talets Europamarknad, 1994
Gotland und die deutsche Hanse,
Der Europamarkt des 14. Jh., 1994
Visby Regina Maris, 1100 år, 897 -1997, 1994 Graphic form och layout Tore Gannholm
Visby Regina Maris, 1100 Jahre, 897 -1997, 1994 Stavgard förlag 2017
Gotland, Östersjöns pärla, 1994 info@stavgard.com
The Origin of Svear, 1996
2000 Jahre Handel und Kultur im Ostseegebiet -
Gotland Perle der Ostsee, 1996
Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea,
Center of commerce and and culture
in the Baltic Sea region for over 2000 years, 2013
The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its
Medieval Churches, 2015
Gutland Varjagernas hem 2017

Cover: Varangian ship. Painting byErik Olsson

2 Tore Gannholm
Contents
Foreword 5
There were no Vikings in the Baltic Sea region 6
The Baltic Sea Region 7
Cairns 7
Stone ships 12
Close contacts with the Celtic empire 16
Gotlandic early ships 19
Marcomannic influence 23
Early Gotlandic trading Emporiums 28
THULE and the island in Mare Suebicum 30
The Gold Ring from Havor 35
Roman knight and Gotland ? 38
The immigration of the Heruls to the Lake Mälar area in the 500s 42
The Vendel era 44
The Russian rivers 46
Gotland and its relations to the Black Sea area 47
Gotlandic picture stones 51
The Rus’ Khaganate 57
Kingdom of Khazaria 59
Miklagar∂r, the Gotlandic Constantinople 60
The Silver Stream over the Baltic Sea 63
The official Christianization of the Varangians 70
Trade agreement in Miklagar∂ar 71
Kievan Rus’ 74
Gutagård 76
Primary Chronicle 78
First churches on Gotland 78
The church building period 82
Guta Saga and Guta Lagh 84
Are the Gotlandic crucifixes the earliest wooden crucifixes natural size 89
Archbishop Unni and the Danish church 95
Visby is coming into being 96
Romanesque stone churches 105
Early Scandinavian churches 106
Professor Johnny Roosval writes: 110
Romnesque stonemasters 111
The Varangians 3
Gotlandic Romanesque churches 115
Iconic churches 117
Hejnum old Church from 1029, nave and choir 118
Fardhem old Church from 1029 120
Väte Romanesaue Church (1050) 123
Sanda romanesque Church (1058) 127
Vänge Romanesque Church (1058) 128
Reliefs in Grötlingbo Church (1090) 133
The tower portal in Dalhem 135
Diedrich of Bern 136
Danish expansion 139
The Guild Organizations on Gotland 144
The entry of German merchants into the Baltic Sea 146
Shift in Religion in 1164. 158
The Gotlandic Church and the Linköping diocese 160
The Novgorod Trade, the German St Peter’s trading house 167
Around 1210-40 Visby was unchallenged leader of the Transitional Style 169
Was it of mood or economics? 172
Contra Gothic, the Gotlandic national archtectural golden age 174
Cultural background Gotland’s medieval mural painting 176
The expansion of Christianity, the Crusades 180
Gotland and the furture Hanseatic towns 183
Notes 186
The Gotlandic history by year 205

4 Tore Gannholm
Foreword
To understand the history of the Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medie-
val Churches, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant
Republic, the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its
relations mainly east and south and controlled trade on the Russian rivers from
time to time. Already 800- 500 BCE Gotlandic merchants had a large trading
emporium in Achmulova on the Volga.
The Gotlandic history is misleading and difficult to understand if it is bundled
with the Swedish history, that so far has been done. They both have their se-
parate history.
We know that the Varangians, by Arabic writers in the 800s called al- Rus’, were
merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region, who came rowing on the
Russian rivers. From there comes later the name Russia.
The Byzantine Patriarch Photius, in a circular letter in 867, calls the Gotlandic
merchants Rhos and informs the Oriental patriarchs and bishops that, after
the Bulgars turned to Christ in 864, the Rhos followed suit so zealously that he
found it prudent to send to their land a bishop.
Sven Ekbo (1981) convincingly connects the word al-Rus’ to Old Norse ro∂r
meaning ‘expedition of rowing ships’.
On the Russian rivers in the 800s there were rowing Gotlandic merchants,
Varangians, who the Arabic writers accordingly called al-Rus’. In the Baltic Sea
there were no Vikings, only Varangians.
The Gotlandic Merchant Farmers’ counted their birth position and their social
class socially higher than burghers and peasants of other nations. The diffe-
rence can obviously be explained, that they were aware, that they had a higher
form of freedom, namely to be free from land lords and liability to taxation.
The Gotlandic society before the 1600s was considered to be an ‘ethnie’, a
group with a perceived common origin, language and history.
The governor of Tobolsk, Siberia’s capital, Count Matjev Gagarin (1711-1719)
was considered to be of Varangian origin and higher than Tsar Peter who was
just a Romanov.
Bibliography you find in the books:
”Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea Center of commerce and culture in
the Baltic Sea region for over 2000 years” ISBN:978-91-87481-05-5
”The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches”
ISBN:978-91-87481-49-9 (701 pages 1400 photos)
Burs February 20th 2017
Tore Gannholm
The Varangians 5
There were no Vikings in the Baltic Sea region.
The word Viking is not known in the Baltic Sea region. The Vikings were warri-
ors, from the second half of the 700s, from Denmark, the west of Sweden and
Norway who sailed westwards, and they had no contact with the Arabs, as the
Arabs had no name for them. The Arabs called the Vikings majus, magitians.
There is a clear line in the river Elbe between Vikings and Varangians. East of
the river Elbe there is no mention of Vikings, only Varangians (Askeberg, Fritz,
Norden och Kontinenten i gammal tid, 1944).
On a rune stone from Hablingbo on Gotland it says: ”Vatgair and Hailgar rose
the stone after Hailgi, their father. He had gone west with the Vikings.”
What is remarkable here is the claim that Hailgi had gone west with the Vikings,
not “in Viking”. To be “in Viking” meant to be at war and rampage, i.e. be on a
Viking expedition. But as it says that Hailgi went with Vikings, one can wonder
if it means that Gutar unlike mainland Scandinavians did not regard themselves
as Vikings.
The Viking Age starts with the attack on Lindisfarne in 793.

In the Baltic Sea region, after the signing, in the 550s, of the trade and peace
treaty with the earlier immigrated Svear (Herulic royal family and entourage) to
the Lake Mälar area, the Gotlanders (Varangians) continued to dominate trade
in the Baltic Sea area and could freely trade under Svea protection in the areas
now controlled by the immigrant Svear.
Instead of paying duty every time they came to Svea trading places they paid an
annul fixed fee and could move freely.
There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca
650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear.

End 700s, after the founding of Bagdad in 762, the capitl of the Islamic Calip-
hate was moved from Damaskus to Bagdad. New silver discoveries made silver
from the Islamic Caliphate flow. The Gotlanders entered the Russian rivers,
which they from early times were very familiar with, all the way to river Volga
and the Kaspian Sea. The Gotlandic Merchant Farmers were on the Russian
rivers called Varangians and by the Muslims al-Rus’ (expeditions of rowing
ships). It is documented in Byzantine sources that from the second half of the
800s and forward there were larger Gotlandic contingents, called Wareng and
Rhos, stationed in Miklagarðr (Constantinople).

6 Tore Gannholm
The Baltic Sea Region
In the history of Gotland some of the key threads in the development of the
entire Baltic Sea region are gathered.
This is a meeting place for Gotlanders, Curonians, Danes, Slavs, Svear and la-
ter Germans. Gotland has through its position as a continental outpost in the
north or Nordic outpost to the south, on the border between East and West,
a cultural key position. Gotland plays a similar role for the Baltic Sea region as
Cyprus and Sicily have played as intersections for the Mediterranean countries’
trade relations and cultures.
As a result, one can through most of the time not only note a marked individu-
al character in the Gotlandic culture, but also lively contacts with the countries
bordering the Baltic Sea region.
Much of what in the Gotlandic culture seems foreign to Scandinavian culture,
has counterparts in the East and South. When the Bronze Age turns into the
Iron Age, it does not happen with the first iron but with a new shape world
during a relatively long transitional stage. At that time an important technologi-
cal change seems to have taken place. The ships will now have a size and design
that allows transport of many men over wide waters. Coastal traffic is replaced
partly by sea journeys and shipping.
Julius Caesar tells in the Gallic War, III. 12-14 how the ships looked like that the
Veneti had on the coast of Brittany:
“The Gauls’ own ships were built and rigged in a different way from ours.
Their keels were somewhat flatter, so they could cope more easily with the
shoals and shallow water when the tide was ebbing; their prows were unusually
high, and so were their sterns, designed to stand up to great waves and violent
storms. The hulls were made entirely of oak to endure any violent shock or im-
pact: the crossbeams, of timbers a foot thick, were fastened with iron bolts as
thick as a man’s thumb, and the anchors were held firm with iron chains instead
of ropes. They used sails made of hides or soft leather, either because flax was
scarce and they did not know how to use it, or more probably, because they
thought that with cloth sails they would not be able to withstand the force of
the violent Atlantic gales, or steer such heavy ships”.

Cairns
Gotland has an unusually large number of stone cairns of considerable size.
There are over 1300 stone cairns registered on Gotland, which are from ten
metres in diameter and upwards. Of these 400 are so-called large cairns. Most

The Varangians 7
Uggarde råir

of these are Bronze Age graves and is an early manifestation of the Gotlandic
independence in form of burial. The Bronze Age burial barrows accumulate
preferably in courses along the coasts. The largest of these could certainly
serve as landmark for the mariners. This applies particularly to Uggarde råir in
Rone, which measures about 45 metres in diameter and is about seven metres
high. This is Gotland’s and one of Scandinavia’s most powerful funerary mon-
uments from the Bronze Age, which emerges, yet untouched by the treasure
diggers and archaeologists, among several smaller mounds on the deserted be-
ach moor. One km south of it lies the ancient fort, Gudings castle.
A characteristic detail of the cairns is the cone, crater-like pit that is in the
head. These craters, found in many cairns, were thought to be the residue of
prey diggings. Modern studies have shown that they instead formed complex
structures with a single tower-like building of drywall like Kauparve in Lärbro.
In the center of the cairn has been a grave building or coffin of stone or wood,
that has collapsed and thereby caused the sag in the middle of the cairn. In this
regard the cairn at Grauns cliff is of special interest. The Cairn was limited by
a terrace wall of limestone chips, and the center under the deep crater was sur-
rounded by a cylindrical wall 2,5 metres high. In the cavity next to the wall was
found a similarly walled coffin with the skeletons of two individuals. A bronze
needle dates the tomb to the early bronze age.
They have probably not all been so lavish, but in many of the larger cairns
can be traced so much of constructive thinking, mathematical and technical
knowledge, that we can talk about architecture. They are built of granite, on the
northern part of Gotland also of limestone. Occasionally they have later been
covered with earth (Godsbacken in Burs).
The first tomb building in the bronze age has thus arisen as a real architecture,
a tower-like mausoleum on the open beach slope. This tomb has since been
expanded to the current heap. The large cairns are leading worship and burying
8 Tore Gannholm
places of the social order. Most mounds are graves with several people and
have been used for a long time. In the cairns are found both skeletons in coffins
and burnt bones of humans scattered among the stones. These built cairns are
no Gotlandic specialty but they have on Gotland obtained a strong concentra-
tion. They belong to a broad range of Western European burial buildings, and
ultimately have their roots in the Cretean and Mycenaean domed tombs. The
cairns represent the first stone building art, which has been practiced on Got-
land, 2000-2500 years before the time of the oldest churches. The cairn was the
dead man’s house. There he lived a shadowy life after the earthly life was ext-
inguished. As elsewhere in Scandinavia during the Early Bronze Age the dead
body was laid in a coffin made of stone. So it was in the Koparve cairn. Or in
a log coffin, which was found in a mighty cairn in Väskinde, where admittedly
the coffin is now gone, but where a trough-shaped stone cairn at the bottom
clearly stated the kind of form of burial. The buried had been a man, who had
with him a bronze sword in death, and whose mantle in the front was held by a
graceful small bronze buckle. This grave was from about the same time as the

The photo shows a large

burial mound in Hörsne pa-
rish which was investigated
in 1957. The construction,
which over the centuries gra-
dually has been expanded,
consisted of five concentric
stone rings and outside the
outer circle a pair of small,
round secondary graves. From
an original central tomb, who-
se coffin has been spoiled, has
the construction grown out as
new burials occurred.

The first tomb was probably built at the beginning of the Bronze Age, and the cairn was then used with some inter-
ruptions for more than thousand years. The area should also have been used as a place for worship. A large number
of animal bones that were scattered over the area suggest offerings to the dead. It may be that even human sacrifices
occurred. From Bronze Age has three inhumation graves and nine cremations been dated. In addition there are a large
number of stray finds, which probably originate from other funerals. The secondary graves, the small rounds in the
mound periphery, show that the facility after an intermission came into use again during the Iron Age.
Photo Erik Nylén and Bengt Schönbeck.

The Varangians 9
Part of the depository find from Eskelhem’s recto-
ry. Top bit to bridle with cheek bars. In the middle
pierced disc with rattle sheets, bottom right round Magnificent jewelry from the Late Bronze Age Gotland. -
rein ornation. Photo Ivar Andersson Photo Sören Hallgren.

cist in the cairn at Koparve.

Inhumation was the way of burial in the Early Bronze Age, as it was on Got-
land since at least the days of the Västerbjers community. Already during the
time of the large cairns on Gotland, a new burial custom began to gain ground
in the Nordic countries. The dead were burned at the stake. This practice would
then come to exist, sometimes sole prevailing, sometimes side by side with
inhumation, throughout the remainder of the prehistoric period until the in-
troduction of Christianity, when inhumation was the only permissible way of
burial. Quickly had cremation graves spread across Europe. Quickly it was also
accepted in the Nordic countries. Already at the beginning of the Late Bronze
Age, the corresponding time around 1000 BCE, it had almost completely su-
perseded the old way of burying. The dead lived no longer a shadowy under-
ground life under a heavy stone burden, but had been released by the burning
of the earthly existence.
During the time of inhumation graves, weapons and tools of occasionally
very magnificent and expensive kind were laid in the men’s graves. The women
were endowed with beautiful jewelry. After the cremation gained ground it also

10 Tore Gannholm
changed the practice of large burial outfits. The dead no longer had need for
such things. The richness of the tomb was changed gradually into poverty and
only one or other trifle was enclosed with the burnt bones, a small knife made
of bronze, a button, a gadget. At the same time the memorial to the dead beca-
me all the plainer. The mound or cairn decreased in size, and finally a clay urn
with the burnt bones from the pyre was put down in the flat ground or on the
edge of a mound or a cairn of old time. This process can also be seen on Got-
land. The island had a lively contact with the outside world, and willingly took
influences from there and this not least in the area of faith life. The practice of
burning the dead has obviously reached Gotland early, already at the middle of
the Early Bronze Age. Such an example is the important grave finds at Stora
Hallvards in Silte. When Viking Age graves, on the large flat land cemetery just
north of Silte church, were excavated there was suddenly a cremation grave,
even this one located under flat land. It consisted of a tiny pit in the subsoil
with plenty of burnt bones, among which was a dress needle of bronze with
a big, spire loupe curled head. There were also two bracelets of bronze. The
jewelry in this find provides an inescapable evidence that the tomb was built
during the Early Bronze Age and therefore they at that time already, to some
extent, had started to burn the dead.
It is tempting to believe that the large cairns ceased to be built when the cre-
mation graves seriously broke through. It was the change in perception, which
prompted the suspension of this practice. The dead man’s home was no longer
a problem. The burning at the stake completed the separation from life on
earth. This did not end the requirement to give the deceased a dignified burial
with framing.
In the ancient monument rich area at Stavgard in Burs was excavated in 1984
an earth covered mound popularly known as ‘Godsbacken’. This mound is of a
type not previously found on Gotland, the peat-covered large cairns. This type
of large mounds are also found in Denmark and Skåne in Sweden.
During the late Stone Age, about 2000 BCE, the tomb remained open for bu-
rial and cult acts, certainly surrounded by a wooden palisade. The investigation
of the mound has in detail shown, in what times, and how it played its role
3000-4000 years ago.
A new burial form appeared on Gotland during the late Bronze Age, which
was more widely known there than in any other Nordic area, and for some
centuries to come would make its mark in cemeteries around Gotland. It is the
stone ships, the most beautiful tomb form from prehistoric times on Gotland.
In monumentality it competes with the large cairns.

The Varangians 11
Stone ships
As early as the Early Bronze Age the trends that Gotland is emerging to be-
come an independent cultural area are to be traced. These trends are highly
prominent during the late Bronze Age. The appearance of stone ships is likely
to be perceived as a locally developed grave form. They are presumed to be
copies of actual ships.
From the Late Bronze Age, period IV, visible stone ships are built in large
numbers on Gotland. The Gotlandic stone ships do often contain a number of
funerals. As many as seven occur within a single monument. The funerals are
shaped in the same way and the tradition can be proven over about 300 years
from the middle of period IV and V. During period VI and into the oldest
pre-Roman Iron Age the tradition is changing on Gotland. During the oldest
Iron Age there are skeleton graves in completely buried small boat-shaped sto-
ne cists.
See also Achmulova grave field in the Volga region where there are more than
1000 Gotlandic graves dating back to 800-500 BCE.
The religious idea, its archetypal meaning content, is reasonably always the
same. We can hardly assume that the Gotlandic tradition arises out of a nothing
in period IV. The background must again be sought in the fact that the ship is
covered by a religiously meaningful content. What is expressed in the Gotlandic
stone ship is the religious meaning of the content of social function facilities.
During the Bronze Age it was the sun that was worshipped in the religious cult.

Among Gotland’s over 350 stone ships one of the most powerful with its impressive length of 45.5 metres is at Gnis-
värd fishing village in Tofta parish. It is now hidden by a dense and relatively young spruce forest, but formerly the stone
ship sailed out over the sandy meadows, visible at long distances.

12 Tore Gannholm
The sun was pulled across the sky by a horse. At night it returned to the east
in a boat.
Even the ship-shaped burial was with this belief an associated symbol. The ship
was believed to carry the dead man’s remains over the dark waters to another
country. But the many stone ships along the coasts of Gotland offer also some-
thing different, something more worldly and material. Gotland was a seafaring
nation and the ships expressed the importance of trade and transport.
Perhaps were they also erected primarily over persons, who in an efficient way
had been involved in commercial dealings with foreign countries.
In the stone ships at Rute were found four house urns, three of them had been
placed in a stone coffin containing the burnt bones of two adults and one child.
The house urns on Gotland have been dated to period IV-V (1100-600 BCE).
Its specific linkage to the island’s stone ships is an indication that the stone
ships can be seen as a concrete expression of the basis for collected ideas and
religious beliefs.
To be buried in house urns is a tradition of continental origin and the transmis-
sion of the tradition to Gotland supports undeniably the obvious, namely that
this area was a key trading region during this period. This is also manifested by
the inclusion of continental ideas in local Gotlandic traditions. The Gotlanders
were part of these Bronze Age maritime groups with networks that extended
across large parts of northern Europe and with links further to the south. A
network maintained due to the increasing dependence on bronze and other im-
portant raw materials as a means of social status and cultural dependency.

Bronze was imported to Scandinavia from the south, and the Gotlanders were
part of these peoples who conducted the trade and formed the networks.
There is no extravagance in deposits in the graves in stone ships in relation to
the grave findings made in the cairns and stone circles. House urns which can
be considered as an import of a continental idea imagination are in Gotland
only found in stone ships. Here we observe an example of transfer of a religio-
us belief from other cultures. The excavation of the stone ship at Tängelgårda
in Lärbro has documented a funeral with findings of i.e. razor and tweezers
from the Bronze Age period V (900-600 BCE).

Gotland has over 350 stone ships, which are about 2500-3000 years old. Many
of these are astronomically directed towards the maxium points of the sun
or moon or to the south. The Bronze Age represent a first high flow in Got-
landic cultural development on the basis of trade. Gotlandic ships landed on

The Varangians 13
the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea and found their way up the Russian rivers.
During the late Bronze Age the Gotlandic element in the Baltic Sea countries
is much stronger, and now we can see graves of Gotlandic types. In fact, in
the Baltic Sea region north of Daugava the artefacts are predominantly Got-
landic. Already in the period 1000-750 BCE the Daugava link is considered to
be the significant trade route between the East and Gotland and further on to
the Scandinavian peninsula. Monuments of this Gotlandic trading can also be
found on the west coast of the Gulf of Riga in Courland, stone ships that is
the most distinctive grave type from the Gotlandic Bronze Age. Here we have
clear evidence of a Gotlandic colonization. There are at least twelve stone
ships, eight in the circuit Talsi, one in the adjacent circuit Ventspils, and a few
more hints of stone ships in the previous circuit. Most of them show features,
which we only know from Gotland. They can not be interpreted otherwise
than that they are built by people who have emigrated from Gotland to the
other side of the Baltic Sea! These Gotlandic colonists could be part of those
peoples who formed the core of what the Romans later called Goths (Gutans).
Through fortunate circumstances and good access to food, they multiplied
greatly and in the second century CE spread out down towards the Black Sea.
Those on Gotland so richly represented stone ships are from the Late Bronze
Age and appear in two versions, the above mentioned, and the boat-ship-shap-
ed coffins which apparently intentionally have been hidden under flat ground.
There they have been elaborated with smaller stones and limestone chips into
‘shod’ trenches in ship shape around the tomb recesses with burnt bones. They
belong to a relatively common Gotlandic form of burial and the time is appa-
rently parallel with the more monumental, standing stone ships. We are pro-
bably dealing with a highly varied complex of ships forms on Gotland during
Late Bronze Age and the transition into the Iron Age, where some graves are
designed as coffins buried with unburned corpses.
Another obvious Gotlandic grave field as mentioned before is this in the Volga
region, from the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, old Achmulova grave
field. This is the same time as the Greeks colonize large parts of the Mediter-
ranian and Black Sea.
There are more than 1000 graves dating back to 800-500 BCE. In this ceme-
tery are many of the skeletons encased in a ship-shaped wooden structure in
the ground, but there is no indication above ground. Similar tombs are known
from the same time only on Gotland. It seems quite clear that relations between
Gotland and the Volga region during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age
were then already direct (note 1).

14 Tore Gannholm
Stone ship at Djupvik in Eksta. Painting by Erik Olsson

Like the cairns the stone ships are erected in the coastal areas. Usually there
are one or two stone ships near or immediately adjacent to the large cairns.
Several stone ships are often on the same site. But they also exist isolated in
the landscape.
They appear particularly numerous in the border area between Vallstena and
Boge parishes. This seems to have been a large and important district in the
Bronze Age. Further they can be found in Alskog, Lau, Burs and Rone parishes
and in a continuous strip on the west coast with Silte in the south to Väster-
hejde in the north. Many occur in the hinterland north of Visby and even Fårö
has a few. Unusually monumental stone ships are lying near Gnisvärd fishing
village in Tofta.
The so-called Gålrum beside the road between Alskog and Lau has seven of
the large granite-built stone ships with stems in each other’s wake. At Liffride
in Lärbro just beside the highway to Hellvi are five small ships in a row located
next to each other. At Tjelders in Boge is e.g. the so-called Tjelvars tomb, which
is built with care and craft with deck marked by an increase between gunwale
blocks.
In some cases the ships are built with comparatively small and low blocks,
arranged in series. In other cases they are built of large blocks, set on end and
gladly with increasing rail line to the sometimes more than man-high counter
blocks. In a stoneship at Digerroir in Garde a stone with grooves has been reu-
sed as stem. The grooves probably had no meaning any longer as the grooves
are on the part of the stone that is below ground.
The Gotlanders were in close contact with the East Baltic area during the early
The Varangians 15
Metal Age, Bronze Age and pre-Roman Iron Age. For Estonia and Latvia, with
their stone circles and stone coffins of the Gotlandic type the distribution limit
goes somewhere along the present Russian state border.
The community, which by the Romans was known as the Goths (Gutans),
was shaped in the centuries before CE in the Vistula area. According to recent
research, it was a number of peoples who formed a new League of Nations
where the Gotlanders (Gutar) would have taken a leading position. In ‘Gothic
Connections, Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic
coast 1000 BCE-500 CE’, Anders Kaliff shows that the southern Baltic area
was a cultural center with Gotland in the middle.
The stone ships are indicating that the art of shipbuilding during the transition
from Bronze Age to Iron Age was highly developed on Gotland. Ship types
vary significantly. The slendered semi-tapered stone ships with an elegant leap
in the rail line between high stem stones are in their way testimony of the high
ship building art among the Bronze Age Gotlanders, which now had advanced
far beyond hollowed oak logs and sealskin canoes from the stone age. They are
a reminder of the dead man’s life on the ship’s table and on his extensive travels
but also symbols of a divine vessel, the sun ship, carrying the dead over the
waters of oblivion. There are plenty of stone ships in Scandinavia, but on the
Swedish mainland, they mainly belong to a much later part of the past, namely
the Viking Age.

Close contacts with the Celtic empire

During the Celtic Iron Age 300 BCE to zero there seams to be close Gotlandic
commercial relations with the Celtic empire.
The equipment that the Gotlandic warrior wore was, however, virtually the
same as those of the East Germanic tribes on the continent in the Vistula area.
It had little in common with Celtic weapons.
There have been identified Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the southeastern
shores of the Baltic Sea from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age (note 2). Some
of these trading Emporiums are in the center of where we consider the for-
mation of what we later call the Gothic people (Gutans) took place. After the
tribes at the Vistula area had formed under one group of leaders they called
themselves Guthiuda and emigrated from there down to the Black Sea region.

The Gotlandic artefact population is at this time Celtic La Tène characterized

16 Tore Gannholm
and exhibit almost excessively rich ornamentation, especially characterized by
hemispherical rivet heads differently grooved and cross ornated with pearl lines
and grooved surfaces of plates and other items. Everything is made with su-
perior technology, both in bronze as in iron. It is particularly the belt garniture
(group C about 50 BCE - zero), which changed design, may be due to late influ-
ence from Schleswig-Holstein in parallel with the previous group B (c. 100-50
BCE), where ring types dominate.
Now are the artificial combinations of iron cast in bronze gone, and in many
cases the rough technical procedure. It should be recognized, however, that
there are good works also from time Group B, but these can not be matched
with subsequent group.
Gotland is strangely lonely in the Nordic region with this artistic boom. Several
of those ornamental details described here can be found in Stradonice but oc-
cur to some extent also elsewhere in the Celtic area.
It is probable that Gotland has been reached by these influences with Bohemia
along the Oder. Stylistic features, as reflected by the time group C, continue on
Gotland in D and even down into Roman times. To judge from the ornamental
details, and almost identical hardware found in both these areas it can be more
reliably ascertained that relations existed with Bohemia and the region around
the upper reaches of the Elbe at the time around BCE/CE.
It seems that already in late La Tène time the trade routes between Gotland and
Bohemia would have been open. These routes with the Marcomanni kingdom,

Provincial Roman wine ladle with strainer, pottery and bronze

fittings for two drinking horns from woman’s grave from the
early Roman Iron Age at Skällhorns, Källunge parish. Photo
ATA.
Back Button Buckle of silver with garnet cloisonné of gold
from a tomb at Trullhalsar, Anga. Buckle length is 5.9 cm.
The Varangians 17
after the first years in CE, have been considered to have had great importance
on the Baltic Sea culture.
A major scene change took place on the continent during the centuries around
BCE/CE. The game about the hegemony over the countries and peoples
moved on. Two new sophisticated participants entered the scene and the fight
between them would continue for centuries. The Celtic power had to move
from attack to defense. From the South their positions were attacked by the
military better organized Romans. From the north by the warlike German-
ic hordes. This double edge attack settled in a comparatively short time the
Celtic fate. The Germanic tribes pushed into their core countries in Central
Europe. With irresistible force the Roman legions advanced into Gaul from the
opposite end, which from the year 51 BCE was completely in Roman hands.
The Romans laid shortly thereafter wide areas in the east and north under the
Roman Empire. Thus was the Celtic world out of play. Over its ruins met Ro-
mans and Germanic tribes. Rhine and Danube were during four centuries the
border between them. A new power grouping had occurred in Europe. For the
Nordic countries and not least for Gotland this was a continuing process of
critical importance. The meeting between Roman and Germanic cultures laid
the foundation for a development within the Germanic world, whose effects
have to some extent asserted itself into our time.
A real revolution had taken place after the hard times that had been prevail-
ing. This lavish, almost profligate surrender to iron things for the dead means
that there was a good supply of iron. The iron had become public property.
Gotland certainly had now learned how to extract iron from lake- and bogore,
which was mostly imported from the Swedish mainland. The small needles,
from the oldest Iron Age graves, when the iron for its costliness and rare sake
was formed into simple jewelry is past. The jewelry, especially buckles of var-
ious types, were made mostly of bronze, which once again become easier to
obtain. But in the men’s graves weapons are telling that this young Iron Age
not only has been wealthy, but also warlike emphasized. It is rather long swords
with one egg, slender iron spearheads and high, conical buckles, who sat in the
middle of the handle of the elongated wooden shield. It is the first time we
have evidence of the existence of the ancient principal protection in Gotlandic
graves. It is likely that Bronze Age warriors also had shields, which then were
made of wood or leather or both, but lacked fittings of metal.
From the archaeological finds, we can safely assume that the Gotlanders (Gu-
tar, later known as Varangians) had close contact with the Goths (Gutans),
both when they were in the Vistula area and when they pulled away to the

18 Tore Gannholm
south, to the Black Sea.
As we have seen above we have Gotlandic trading Emporiums in the Baltic
Sea region from the late Bronze Age. These trading Emporiums are not so far
from Hiiumaa, where the Guta Saga indicates was the first stop in the Baltic Sea
region for the emigrant Gotlanders.

Gotlandic early ships

One can distinguish two consequences of this development. Firstly one could
now carry out surprise raids on distant shores. This has forced the settlements
to leave the dangerous shore and move further inland. Secondly the develop-
ments have been in a more positive direction. It was now possible, through
easier communication along the southern coasts of the Baltic Sea, to form
a common cultural area, a Baltic Sea culture, with central points on Gotland,
Öland and Bornholm.
This culture is characterized by three major factors:
1) a technically accomplished goldsmithing, particularly in the filigree.
2) a similar, Celtic inspired, shapeworld.
3) and finally an advanced furnace for iron production.

Rowing ships round Hoburgen. Such ships are mentioned by Tacitus. The axe formed picture stones have stylized ships
with high stems and a tent-like house in the middle of the ship with shields on the sides. They have paddles but no sails,
seven pairs of oars as the picture stone from Sanda, which was found during the restoration of the church in 1956.
The stone lay on the floor at the door to the sacristan. Its upper part was found in the churchyard wall at the beginning
of the 1900s. Painting by Erik Olsson

The Varangians 19
After having lived through the period of colder climate and the entry of iron,
the 150 years BCE are characterized by a great material boom on Gotland. The
previous poverty was succeeded by wealth of finds, so numerous that Gotland
is richer represented from this time than any other part of nowadays Sweden.
During the remainder of the period, until 500 CE, Gotland’s position was uni-
que. No other part of the Baltic Sea region was so rich and had such close ties
with the mighty Roman Empire and the Greek-Byzantine culture of the Black
Sea.
This culture included picturestones with whirlsun wheels. Very pale, barbarized
copies can later be found in the Lake Mälar area. The graves are ‘veritable iron
mines’. In a single grave at Vallby in Hogrän were thus part of at least eight
swords, eight spears, and two buckles. This clearly expresses that Gotland now
had entered a real Iron Age.
The shape of objects reveals the same desire for an independent creation,
which could be observed in the limited but highly individualistic shape in the
oldest Iron Age on Gotland. This is especially the case for jewelry items, which
are largely Celtic from about 300 BCE.

Picture stone from Bro church

Picture stone from Austre I Hangvar. The great ‘worm’ is,
according to Göran Henriksson a perception of Enckes co-
met that was visible this close to the sun, because it was a total
eclipse, in 292 CE.

20 Tore Gannholm
The relations with the continent is mainly oriented in the same direction as in
the oldest Iron Age, i.e., to the northeastern part of Germany. There was the
Celts’ large kingdom. However, during the first century BCE, a big change of
the scene on the continent takes place. The Celtic power had to move from
attack to defense. From the South their position was attacked by the military
better organized Romans. From the north they were attacked by the warlike
Germanic hordes. This double edge attack settled in a comparatively short time
the Celtic fate. In this way the Celtic world came out of play. Over its ruins met
Romans and Germanics. Rhine and Danube was for four centuries the border
between these peoples.

Gold and silver was brought to Gotland by trade, and an art in precious metals
arose, which was inspired from Roman direction and got lively encouragement
by influences from the Gothic culture circuit. The filigree technique, i.e. the
method in regular patterns to organize twisted wires and grains of precious
metals, became extremely popular and was practiced with impressive skill by
Gotlandic goldsmiths. Splendid bracelets of gold and silver were produced as
was probably the famous gold collars found on the Swedish mainland which
is proof for artistic and technological quality in Baltic Sea Migration Period
jewellery. Nothing surpasses the three famous gold collars from Ålleberg, Fär-
jestaden and Möne. The Bronze age foundrymen accomplished great things,
sleek buckles and other things for the female dress. Belt fittings and other for
the men intended decorating details were also manufactured.
The early Roman period was also a flowering of the ceramic craft. On Gotland
a qualified early pottery was developed with low, heavily flared clay pots on a
well-perfected foot. They have no equivalent elsewhere in the Nordic region
and form the prelude to a beautiful ceramic manufacturing that lasted until
the Late Iron Age. In the design influence from Roman bronze vessels can be
traced. A tight, restrained ornamentation of dotted horizontal lines, sometimes
replaced by narrow embossed tape, increases the favorable impression of the
Gotlandic ceramics.
In almost every Gotlandic skeleton tomb from ancient Roman Iron Age there
is such a vessel of uniform workmanship. It suggests the presence of cer-
tain production centers on Gotland, potters who worked for sale. Suitable clay
known as potter’s clay came to Gotland with the cold disaster about 10 300
years ago. It can be found in Havdhem and Eke. The earlier Land ice deposi-
tions, when the ice boundary passed Gotland around 12,500 to 12,000 years
ago was, however, ‘bleke’ a useless scrape off from the limestone bedrock.

The Varangians 21
It was not only manufactured goods, which were brought the long way to Got-
land. There are deposits of over 6.500 Roman silver coins, known as denari,
perhaps deposited in the Earth in connection with past unrest or as safekeeping
under the floor. They are at earthworks found a little here and there on Got-
land. They have been found on Gotland in larger quantities than in other areas
in the North. 86,7% of all Roman silver coins found in present day Sweden are
from Gotland. Their transportation here has occurred along the eastern trading
routes, which links the Baltic Sea region with the Mediterranian in the south.
The earlier ones have probably arrived on the Amber Road. Of these about
6500 silver coins found on Gotland 1500 are from a single find, which came
to light at Sindarve in Hemse. No less than 20 Roman rulers are represented
among the coins in the Sindarve treasure. The oldest is beaten for the emperor
Nero, who ruled from 54-68 CE. The youngest for Emperor Septimus Severus,
who ruled 193-211 CE. The majority of found Roman silver coins would have
come to Gotland during a short period between 175 and 200 CE.

The same orientation as the denarii shows a different object from Gotland,
belonging to the 200s CE. It is the famous rune spearhead, which was found
at Moos in Stenkyrka, but unfortunately not expertly excavated. There is no
doubt that it comes from a tomb. It was acquired from a collector in 1916 along
with another iron spearhead and a shield buckle of bronze with an indication
that all this would have been in the same grave. The object has on one side of
the blade a silver-added inscription consisting of five characters with the letter
‘sioag’, whose meaning is disputed. The Moos spear head is an outstanding ex-
ample of Gotland’s during the 100s and 200s vividly effective relationship with
the Black Sea Goths. It is remarkable not least by the reason that it is the oldest
so far found runic inscription in present day Sweden. The Roman writer Taci-
tus’s famous words about ‘Suionum hinc civitates’, which according to him li-
ved ‘out in the ocean’, i.e. the Baltic Sea (by the Romans called Mare Suebicum)
and who were ‘mighty not only by men and weapons, but also by fleets‘ and
where ‘wealth was in honor’ fits exactly on the Roman Iron Age Gotlanders.

22 Tore Gannholm
Markomannic influence
Already Cimbrian and Teutonic peoples, who had their settlements on the Jut-
land peninsula, had passed through the current German territories and made
their way into Gaul. They had then turned against the heart of the Roman
Empire, but eventually been beaten on Roman soil. These thrusts were soon
followed by another, the Germanic king Ariovistus, who also led his troops
into Gaul, but was defeated by the Roman governor Julius Caesar. This happe-
ned in 58 BCE.
Even at the early time of Augustus Octavianus, the Romans had had bitter
experience of Germanic tribes on the war path, their morale and combat ef-
fectiveness.
At the Rhine fought, among others, the Germanic tribe the Marcomanni. The
Marcomanni settled in the Main River valley soon after 100 BCE. To escape
Roman aggression they in 9 BCE migrated east to Bohemia, where their king
Maroboduus established a powerful kingdom that Octavianus now known as
Augustus perceived as a threat to Rome. Before he could act, however, the war
in Illyria intervened.
Eventually Maroboduus was deposed and exiled by Catualda (CE 19), a Gothic
nobleman, who had been exiled by Maroboduus but returned, perhaps by a
subversive Roman intervention, and defeated Maroboduus.

Tacitus, in the late 1st century mentions (Germania I.42) the Marcomanni as
being under kings appointed by Rome.
During the first two centuries CE the Marcomannis developed into a leading
Germanic cultural area in Central Europe, who in good agreement with the
Romans maintained vibrant mercantile relations with the Roman provinces in
the south and became cultural mediators between the Roman Empire and the
rest of the Germanic world including Gotland.
There was an important trade route along the Elbe which brought lots of Ro-
man industrial products, especially precious vessels of silver and bronze, up to
the North. Especially for Denmark this way was significant. The Danish islands
became a West Scandinavian powerhouse, which formed a counterpart to the
Marcomanni kingdom further south.
The Markomannic culture, brightly colored with classic taste, has set aside nu-
merous tracks on Gotland in the presence of both imported products as such,
and products produced on Gotland in Markomannic spirit. The Gotlanders
natural connection line with the South, however, was the way over the Vistula,
the Amber Road.
The Varangians 23
Winter Evening in the hall. The house was reconstructed after the foundations of houses known as ‘kämpgravar’. It
seems to have been a common building form in the beginning of our era. Such houses were still in use in the Viking
Age. The origin of these huge halls is considered to be the Roman art of building and especially the Roman basilicas,
which during the earlier part of the Empire, even when they were quite appropriate buildings, rather had the character
of a low building with the entrance on the gable. With its double in the length direction of the hall arranged rows of
columns or pillars they can be seen as excellent role models. The Gotlandic trading voyages took them far and wide.
When they returned home again and all hardships were forgotten, then came the stories and tales presented by the
firelight, the good heat and the food.
Painting by Erik Olsson

In this regard, as well as in other respects, Gotland is more consistent with the
countries around the Vistula estuary than with the Danish islands. Undoubtedly
this is also the road on which the old Roman influences reached Gotland. During
the later stages Gotland and Northern Europe in common are affected by the G
othic culture flow, marked e.g. by the appearance of fibulas with backbent nee-
dle holders, gold neck rings and runes. The partially provincial roman imported
goods in glass and bronze, from this period, have also come via Denmark, with
which Gotland towards the end of the period strengthens its relations.
What concerns the Roman silver coins, the denari, of which more than 6500
(87% of all denari found in present day Sweden) are found on Gotland, it is
supposed that they have reached the Baltic Sea coast along the Vistula. The
import of denari reaches its peak on Gotland during Antonius Pius’ (138-161)
and Marcus Aurelius’ (161-180) time, as is the case in Scandinavia as well as
in northern Germany, Silesia and Galicia. This has been associated with the
Goths who in the middle of the second century advances up the Vistula down
24 Tore Gannholm
to the Black Sea and from there maintain connections with the area around the
river’s lower reaches. In support of this assumption more than 20,000 of this
type of coins have been found in Poland.
This state of relatively peaceful contacts between the Germanic peoples and
the Romans stopped at the second half of the 100s. The Marcomanni took up
arms and attacked the Roman Danube line. For the Germanic world began a
time of general unrest and large population displacements.

Even the Gotic tribe-association, namely those in the Vistula estuary resident
Goths (or Gutans as they called themselves), were snatched up in its move-
ments, attracted by the South’s wealth. During the latter half of the 100s the
Goths or the major part of their tribe-association broke up from the Vistula
area and marched south to finally reach the Black Sea coasts, where they settled.
Here in the south of Russia was a Gothic kingdom established, which willingly
received impulses from the Greco-Roman culture. Through its power, high
cultural position and the maintenance of its national character they became for
a long time a source of great cultural advances among other Germanic peo-
ples. New forms and techniques, and even new burial customs, inherent in the
cultural wave, which from the Goths new home now went back to their remote
tribal kinsmen, especially Gotland.
The most important gift that came from the Goths, however, was the knowl-
edge of runes. The route along which the news reached the Baltic Sea region,
was the Vistula and Oder valleys.
The importance of the Vistula track ceased very soon due to barbaric Slavic
tribes from the east, who came with the popular movements that prevailed in
Europe. The Slavs trickled slowly into the heavily depopulated country along
the southern Baltic Sea coast, and took residence there. The Vistula line was
broken between north and south, and relations between the Baltic Sea region
and the continent must be placed farther west. This is largely the political back-
ground against which progress on Gotland during this stage must be consid-
ered. The period has been called the Roman Iron Age. It covers the first four
centuries of our era and is divided in the early Roman Iron Age, and the young-
er Roman Iron Age, each covering 200 years.

In Bohemia on the continent and on the Danish islands in the northwest,

during the early Roman Iron Age, there grew up dominant Germanic states.
Gotland has obviously come to play a similar role in the Baltic Sea region. The
rapid development, which characterized Gotland during the Celtic period was

The Varangians 25
maintained with great success in subsequent centuries. Gotland has left a larg-
er number of archaeological finds from this period than any province on the
Swedish mainland. It is again its favorable trading position in the Baltic Sea
region that made this boost possible. Gotland was part of a second golden age,
which only after four centuries of progress would be overthrown.
It is especially the grave finds, that tell us about the Gotlandic culture condi-
tions during this time, and the island’s participation in international trade rela-
tions. A strong population growth occurred. Cemeteries from the Roman Iron
Age, which generally go back to the previous period, are not only extremely
numerous, but besides considerably more extensive than the older. Through se-
ries of systematically planned archaeological excavations the manner of burial
is well known. Of special importance are the studies conducted in cemeteries
at Havor in Hablingbo, Bläsnungs and Kornettskogen in Väskinde, Backhagen
in Tingstäde, Bjers in Hejnum, Barshaldar in Grötlingbo and Little Sojvide in
Sjonhem. The graves are during the Celtic era made of fire layers in modest,
round mounds. During the latter part of the period they are fire layers in small
stone coffins below flat land.
Now also a new burial custom comes, which broke in with great strength.
For the third time inhumation won inroads on Gotland. This started probably
already shortly before the turn of the millennium and was in Roman times
generally applicable and at times dominant. It was, however, not possible to
suppress the old cremation custom. All the Nordic countries had soon accept-
ed the new way of burying, which in itself allowed the practice of providing
the dead with generous equipment. The women were buried with a large set of
jewelry, mostly made of bronze but also of gold or silver, with tools, pottery,
and, if resources so allowed, drinking vessels. Silver appeared for the first time
on Gotland at that time. In the men’s graves are weapons, among which the
double-edged sword is the most prominent.

The inhumation graves are sometimes constructed over flat ground, but usually
covered with a rather flat mound of large granite, which may have a diameter
of close to 15 metres. Inside the cairn the dead is located under a cover of
limestone shelfs. The original tomb room was probably made of wood, or in
a casket built of limestone, mostly oriented in roughly north-south. The stone
coffins can be very magnificently rendered, such as the example was with a cof-
fin on Annex-hemmanet in Hall. This 2,3-metre long chamber was composed
of only four slabs, uniform thickness and with chastened edges, a slab on each
side, and on these a single slab lies as a lid. Only a little soil had forced its way

26 Tore Gannholm
into this c. 1800 year old tomb with the skeleton of the woman who was given
this lavish and great stone treatment. She was placed free on the tomb floor.
The grave was from the 200s CE. The tomb from Annex-hemmanet in Hall is
distinguished by its solid construction method. The burial gifts were, however,
completely consumed by the ravages of time in the air-inflated and of water
percolated room.
As an example of a noble woman’s grave from Gotland with rich grave goods
from around the same time as the tomb in Hall may therefore a coffin excavat-
ed in 1918 at Smiss in Eke serve. It consisted of one exact north-south built
about 3,5 metre long stone chamber, which was covered with slabs and on the
bottom was the well-preserved skeleton lying with the head in the north. The
dead had been laid down on a bearskin, of which the surviving claws in each
of the four corners bore testimony. She was dressed and wearing her most pre-
cious jewelry. On each shoulder she had a bronze buckle under the chin and a
third buckle, which was of silver, slender in shape and adorned with added sil-
ver threads. Around her neck she had beads of gold, bronze and glass. On each
wrist was a spiral laid bangle of silver. At the right hand was a knife of iron.
The considerable length of the grave is explained by the amount of objects,
which were accumulated at the deceased’s feet. Here was a bone comb and
iron key to a wooden box. Here was also the place for an earthen vessel, at the
handover certainly filled with a refreshing drink, and next to it had been placed
two, with elegant bronze fittings supplied drinking horns, and as the most pre-
cious treasure, a wine strainer of bronze, brought to Gotland from the present
day Netherlands. On the inside of one of the coffin slabs was also carved the
image of a ship, whose affixing here in the abode of the dead is to be seen as
example for the same symbolism as the Bronze Age people expressed by giving
the tomb monument the figure of a ship.
The grave find from Smiss in Eke gives an insight into the religious beliefs
of the time. It also reflects the care with which the burial of the mistress of a
wealthy Gotlandic farm a few hundred years into CE could be done. The bear-
skin she was put on was a precious gift, imported as it must have been from
the fur-producing Scandinavian mainland. It was with such things, skins and
furs, the Gotlanders equipped their ships, when in the spring and early summer
they went on business trips to southern markets. The fine bronze strainer, the
woman from Smiss had with her, can serve as an exponent of the loads their
trading ships brought home in return.

The Varangians 27
Early Gotlandic trading Emporiums
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic
trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the
river Volga. The Achmulova grave field in the Volga region shows more than
1000 Gotlandic graves dating back to 800-500 BCE. That is the same time as
the Greeks colonize Grecia Magna and the Black Sea area.

Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom.
The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the northern end of the amber trade
with trading Emporiums in the Sambian peninsula and Vistula area. The Am-
ber Coast is mentioned as early as by Tacitus in his work Germania.
The extensive trade relations conveyed influences from outside. From southern
cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their ef-
fects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland. The filigree technique, i.e. the
method to organize twisted wires and grains of precious metals in regular pat-
terns, became extremely popular and was practiced with impressive skill by
Gotlandic goldsmiths. Splendid bracelets of gold and silver were produced as
were probably the three famous gold collars from Ålleberg, Färjestaden and
Möne. Nothing surpasses this artistic and technological quality in Baltic Sea
area Iron Age and Migration Period jewellery.

It must also be noted the Gotlandic trading emporiums in the Vistula area
when the ‘Gothic Association’ was formed, and thus, even if small, they were
the senior people in the area.
According to Jared Diamond, ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Fates of Human
Societies’, it is quite natural that the new federation will have the Gotlanders’
name and language. They called themselves Gutans and Guthiuda.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in
the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the
area, what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion, is
mentioned in several sources.
The entrance of the Herul Royal family (later known as Svear) to the Lake
Mälar area changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between
the Skilfings in the Lake Mälar area and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the
Beowulf epos and the Guta Saga.
No traces of Æsir religion is discernible on Gotland. The eight-legged horse
that can be seen on three Gotlandic picture stones is a Shaman horse that the
Gotlanders came in contact with in Khazaria. An eight-legged horse is not
28 Tore Gannholm
known in Scandinavia. The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept
the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was
heathen. The Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly pro-
tected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to
‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of
Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second
half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new king-
dom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands.
Instead of paying customs duty every time they passed the border they paid a
fixed amount every year and could then trade freely in all areas controlled by
the Svear.
There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca
650- 850 CE, with over 1000 Gotlandic graves, an area at that time conquered
by the Svear. As can be seen above, the Guta saga written down about 1220,
states that the Gotlanders had never been beaten by a foreign power.
Therefore 1361 must be the first time the Gotlandic Merchant Republic is bea-
ten by a foreign power.

Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea is-
lands: Bornholm 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö
in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according
to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see
Helgö and then Birka as trading venues with large Gotlandic influence, as im-
plied by the archaeological sources. E.g. writes Adam of Bremen in his history,
Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Go-
thia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
Professor Nerman believes that stage two in Paviken is the prototype for Gro-
bina. Even the Gotlandic tombs are similar in both locations. The remains of
the ancient Gotlandic city facility at Grobina are also similar in style to Sliest-
horp (Haithabu) in Denmark, Birka in the Lake Mälar area and as mentioned
stage two in Paviken on Gotland. In a semicircle around the old town area lie
the cemeteries and, like Birka, it also has had a stronghold as support point.
Kiev that was conquered by the Gotlandic Varangians in 882 follows the same
pattern.

A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the
introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the

The Varangians 29
Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actu-
ally this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era. The Vendel era is an indige-
nous Baltic Sea culture. In the Lake Mälar area it starts middle of the 500s and
continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages.

THULE and the island in Mare Suebicum

The Gotlandic Roman Iron Age estates and cemeteries give us basically the
image of a rich and prosperous farming community with strong elements of
one of international trade embossed luxury.
Particularly well documented are the connections between Gotland and the
eastern Baltic Sea region during the time of the Roman Empire. The Gotlan-
ders with their trading Emporiums in the amber area seem to have dominated
the amber trade and benefitted very much from this trade. It is mentioned by
Pytheas who made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about
325 BCE.
Three key factors that characterize the Gotlandic culture from 150 BCE to
about 200 CE:

1) A technically accomplished goldsmithing, especially in filigran technique.

2) A similar, Celtic-inspired formworld, especially in the distinctive, uniform,

hardware-intensive manufacture of arms, and finally

3) an advanced furnace type for iron of Celtic origin.

Tacitus, who wrote in year 98 CE, tells about the mighty people in Mare Sue-
bicum (Baltic Sea), which he calls ‘Suionum Civitate’ and that they live on an
island in the ocean straight out from the Vistula.
Their popular assemblies consist of Things in which men present themselves
armed. When a boy grows up they take him to the Thing and the chief or his
nearest kinsman provide him with weapons, and thereafter he belongs to the
men’s circuit.
As seen above the Gotlanders had trading Emporiums in various places on the
east and south coasts of the Baltic Sea from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age.
The Romans called the people with their trading Emporiums in the Vistula area
Gutones.
What should they call the related trading people on the island in the Baltic Sea?
30 Tore Gannholm
It was easier to refer to them as the people who lived on the island in Mare
Suebicum, ‘Suionum hinc civitates’.
Tacitus lists the Eastern peoples, going from south to north, and mentions
Lugians, Gutones and Rugians out on the coast. Then he turns to the west and
mentions Lemovians, after which he goes straight out into the Baltic Sea and
mentions ‘Suionum Civitates’. From there he goes due east to the mainland,
and mentions the Aestyan nations. Furthermore, he says that ‘Suionum Civita-
tes’ had close contact with another people called Sithones, ruled by a woman,
who lived further north from Gotland. The latter were probably the suppliers
of the beautiful skins that the Gotlanders conveyed to the Romans.
Even Tacitus depiction of the Germanic society in the north of the continent
or to them related peoples contains many observations, which in an interes-
ting way can be compared with farm and village remains on Gotland. Such a
comparison has also its special value, because the Gotlanders on Gotland at
this time, as mentioned above, in many respects were close to the continental
Germanic peoples, especially the Goths at the Vistula.
According to archaeologist T.J. Arne, Fv 1931 p 291: “Gotland was already
at the time of the birth of Christ a center for international trade in Northern
Europe. The result makes itself known in many ways, including the large silver
treasures, which landed on Gotland.”
Swedish scholars have taken it for granted, without bothering about the over-
whelming archaeological and geographical facts, that ‘Scadinavia’ should mean
what we today call the Scandinavian peninsula, without reflecting that the name
”Scandinavien” originated from Johannes Magnus’ (1488-1544) ‘Historia de
omnibus Gothorum Sveonomque regibus’ and Olof Rudbeck’s (1630-1702)
book ‘Atlantica’ which are to some extents pure fantasies. The Roman’s name
for the Scandinavian peninsula was THULE.
If you stand down at the Vistula it is Gotland you have straight out to sea, and
you discover the island at a distance on the cloud formations over Gotland.
To reach the Lake Mälar area directly from the Vistula area you have to pre-
tend that Gotland does not exist. The idea is totally ludicrous that the Romans
would not have known of the great trading center in the middle of the Baltic
Sea, with which they evidently had close trade relations. On the Scandinavian
peninsula, that the Romans called THULE, Tacitus only mentions Sithones,
who are ruled by a woman (note 3).
If, after this description, someone claims that ‘Suionum Civitates’ means some
at that time unknown Svear in the Lake Mälar area as has been maintained by
Swedish historians, it is necessary for those persons to take a better look at the

The Varangians 31
map. However, there is no misunderstanding regarding the Roman idea about
the Scandinavian peninsula. Still in the 500s the Romans called the Scandinvian
peninsula for THULE. E.g. Prokopios says about the Heruli that they moved
to THULE and settled alongside a mighty tribe called Gauti.
Already Pytheas, who lived in the 300s BCE knew the Scandinavian peninsula
as THULE. He writes that THULE is said to be a very fertile land, rich in fruits
that only late in the year come to maturity.
The people there used to prepare a drink of honey. They threshed their grain in
large houses, which depended on the prevailing ‘cloudy weather and the heavy
rain.’ For a southerner, accustomed to threshing in the open and constant sun-
ny skies, indoor threshing was a peculiarity worthy of mention.
What Pytheas says bears the character of sincerity and is consistent with known
Nordic conditions. It is not in any inhospitable lighting THULE is depicted,
but rather as a fairly good country with a farming population.
Pliny the Elder who died in 79 CE tells about the island ‘Scadinavia’ (Dumézil
comments that the first element Scadin must have had - or once had - a con-
nection to ‘darkness’) which lays straight out from the Vistula estuary and the
people who live there, ‘illa Suionum gente’.
Pliny also speaks about a Roman knight, who in the literature has been called
the Amber Knight. Ptolemy, a Greek-Egyptian astronomer said in his geograp-
hy from the 100s CE that to the east of the Cimbrian peninsula are four islands
called ‘Skandia’.
The largest and most easterly is north of the Vistula estuary. This is the island
that you think of when talking about Skandia. In addition it is consistent with
the size of Gotland. The Archaeological finds from Gotland from this period
are overwhelming.
Uppland was mainly yet covered with water. If we only look at the coins, Ro-
man denarius, found on Gotland compared with the Lake Mälar area, the fi-
gures are astounding. Gotland has more than 6500 silver denarius from 64 CE
and forward, whilst in the Lake Mälar area only 80 silver denarius have been
found. In the treasure from Sindarve in Hemse is a coin for the emperor Nero,
who ruled from 54-68 CE, the same time as the Roman Knight was here.

Already the superintendent (bishop) on Gotland Jöran Wallin, who wrote his
‘Gotländska samlingar’, published in 1747 and 1776, believes that it is Gotland,
that Ptolemy speaks about. Wallin regretted that Olof Rudbeck, who tried to
place the Roman description of the Gotlanders in the Lake Mälar area, had
such poor knowledge of Gotland and its culture. (note 4).

32 Tore Gannholm
For Jordanes, who wrote the Gothic tribal story in the 500s, the tradition goes
back to the Baltic Sea region and its tribes. He writes:
“The same mighty sea has also in its arctic region, that is in the north, a great
island named Scandza, from which my tale (by God’s grace) shall take its be-
ginning. For the race whose origin you ask to know burst forth like a swarm of
bees from the midst of this island and came into the land of Europe.
But how or in what wise we shall explain hereafter, if it be the Lord’s will.“
“And at the farthest bound of its western expanse it has another island named
THULE, of which the Mantuan bard makes mention:
And Farthest THULE shall serve thee.” It was not just in the sense of national
pride that he could say “Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut
vagina nationum” (Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations).
It is as much a telling characteristic of a world history that says that the Goths
came from the island Gothiscandza or just Scandza which is straight out of the
Vistula mouth and looks like a lemon leave.
In addition, he says that ‘Gothiscandza’ was located at the side of THULE.
German researchers say that Gothiscandza can be translated as the Gotlandic
coast, which was the official name of Gotland in later preserved trade treaties.
The following sentence is very interesting:
“For the race whose origin you ask to know burst forth like a swarm of bees
from the midst of this island and came into the land of Europe.”
The Gotlanders moved out of Gotland and created trading Emporiums all
over the southern coasts.
It must be regarded as far-fetched, and in the light of the archaeological finds
unlikely, that the Roman narrations would hint at the Scandinavian peninsula
(THULE) and some not yet existing Svear. The origin of the word Svear is dis-
putable and the confusion with Roman names of other peoples seem to exist.
Those we today call Svear or Svioner do not step into the light until the early
500s, when a new ruling dynasty, according to the sources, immigrated from
the south and brought a new religion with them, the Æsir-belief. However, still
in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, they are not known as
Svear but Skilfings. There are interpretations that the word Svear would come
from the ‘pig-people’ that is the people who worshipped the pig Sæhrímnir.
Sweden was previously called Svitjod, first mentioned by Snorri Sturluson in
the 1200s. When Christian scholars confronted Roman sources and found the
Latin words that resembled Svioner they used just these words for the Svear.
On Gotland the word ‘Sueus’ is proven already at the end of the 300s on the
Kylver stone from Stånga. The etymological derivation of the Roman name

The Varangians 33
Suiones is in dispute. It has, however, by Professor Elias Wadstein been inter-
preted as the people from the country that has been drained. It is interesting
here how the Guta saga begins:
“At that time Gutland was so bewitched that it sank by day and rose at night.”
The Scandinavian peninsula is by the Romans, from Pytheas time in the 300s
BCE to Prokopios in the 500s CE called THULE. When the term Scandinavi-
an peninsula first began to be used is unclear, but this was probably quite late in
our time. If you look at the archaeological finds, it is clear that there can not be
any Svear in Uppland in the Roman time handling the transit trade with the Ro-
mans. The prehistoric finds point very clearly to the fact that it is Gotland the
Romans refer to. Gotland is located centrally in the Baltic Sea and is therefore
ideal for the task to be in charge of the transit trade in the Baltic Sea region,
which also all archaeological finds too clearly testify to.

During the late Bronze Age, early Iron Age (500-300 BCE) the Gotlanders
had trading Emporiums in Estonia and Latvia. This we know from Gotlandic
graves on the spot. The trade contacts stretched all the way to the Caucasus.
It also seems quite clear that relations between Gotland and the Volga region
during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age were direct. In the middle Volga
area the gravefield at Achmulova has more than 1000 graves from 800-500
BCE of a type of graves that only have similarities on Gotland.

Professor Birger Nerman writes that a significant portion of the eastern influ-
ences as early as the late Bronze Age - Iron Age certainly have been conveyed
by the Gotlanders to the other tribes in the North.
Roman contacts with the Gotlanders during the first century is also evident in
the picture stones. Roots of the oldest picture stones are dated by archaeolo-
gists to this particular time. It is no wonder that historians and linguists have
searched in vain for infomation about the ‘Svear’ in Roman sources.
The Gotlandic Roman Iron Age estates and cemeteries give us basically the
image of a rich and prosperous farming community with strong elements of
one of international trade embossed luxury.

34 Tore Gannholm
The Gold Ring from Havor
It was in 1961 that one of the most remarkable archaeological finds, ever found
in the Baltic Sea region, came to light in the Havor ancient castle-fort in the
south of Gotland. But not only is this find scientifically important, it was also
a genuine fairytale treasure of everything that one associates with it. There was
a large bronze vessel, with its richly ornate fittings covered with a flat stone,
under which there was a huge, richly decorated ring of shiny gold. In the vessel
was also a set of drinking vessels, and two bells made of bronze.

Most of the objects found were fairly easy to date, among other things through
punched stamps and likeness with things previously found in the rich Italian
finding sites, Pompeii and Herculaneum. The time for the manufacturing of
the big bronze vessel and drinking vessels is the first century of our era, and
the origin is Capua outside Naples Italy, as shown in the manufacturing stamps.
The most puzzling object was, however, the large gold ring. Only four close
relatives to this were previously known, one from Denmark, where it remained
alone in a bog, and three from Southern Russia. Two were from a treasure find
in Kiev and one from a tomb in Olbia on the Black Sea coast, each with uncer-
tain dating. What keeps this group of rings together is the rich, in detail similar
filigran ornamentation and the design of the end buttons. However, none of
the four can compete with the Havor ring in size and rich ornamentation. It is
even so large that it could have been sitting on an image of a god.
Otherwise there are among Scandinavian gold discoveries only a few double
conical pearls with similar dating to the early centuries CE and some charms
probably from earlier production. This indicates that the choice of motifs and
ornamentation is related to the ring.
The neckring worn by the Persian ruler Darius III in the battle at Issus against
Alexander in 333 BCE, as depicted on a mosaic from Pompeji now in the Ar-
chaeological museum in Naples, looks very much like the Havor ring. And the
size agrees with the Havor ring.
We may in the Havor ring have the most beautiful example of the goldsmith’s
art, which originated in the Greek-Scythian-Celtic cultural area around the
Black Sea, and when it reached Gotland became the starting point for a native
Gotlandic goldsmithing that reached its first zenith in the Havor ring and its
relatives, and was later on to culminate in such remarkable technical masterpie-
ces as the great gold collar from Möne in Västergötland .
The Havor ring belongs to the object-category Celtic torc. These rings were
a form of status symbol. In gold they were apparently relatively common, to
The Varangians 35
The Havor set is a classic example of an Early Roman drinking set with a situla for carrying the wine, strainer for fil-
tering it and ladle for pouring out both the wine and the water into a saucepan (or other vessel), from which the wine was
then served out into drinking beakers of silver or glass. Wine ladles and buckets from Capua in Italy, in whose handle
sometimes is a fabrication stamp with the wording ‘PI POLYBI’, indicate that it comes from the Capuan bronze caster
P Cipius Polybius workshop, whose family made most of the bronze vessels found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Three
such buckets were included in the Havor treasure of which one carries a Polybius stamp. Such buckets are considered
to be mainly from the period 50-100 CE

A beautiful summer evening in 1954 a farmer in Fole found on his newly gravelled forest road five rare noble gold
jewelry, a necklace and four richly decorated bangles, total weight of 800 g. The treasure had come from a gravel pit in
Burs in Källunge and probably been buried in the 200s CE. The Gotlanders used during troubled times their gravel
slopes as safes and happy coincidences have meant that many of these treasures in our day have again come into the
light. Photo: Raymond Hedström, Gotlands Museum

judge by the information provided by Roman authors (Goessler 1929, p. 27 and

references therein). Despite this, finds of gold torcs are relatively rare, especi-
ally after the third century BCE when rings of this sort seem to cease being
deposited in graves. They also seem to have become a specifically male attribu-
te after this date. Their origin according to Goessler is to be sought in the East
where the Celts would have adopted their use from Iranian, Old Persian, and
even Schytian cultural areas (Goessler 1929, pp. 25 ff.).

An interesting similarity is the torc around the neck of the famous marble sta-
tue known as ‘The Dying Gaul’. The original of this so-often illustrated Roman
copy of a Hellenistic work of art is thought to have been made in Pergamon
around 200 BCE to commemorate the conquest won by King Attalus of Perga-
mon around 230 BCE over the Galatians, the easternmost of the Celtic tribes,

36 Tore Gannholm
who had settled in Asia minor south of the Black Sea. That ring, like the Havor
ring, has a twined hoop and has two relatively large tightly closed terminals that
must have been furnished with a locking device. It thus appears that this type
of ring could have been known in eastern Celtic areas at a relatively early date.
Insights into the culture-historical prerequisites for the Havor find can be
obtained by linking the dating of the bronze vessels, their production sites
(including master stamps), and their distribution, both within and beyond the
Roman Empire.
However, the ring might already have been old when it was deposited in the
Situla.
The Havor situla and its parallels within the Roman Empire are dated to
pre-Augustan times (before 27 BCE) or at the latest from the beginning of
the Augustan period (27 BCE-14 CE) until the end of the reigns of emperors
Claudius (41-54 CE) and Nero (54-68 CE).
Thus it can be concluded, with regard to the Havor hoard of Roman bronze
vessels, that the situla, ladle, strainer and saucepans are all Early Roman pro-
ducts from workshops which were active in the period from around the reign
of emperor Octavianus until a little into the second half of the 1st century CE.
The situla is probably the earliest of the bronze vessels to have been produced,
i.e. in the first half of the 1st century CE. The ladle and strainer sets were pro-
duced at the earliest just before the middle of the 1st century CE though such
sets continued to be made right through to the end of the 1st century CE. The
three saucepans share approximately the same production period as the ladle
and strainer set. Saucepan I has stamped on the handle (PCI)PI POLYB. This
is a stamp from P. Cipius Polybius workshop. Saucepan III also has a stamp on
the handle IPI (?).
It cannot be ascertained whether the situla, ladle, strainer and saucepans were
combined into a drinking set on the Continent or on Gotland.
However, most certainly the vessels have reached Gotland via the Amber Road,
which ended in Aquileia on the Mediterranean Sea where the Gotlanders had
direct contact with the Romans.
It is certain that the bronze vessels in the Havor hoard comprise a classic drin-
king service of Roman inspiration. Drinking sets in Earlier Roman times com-
prised vessels for containing wine and maybe also water (such as situla and
Ostland-type kettles), vessels for taking up the wine (e.g. saucepans), vessels
for ladling out and filtering the wine (ladle and strainer sets) and vessels for
drinking the often watered wine (such as silver cups or glass beakers). Drinking
sets and their high-status function were adopted at the reign of Augustus Octa-

The Varangians 37
vianus by the Germanic peoples outside the Roman provinces. They almost
always constitute standard equipment in rich graves, both male and female.

The Havor set is thus a classic example of an Early Roman drinking set with
a situla for carrying the wine, strainer for filtering it and ladle for pouring out
both the wine and the water into a saucepan (or other vessel), from which the
wine was then served out into drinking beakers of silver or glass. Drinking be-
akers are, however, being absent from the Havor hoard.
The products in the Havor hoard are quality wares.

Roman knight and Gotland?

The Roman writer Pliny, who died in the destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE talks
in his 37th book about a Roman knight who during emperor Nero visited the
Amber Coast on the Baltic Sea and brought home large quantities of amber.
He talks about ‘commercia’, venues where the amber was gathered and where
commerce was conducted. We can assume that those venues for the most part
were located at the estuaries of the Vistula and Njemen, where we also find
Gotlandic trading Emporiums. During the time of the Emperors these trading
Emporiums were visited by merchants from the Danube provinces and Qua-
diis country, who came to buy raw amber. This amber raw material was trans-
ported along a well-organized trade route over the Vistula and the Oder outlet
areas through the Moravian gateway to Hainburg east of Vienna and further
to Carnuntum at the middle Danube. From here it went to Sopron and Szom-
bathely in Hungary, Ptuj, Celje and Ljubljana in Slovenia and reaching the sea
at Aquileia, which was famous for its amber workshops. The Amber Knight, as
he is called in the literature, according to Pliny also visited the major venues in
the Baltic Sea region.

Erland Hjärne has in a doctoral thesis in 1938, ‘Bernstensriddaren och Tacitus’,

addressed this very subject and he writes: ‘Commercis ea et litora peragravit’,
he traveled to the trading venues and coasts there. With these words he men-
tions the Knight’s movements after arriving in the amber country.

The expression ‘litora peragrare’ is used in the Latin literature, not infrequently,
about voyages by sea along a coast. We have no definite opinion from Plinii
words how far the Baltic trip by the Amber Knight has been extended. This

38 Tore Gannholm
journey along the coasts of the Baltic Sea can, however, not have been too
short as it has been considered worthy of special mention. Hardly has it only
been a minor excursion between two points on the very small coastline of the
amber area. The Gotlanders had various trading Emporiums on the southern
coasts from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age and nothing seems to prevent
the adoption that the trip was extended to the Gotlandic communities out
there in the ocean. Pliny specifically mentions voyages by sea along a coast.
If we study Pliny and Tacitus‘ descriptions of the Baltic Sea region, it appears
that these authors seem to have had access to the same source and that source
has personally visited these places. Both Pliny and Tacitus’ descriptions of the
island in the Baltic Sea are so rich in detail that the travel narrator himself must
have seen the place.
If the Knight has been a member of the Roman equestrian order, it would
with regard to its traditions not have been surprising that his business interests
stretched beyond the temporary assignment, which brought him to the amber
coast. Furs is a commodity, that may have been the subject of export from the
Baltic Sea region. Luxary furs in the ancient cultural world have during the end
of the Roman Imperial time been more popular, probably due to increased
contact with northern European nations and even oriental influence. There is
a vague hint of its presence even during past centuries.

If this Roman makes a trip to the Gotlandic commercial Emporiums on the

Baltic Sea coasts, he obviously does not avoid visiting the trade center in the
middle of Mare Suebicum, namely Gotland, which already at that time was
considered to have been the center for trade in the Baltic Sea region.
Tacitus description is quite clear here. He says, you go straight out from the
Vistula estuary to meet the powerful people in the Baltic Sea. From there it is
due east and you come to the Baltic Sea coast. Already in the early Iron Age we
know that the Gotlanders had trading emporiums there and professor Birger
Nerman believes that the Gotlanders were the mediators of culture and com-
merce to the rest of the Nordic tribes.
The great attention Tacitus devotes to the Gotlanders becomes fully under-
standable if one imagines that his description reflects a single specific travel
trip by one person who says what he himself observed. This trip, from which
the information about the Gotlanders originated, would not have had its end
point on the Amber Coast. After a longer or shorter pause it seems the traveller
himself continued the journey by sea to the north, the people on the island in
the middle of the Baltic Sea, ‘Suionum Civitate’.

The Varangians 39
The reason for such an extent of the trip may have been curiosity, egged on
by the opportunity to learn about a people from one for the Roman people
strange and distant world. Pliny’s note shows undoubtedly, that at least in one
case, a Roman himself reached the Amber Coast, probably the Sambian Penin-
sula. Accordingly Tacitus information about conditions there, and in adjacent
areas, has not required to have passed through Germanic intermediaries. Ana-
lysis of the specific details in the narrative of the Gotlanders, the people on
the island in the middle of Mare Suebicum, also give the impression that they
reflect direct observations from a particular trip and that the observer was not
a Germanic, but a Roman.
If we now go to Tacitus ‘Germania’, we can right from the start establish that
the source for this part of Germania is oriented from the Vistula estuary and
that it is linked to the amber trade, and especially that it is of commercial ori-
gin. If the source is of commercial origin, it is likely that the selection of the
facts, that incurs its author’s attention, and that of him after his return related
to others, to some extent is determined by the trading interest.
On a trip, undertaken for trading purposes, one will of course above all have
the opportunity to both observe, and get information from the people with
whom one comes into contact as well as hearing about such events and condi-
tions that are related to trade. A conspicuous example of that now said is the
lengthy description of amber and thus what is related, which occupies a large
part of Germania’s forty-fifth chapter.
It is also to this time we can, according to Peter Manneke, trace the oldest
Gotlandic picture stones carved with Roman tools. Even the Havor treasure
is from this period. So is a coin with emperor Nero that has been found in a
treasure on Gotland.

Trading in Late Antiquity has a long history throughout the past eras. The
Romans all the times tried to extend their trade to countries far remote with
which, to a growing extent, followed the import of new goods and the appea-
rance of new luxuries.
It should therefore not be unreasonable to suppose that an enterprising Ro-
man businessman, in the time of Nero, who had already reached important
commercial centers wished to avail himself with the opportunity to visit other
venues. It is interesting to note that at Gamle hamn habour at Lauters on Fårö
has been found a bronze head from a Roman ship from this period.

Excavations in Poland show that there was a cultural commercial center at the

40 Tore Gannholm
mouth of the Vistula in the first centuries of our era.
The Vistula estuary played a special role in the whole Baltic Sea region as a ga-
teway for relations with southern and southeastern Europe. This was the exact
center for the Amber trade. Amber was extracted in large quantities from the
rocks on the Sambian peninsula and collected on the beaches of Livonia and
Courland, and was exported to the Romans over the Amber Road. Gotland had
trading Emporiums and was linked to groups in what is now Latvia and to the
lower Neman region.

Throughout the region during the first decades of our era we experience sig-
nificant changes in building structure and cultural development in the Wiel-
bark culture, formerly known as the Goto-Gepidic civilization. The basic
archaeological detectable characteristics of this culture remained unchanged
throughout its existence until the early 400s.

Amber was not the only product that was attractive on the Baltic Sea trading
Emporiums for traders from far and wide. There were other items that are not
so easy to spot. Such are skins of Arctic animals, imported by the Gotlanders
from THULE (Scandinavia), which were valued very highly (UE Hagberg 2,
1967, p. 109-125, figs 56-57.)

Based on information from Jordanes it is estimated that people from THULE

(Scandinavian peninsula) joined the Goths on the Baltic Sea’s southern coast
in the first century CE. (H. Lowmianski I, 1963, p. 259-261). The meeting
between such an estimation and the chronology of the oldest cemeteries of
Scandinavian type, after the middle of the same century, is striking. All ceme-
teries in zone B, as well as the western group, in Area A were abandoned in the
late 100s or early 200s CE. (Fig. I A3, R. Wolagiewicz 1981 p. 85). This would
be consistent with our assumption that the Goths moved south just at this
time. In year 238 their attendance is noted at the Roman Limes on the Danube.

The Varangians 41
The immigration of the Heruls to the Lake Mälar
area in the 500s
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in
the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the
area, what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion, is
mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation
in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlan-
ders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right:
“Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders,
however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the
Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none
of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the
first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second
half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new king-
dom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands.
There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca
650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear.
Helgö and later Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence.
E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae
pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of
the country of the Sveoner.”

Avair Strabains’ homecoming. Around 1220 the Guta Saga was recorded as the preface to the Guta Lagh and shows
at the time how the Gotlanders saw their history. Avair Strabain is the first Gotlander who emerges from the fairy tale
mysteries. Painting by Erik Olsson

42 Tore Gannholm
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the
introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the
Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actu-
ally this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area
starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle
Ages.
On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’
close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The Vendel era continous in the Baltic Sea area until the Gotlanders convert to
Christianity second half of the 800s. According to Theophanes’ Continuator
the conversion took place shortly after the Rhos withdrawal from the walls of
Constantinople in 861. A Rhos embassy came into Constantinople beseeching
to be converted to Christianity, and this conversion indeed took place
The first writer to mention some people on THULE, (the Scandinavian penin-
sula), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote
in the 500s.
With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combina-
tion with the Herul immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to
shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic
Sea region has come in a whole new light.
We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeolo-
gical finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea
islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place
Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as rawmaterial and are accor-
ding to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to
see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archa-
eological sources.
Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the
first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds (see table on page 45)

The Gotlanders are well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and
Varangian merchants (note 5). The word Varangian was used by Arabs and
Greeks for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Got-
landers). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union
through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an
association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other
in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when

The Varangians 43
trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian
rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend
each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as
mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and
Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit formed by the emperor Basil
II in 988. At that time was also the official Christianization of the Kievan Rus’
by Vladimir I of Kiev.
Gotland, that very early was a sovereign Merchant Republic and cultural leader
in the Baltic Sea region, was founded on the free trade. They had probably in
the middle of the 500s CE concluded that in the Guta Saga famous trade agre-
ement with the recently immigrated Heruls (Svear), and gathered most of their
treasures through trade.
Gotland and the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers’ Republic was the center for
free trade whilst the incoming Hanseatic League, formed in 1358, represented
monopolistic trade. Gotland dominated the trade in the Baltic Sea region until
the Hanseatic League outcompeted the Gotlanders and assumed control over
trade in the Baltic Sea in the later 1300s.
Note, Visby never joined the Hanseatic League and never became a Hanseatic
City. Its greatness was before the Hanse.
The only physical contact the Hanseatic League had with Visby was in 1525
when Lübeck made a surprise attack on Visby and burned the City.

The Vendel era

On Gotland the Vendel era starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the
Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on THULE the (Scandinavian penin-
sula), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote
in the 500s.

Gotlands importance for commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea area during
the first millennium can also be illustrated by the amount of coins we find to-
day on the island of Gotland in comparison to how many have been found in
Sweden. The table shows the Gotlandic finds in relation to the total coin finds
in present-day Sweden.

44 Tore Gannholm
Type Total number Sweden of which Gotland % Gotland

Roman silver denarii 7500 6500 86.7

Sasanian Empire (500-651) 182 78 42.9
Islamic Caliphate (698-1013) 85 585 67 260 78.6
Byzantine coins 576 491 85.2
Swedish coins (1013-1050) 781 423 54.2
German Coins (950-1140) 92890 62144 66.9
English coins 41525 25785 62.1

There were no Vikings in the Baltic Sea region.

The word Viking is not known there. The Vikings were warriors from Den-
mark, the west of Sweden and Norway, and the Viking Age starts with the
attack on Lindisfarne in 793.
There is a clear line in the river Elbe between Vikings and Varangians. East of
the river Elbe there is no mention of Vikings, only Varangians.
In the Baltic Sea region the Gotlanders, after the signing of the trade and peace
treaty in the 550s, also controlled trade on areas under Svea protection.
End 700s when silver from the Islamic Caliphate started to flow, the Gotlan-
ders entered the Russian rivers all the way to river Volga and the Kaspian Sea.

The fourth silver treasure on Stavar’s farm
was taken as preparation to be dug out un-
der laboratory conditions. The 205 silver
coins were packed together in five rolls, as
they once were transported in the 900s, may-
be all the way from the Orient.
Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire has left its mark in the
form of religious items, jewelry, and not least in coins. The trade
treaty signed in 911 by a Gotlandic Varangian delegation and the
Byzantine Emperor Leo VI testifies that the Varangians were settled
in the quarters of Saint Mamas. The Treasure from Ocksarve in
Hemse contains 123 Byzantine coins, representing Constantine VII
913-959, Basileios II 976-1025, Romanus III 1028-1034 and
Constantine IX 1042-1055 Photo Gotland’s Museum

The Varangians 45
The Gotlandic Merchant Farmers were on the Russian rivers called Varangians
and al-Rus’ (expeditions of rowing ships).
It is documented in Byzantine sources that there was a large trade delegation
in Konstantinople 838, and that from late 800s and forward there were large
Gotlandic contingents stationed in Miklagarðr.

The Russian rivers

Nearly 80% of all coins from the Islamic Caliphate found in present day
Sweden have been found on Gotland.
In the areas of the Svear no silver treasure from the Islamic Caliphate has been
found.

From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish rese-
archers, been considered rarely to be mentioned in ancient sources. The Got-
landic history was uninteresting from a Swedish perspective.
However, the Gotlanders were in Arabic and Byzantine sources from the 800s
well known as merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region. They are in
these sources called al-Rus’, Rhos and Varangians.

Al-Rus’ / Rhos comes from the Old Norse word Ro∂r meaning rowing fleets.
The Arab writers say that it is merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea who
came rowing on the Russian rivers. From there comes later the name Russia.
These Varangians emerged not only as slave hunters, but were primarily known
as merchants.
Ibn Khordadhbeh (c.820–912): ‘The al-Rus’come from the farthest corners of
the Slav’s country. They travel over the Roman Sea to Constantinople and sell
their goods, furs of beaver, black fox and swords’.
Al-Marwazi, reports that the al-Rus’ had abandoned their wild pagan ways and
raids and settled into Christianity.
Ibn Rustah’s description:
‘What al-Rus’ concern, they live on an island, surrounded by a lake. This is-
land, on which they live, have an extent of three days’ journey. His information
on non-Islamic peoples of Europe and Inner Asia makes him a useful source
for these obscure regions. He was even aware of the existence of the British
Isles and of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon England and the prehistory of the
Turks and other steppe peoples. Ibn Rustah travelled to Novgorod with the

46 Tore Gannholm
al-Rus’, and compiled books relating to his own travels, as well as second-hand
knowledge of the Khazars, Magyars, Slavs, Bulgars, and other peoples.
His impression of the al-Rus’ is very favourable:
‘They carry clean clothes and the men adorn themselves with bracelets of gold.
They treat their slaves well and they also carry exquisite clothes, because they
put great effort in trade. They have many towns. They have a most friendly
attitude towards foreigners and strangers who seek refuge.’
See also the picture stones from the 800s that probably tell about the Gotlan-
ders’ contacts with Khazaria and the Islamic Caliphate.

Khazaria converted in the late 700s to Judaism and became the world’s largest
Jewish kingdom. It is estimated today that 80% of those in the world who
confess to the Jewish religion are descended from there. They are also called
the ‘13th tribe’, or Volga-Jews in contrast to Jordan-Jews. In Khazaria the main
languages were Turkish, various Slavic languages and Gothic. If you mix these
languages you get Jiddish.

When the Swedes a couple of hundred years later forcibly Christenized Finland
and Estonia they also came with rowing fleets and are called Ruotsi and Rootsi.
But it has nothing to do with the Arabic writers much earlier name for the Got-
landic rowing merchants al-Rus’ and the Byzantines’ Rhos to do.

Gotland and its relations to the Black Sea area

The Guta Saga like the Goths’ tribal saga speak of a southern migration from
Gotland to the Black Sea area and the Byzantine Empire. We know from By-
zantine sources that the Goths settled in the Bosporian Kingdom and took
possession of its fleet with which they for some time ravaged in the Mediter-
ranean. As we have seen above, we have already in late Bronze Age Gotlandic
trading Emporiums on the Baltic Sea coast where the river roads lead down to
the Black Sea. Even at the time when the Guta Saga was recorded, in the early
1200s, it is not startling when the author of the Guta Saga notes that in Greece
(Crimea belonged to Greece with Miklagarðr, as its capital), there lived a group
that “settled and live there and even today they have in their speech track of
our language” (note 6).
One can therefore assume that the contemporaries with the Guta Saga, when
they traveled to the Black Sea area, without too much difficulty understood the
language of the Crimean Goths. It may not have been much more difference

The Varangians 47
between their own language and that of the Crimean Gothic than between cur-
rent Danish and Swedish. Especially silver findings prove that the Gotlanders
during the Viking Age were frequent travelers to the area concerned.
Although the coins are minted further east in the Caliphate, they will in many
cases come just from this area, as they were used as means of payment there.

Other evidence that the Gotlanders travelled in the areas closest to the Crimea
is the rune stones on Gotland. It can be mentioned the stone from Pilgårds in
Boge, from the 900s, which tells about the Gotlander Ravn together with some
brothers who came to Aeiphor, a ford in the Dnieper, not far from the Crimea.
One of the attractions with the Byzantine Empire can be attributed to the
proximity of ancient Troy. A trip to the Byzantine Empire was not only a
trading trip, but could also be a pilgrimage to the region for the mythological
home of the Æsir even if the exact location was not known.

Saxo Grammaticus (1150-1220) describes how a gold image of Odin was sent
to Byzantium from the northern kings as an act of homage. This may have
been regarded as a visit by the God in his former homeland as is told in an
episode in Snorri’s Ynglinga Saga. There it tells how King Sveigdir travels to
the Turk country in search for Odin and the home of the gods. According to
Snorri Sturluson he was a descendant of Yngve, the king of the Turks. Several
other traditions show how well established the belief was that the Norse gods
originally came from Troy.

Image from the Skylitzes illuminated manuscript in Madrid, showing Greek fire in use against an enemy fleet.

48 Tore Gannholm
The ‘Snäck’ harbor Snäckhusvik in Vamlingbo. There may have been an activity similar to that in Paviken.
Painting by Erik Olsson

When the people in the Baltic Sea region went on crusades to the Holy Land
they followed the same road, and the journey went over Gotland, as it says in
Guta Saga: “Before Gutland in seriousness appointed a bishop, bishops came
to Gutland, who were pilgrims on their way to the holy Jerusalem, or went
home from there. At that time the road went east across Russia and Greece to
Jerusalem.”
Already Saxo in his chronicle tells how king Erik Ejegod from Denmark on his
pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his queen and a splendid retinue of knights and
attendants about the year 1103 pass Visby and inaugorates the St Olaf church.

The most detailed records of Byzantine court activity, diplomacy and adminis-
tration are the compilations by Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (945-59):
‘Book of Ceremonies; a treatise on Governing the Empire’, dedicated to his
son; and another ‘On the Themes’. These reflect a practical need to prepare
Romanos II for his imperial role, and it draws on a long tradition of books of
guidance. The two treatises deal respectively with territories and rulers beyond
the empire, and the regions under imperial control, the themes. Both include
much geographical information about the different terrains, mountains, rivers
and the characteristics of their inhabitants.
In the section on Byzantium’s northern neighbors, Constantine gives a detailed
account of the way the people from Novgorod, Smolensk and other cities, who
gather in Kiev and sail down the river Dnieper to the Crimea, and thence across
the Black Sea to Miklagarðr.
He describes the seven rapids or cataracts on the lower Dnieper and how they
The Varangians 49
The free trade on the Gotlandic coast. In the time of the Sagas when the Gotlanders were a free people, the Gotlandic
Merchant Farmers sailed and traded with whomever they wished. At that time the Gotlanders decided that the
island’s trade would be free for all mariners. It was the free trade that made us rich! Painting by Erik Olsson

may be negotiated. At the first, which is called Essoupi, which means ‘Do not
sleep!’, the water crashes against rocks in the middle ‘with a mighty and terrific
din’. To provide a sense of scale, he reports that this cataract is as narrow as
the polo ground in Miklagarðr. Here the Rus’ disembark the men and guide the
boats around the rocks in the middle of the river on foot, also punting them
with poles.
At the fourth barrage, the big one called in Rus’ Aeiphor and in Slavonic, Ne-
asit, because the pelicans nest in the stones of the barrage ... all put into
land. They conduct the slaves in their chains by land, six miles, until they are
through the barrage. Then partly dragging their boats, partly carrying them on
their shoulders, they convey them to the far side of the barrage.
They continue to the seventh barrage and on to Krarion, where there is a ford
as wide as the Hippodrome and as high as an arrow can reach if shot from the
bottom to the top. This is where the Pechenegs come down and attack the al-
Rus’.
How did Constantine have such a detailed knowledge about the Varangians or
al- Rus’ (Gotlanders) when they travel to Miklagarðr (Byzantium)?
His father Leo VI was the grandson to the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr.
Kiev was a Slavic settlement on the trade route between the Baltic Sea and
Constantinople, and was a tributary of the Khazars, until seized by the Varan-

50 Tore Gannholm
gians in 882. Under Varangian rule, Kiev became a capital of Kievan Rus’.
The word Varangian was used by Greeks, Arabs and Kievan Rus’ for merchants
from the island in the Baltic Sea (Gotlanders).
The etymology of the name al-Rus’/Rhos (Rhos vocari dicebant) needs clari-
fication.
Sven Ekbo (1981) convincingly connects the word to Old Norse ro∂r meaning
‘expedition of rowing ships’.
As early as 902 Varangians are mentioned as fighting as mercenaries for the
Byzantines. About 700 Varangians served along with Dalmatians as mariners
in Byzantine naval expeditions against the Emirate of Crete and a force of 629
returned to Crete under Constantine Porphyrogennetos in 949.

Gotlandic picture stones

No poets celebrate in song Gotlands’ peaceful or military exploits in the East.
On the other hand Gotland has plenty of beautiful and proud monuments in
form of picturestones, the only monumental art we possess from antiquity.
They were originally attached to the tombs and had certainly religious-magi-
cal functions. The earlier stones had the sacred form of the axe-blade and
were tastefully decorated with sun symbols and ship images, reminiscent of the
Bronze Age ornamentation. One of the finest of these picture stones, which
dates back to Roman Iron Age is embedded in Bro church tower wall (page 20).
Picture stones are a human expression, that in a single interpretation can pro-
vide a perspective far beyond the horizon of Gotland. If you compare the
picture stones from before and after the turbulent times about 520 CE we note
that there are two entirely different religions that exist.
The older picture stones up to the 500s describe sun and nature worship while
after that time there are new religious influences emerging. In the Lake Mälar
area we have what Snorri Sturlusson calls Æsir religion.whilst it on Gotland are
traces of Christian influences.
The idea to raise neatly carved, flat stone slabs on the graves, which first meet
us in the Roman Iron Age, has lived through the storms of time.

The Gotlandic picture stones are unique and are nowhere else in Scandinavia
to be found. The older stones are elegantly shaped image blocks with a spar-
se geometric decoration of a symbolic nature, that is indicative of an artistic
balance and elegance in the alignment, which closest speaks of a sophisticated
culture. The sun wheel occupies a central place in this world of images. This
The Varangians 51
is complemented with the symbolic images of animals and ships, drawn with
a few elegant lines. These show clear signs of inspiration from Roman culture.
Gotland’s main deities here and ever since ancient times have been the heavenly
bodies, mainly the sun and moon. There have apparently lived talented artists
on Gotland during this time and later times.
The earlier Gotlandic picture stones are mostly connected with the Iberian
peninsula and southern France. The Ibero-Celts are the most likely bearers of
the pictorial agenda that is introduced on Gotland for the earlier picture stones.
In the Iberian peninsula, the Vadenienses, an old Ibero-Celtic people have left
very special gravestones, decorated with blades of ivy, corn ears and specially
designed horses. It was a people of fighters and horsemen, who to every horse
had two warriors, one to ride and the other to fight on foot to help protect the
horse and knight. Their most common form of grave decoration during the
pre-Christian Roman period is exactly of the same character as the early stones
on Gotland. They contain a lot of signs that could be understood as sun and
moon. The moon is often made as bulls horns. This whole style is unique for
the Iberian peninsula and depends probably on Celtic influence among the
Romans.

Two picture stones

from Tängelgårda
in Lärbro parish
depicting the Va-
rangians on the
Russian rivers
They date back to
the 700s CE and
are now housed in
the National His-
torical Museum,
Stockholm.

52 Tore Gannholm
The Gotlandic picture stones correspond with the pre-Christian stones from
100-300 CE. The Vadenienses worked within the Roman legions, and were
also mercenaries fighting for whoever made it worth while. Their fighting tech-
niques have been reported by Roman soldiers who observed it among their
German enemies. At other occasions they have also witnessed it with the eas-
tern Goths in the time of Attila. They lived on the Asturian plateau and in the
mountains and further on in northern Italy, Austria and Bohemia. They were
a travelling people. They might have met the people from Gotland in the Bo-
hemian area (see Marcomannic influence).
We today know of about 570 Gotlandic picturestones, dated roughly to the
period 200-1100. Peter Manneke has shown roots of picturestones that date
back to the 1st century in certain cemeteries.

According to Peter Manneke: “The consummate mastery of the stonematerial

from the 300s and 400s in the form of perfect curbed stonecircles of dressed
sand- and limestone, and technical high-image blocks within these circles pre-
supposes partly unknown, earlier stages on Gotland and partly the fact that the
craft as such, came to Gotland from outside. These early stages can be found
on Gotland. The idea to use cut stone as a material for edge- and picture stones
and the necessary technical skills came probably from the south and if so,
mainly from the vast Roman Empire with its perfect architecture in stone, with
whom Gotland had intensive trade and other relations.The idea for the older
image blocks and its imagery, with its compass-drawn geometric ornaments,
their burdensome ships and its fabulous animals that sometimes have rear-fac-
ing heads, probably stems from several areas in the south and southeast.
The findings on the grave-fields, burial forms, etc. indicate that the stones date
back to the first century. In the Duero valley in Spain/Portugal e.g. is a picture
stone from the first century, showing among other things, two swivel wheels
(which is prevalent on the Gotlandic picture stones) and a rosette ornament re-
sembling the basic shape of the Gotlandic highly developed spoke graves with
intricate stone circles outside the cairns, especially those at Duckarve in Linde
and Barshaldar in Grötlingbo.
The picture stones from the Duero area are from the days when Roman bronz-
es and silver coins began to appear on Gotland. On Gotland these offshoots
of different cultures and design worlds met Celtic, Germanic, Roman and that
from the Goths.”

It is clear that there is a considerable difference between the older Roman Iron

The Varangians 53
Age mystical religious images, and the younger Germanic Iron Age more read-
able narrative picture scenes.
That the art in the 500s changed its expression is an important observation.
Similarities and differences in this shift should be compared with the transition
from a pre-Christian Gotlandic art to a Romanesque Byzantine Christian art
in the 900s.
Professor Nylén writes in the book ‘Stones, ships and symbols’ about some
sort of religious change around 500 CE.
In connection with possible disturbances it may also have been the bubonic
plague, known as the Justitian bubonic plague, that ravaged. It appeared in Italy
541-543 and harvested close to half the population of the Roman Empire. We
also know that the Flanders was hard hit.
The explanation for the burned foundations of the Gotlandic houses can be
that they had to burn away the evil disease. It is then natural to move to new
settlements, which also happened.
A distinctive feature of this later time is a particular art, the Nordic animal or-
namental art, which only has survived in small metal objects, but that reflects a
lost monumental art in wood.

Alongside these works, which certainly originally had a symbolic-magical sig-

nificance, is a monumental group that gives us a very different conception of
the society of the time. It is the next face of Gotlandic picture stones. Here
we find the image part of the depictions that are repeated in the later Icelandic
sagas, but also scenes of ritual acts, whose meaning we only vaguely suspect.
Here is the Valhalla, the kingdom of death, and the battles that brought the he-
roes there, here are characters in the poems the bards sang, fragments we only
partially understand. From the circuit of the Niebelungen poems the Nordic
poets have downloaded material for their heroic songs, but their works are not
preserved, only the picture stones. We can trace them, perhaps also in the Got-
landic national epos Beowulf.

The stones grew in size and the ‘head’ had a stronger curvature. At the same
time they appear to some extent to have been freed from its connection with
the graves and may well largely be seen as memorials for seafarers who have
been gone. Their task was thus the same as the later Lake Mälar rune stones,
though they are much older than the rune stones and spoke with images instead
of words. They often depict on the stones an armed horseman, who from a
woman is offered a drinking horn, and a ship under sail.

54 Tore Gannholm
The relationship between Troy and Asgard and the religion of the Ynglinga dy-
nasty may perhaps also be interpreted in these later Gotlandic picture stones. In
an article in the journal ‘Tor’ the British linguist Michael Srigley has interpreted
the image sequences of three of the best preserved Gotlandic picture stones
from the Vendel Period. He tries to show that the sequences on the picture
stones tell of the Trojan War. Even some not so well-preserved picture stones,
he believes, show episodes from the same events.
Why would one tell about the Trojan War on Gotlandic picture stones? Ac-
cording to the Edda the old Asgard was identified with just Troy. The Heruls
who immigrated to the Lake Mälar area in the 500s and became the Ynglinga
kings lived there during a long time.
Although the Edda was written in the 1200s, it is based on traditional material
including the Gotlandic picture stones that go back hundreds of years. It was
not Snorri, who thought that Asgard and Troy would be the same thing. It can
be traced back to older sources. If you go to Islendingabók it tells about Yngve,
the first king of the Ynglingar, that he was called ‘Turkia konungr’ i.e. the King
of Turks.
During the Vendel era these stones culminated. The stones were larger than
ever before, and they were produced in large quantities. Artistically and techni-
cally the stones from the Vendel era are very inferior to those from the Roman
Iron Age, in which classic taste and artistic sense come into play. They are often
of a very large format and with an abundance of rich images. They reproduce
the entire sequence of events from the fairy tales or the real world. They glorify
changes of weapons and heroic deeds. This is what one rightly could await after
a restless past filled with struggle.
From this period are derived the two large stones from Smiss in Stenkyrka and
Hunninge in Klinte, which are exhibited in Gotland’s fornsal. The largest of all
the Gotlandic picture stones, namely the one at Anga in Buttle measures from
the ground 3.9 metres.
If you compare the Roman Iron Age art with the art from the Germanic Iron
Age - Viking Age the differences can be interpreted as a shift in the 500s from
religious images with an enigmatic content to images, using religious motives to
legitimate a new power position.
These changes in image content can be seen in the development of the Got-
landic picture stones. The motifs of the first group are primarily geometric and
ornamental with occasional human and animal figures. Very commonly there is
a dominating ‘spiral whorl’ or similar design borrowed from the timeless pat-
terns of woodcarving. An oared vessel, always similar in shape, is often carved

The Varangians 55
below the dominating geometric motif.

The successors to these well-cut large first generation stones were small ‘dwarf
stones’, sometimes trimmed and carved on both faces and with a more dis-
tinctly curved upper edge. The decoration is still geometric or heavily stylized.
Duck-like birds or ships with vestigial sails are common motifs. Stones of the
second group have been discovered in their original positions. They stood out-
side, yet connected with the outer edges of graves.

The third group of stones is the first on which ‘free’ art was totally dominant.
The stones may be about the same size as the earlier ones but they are not so
well trimmed. They must have been very unstable when erected because of
their shallow bases. Their shape, like a split mushroom, has given rise to many
interpretations, the most common being that they are phallic symbols.
An older group of stones from the Roman Iron Age, which are decorated with
hard to understand symmetrically arranged figures and abstract symbols are
followed by Vendel-Viking Age picture stones with storytelling, representa-
tions later documented in Norse mythology.
During the 700s and 800s the picture stone art had its heyday. The mighty mon-
uments, some, as mentioned, over three metres high, now depict in horizontal
sequences an epic content. It might be an episode from the deceased’s life or
a passage from a Nordic hero poem, Helge Hundingsbanes saga or Brage the
Olds Ragnarsdrapa or something else. There are many suggested interpreta-
tions. The pictures appear in very poor relief, which was initially enhanced by
painting in vivid colors. The style is rigorously ornamentally decorative but
lives together with a fascinating expressionism. For the Gotlandic art history
these picture stones have an outstanding importance as fragments from the
ancient art we have had in wood and fabric, but that time has claimed.

A braided pattern is e.g. found around several of the Gotlandic picture stones
representing a style known already from Sutton Hoo. This woven pattern is
known from the Lindisfarne Gospels from about 698, produced in the mon-
astery Lindisfarne in Northumberland. The Gotlandic stones are dated to the
400s.

Viking Age picture stones do not have the older sober style and decorative
security. The relief will be higher and is reminiscent of flat cutting in wood.
Finally, the picture fades, and on those with Christian cross, the rune sling

56 Tore Gannholm
comes in.
Why stones were hewn, carved and erected has long been the subject of discus-
sion. To remember, honor and religion has had varying degrees of importance
in this context and is more than likely. The youngest stones are rune-inscribed
as are also several medieval grave slabs. The practice later to raise rune stones,
mainly occurring in the Lake Mälar area is, to judge, of a similar ornamentation,
concurrent with the youngest picture stones. About Swedish mainland rune
stones, which are later than the Gotlandic picture stones, we know that they
have been raised as memorials, but also had religious, magical and legal links.
The latter probably as a kind of death certificate for the succession taking.

The role of religion in the picture stones’ genesis is interesting from the fol-
lowing standpoint. We know very little about ancient religion in Scandinavia.
Hypotheses and assumptions are based on too few facts. There are, however,
a few individual milestones. Finds of undoubted cult objects and motifs in the
rock carvings from the Bronze Age suggest that the sun was worshiped during
this time, perhaps along with other divinities. How long sun worship continued
is uncertain. The solar disk and the ship seem to have had symbolic value in
this religion.
In Scandinavia we know with certainty that Christianity finally replaced the
Æsir religion around and after 1000 CE. It rather seems that the pre-Christian
religion has been pretty inconsistent but quickly consolidated itself during the
coming of pressure from Christianity. Obscure hints in the extant literature in
Iceland, which essentially has provided us with knowledge of the Æsir, may
provide a basis for speculation about some kind of religious change around the
year 500 AD.
Please note that Gotland has a completely different history from that of Scan-
dinavia. Gotland was christinaized in Constantinople in 864. And it is the east-
ern Byzantine religon that is accepted by the Gotlanders (the Varangians).

The Rus’ Khaganate

The Gotlandic merchants, as mentioned earlier, were in the Arabic sources on
the Russian rivers called al-Rus’, expeditions of rowing boats, and Wareng i.e.
Varangians.
By end 700s groups of Gotlandic Varangians had developed a powerful war-
rior-merchant system. They began probing south down the Russian waterways
controlled by the Khazars. They were in pursuit of the Arabic silver which
The Varangians 57
flowed north through the Khazarian- Volga Bulgarian trading zones. The silver
coins were obtained as payment for among other things slaves, furs and swords.
Gotlandic mercantile fleets passing Atil on the Volga had to pay tithe, as they
had to at Byzantine Cherson.
The Gotlandic Varangians settled inside the East Slavic area. They forced their
subordinates to feed them and obtain merchant goods.
There have been excavated a number of Gotlandic bases from end 700s to the
800s in present day Belarus and all the way to the Volga.
The early phase of this loosely structured Gotlandic Rus’ dominion is someti-
mes called the Rus’ Khaganate. The Rus’ Khaganate was a cluster of city-forts,
set up by the Gotlandic merchants.
The regions along the Russian rivers were the places of operation for these
adventurers and merchants. The population, where the al-Rus’, Gotlandic mer-
chants, founded their bases, was at that time composed of Baltic, Slavic, Finnic
and Turkic peoples. The pattern with Gotlandic trading places from the Bronze
Age seems to be repeated.
The Gotlandic picture stones from that time tell us of long distance travelling
by the Gotlandic merchants on the Russian rivers.
The Rus’ Khaganate period marked the genesis of a distinct Rus’ ethnos. It was
a polity that flourished in what is today northern Russia, roughly from the late
700s to about 860 when the Gotlanders (Varangians) were thrown out.
‘The tributaries to the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea and, refusi-
ng them further tribute, set out to govern themselves’.
Lyubsha is an archaeological site situated on the right bank of the Volkhov,
about 1,500 metres downstream from Aldeigjuborg. The 1993 excavations
established that Lyubsha is the site for the earliest Varangian fort in Russia,
established in the first half of the 700s, thus predating Aldeigjuborg.
The fortress was destroyed by fire towards the end of the 800s. Constantine
Zuckerman connects its destruction with a conflict, Vadim’s uprising, that mar-
ked the downfall of the Rus’ Khaganate. Immediately north of Lyubsha lies
the village of Gorchakovshchina, which used to be a trading post at the head
of navigation on the Volkhov, near its ancient entry into Lake Ladoga.
Dmitry Machinsky ranks Gorchakovshchina, along with Aldeigjuborg and Ala-
borg, among the most important centres of the Rus’ Khaganate.
It is estimated that between 90 to 95% of all coins from the Islamic Caliphate
found in Gotland have passed through Aldeigjuborg. Tellingly, the oldest Isla-
mic coin in Europe was unearthed in Aldeigjuborg. Dendrochronology sug-
gests that Aldeigjuborg was founded about 753, about the same time as Bagdad

58 Tore Gannholm
that was founded on 30 July 762 by the new Muslin Abbasid dynasty.
Gotlandic merchant vessels sailed from the Baltic Sea through Aldeigjuborg to
the Caspian Sea and later also to Miklagarðr.
Other centres that have been excavated are Holmgar∂r, Sarskoye Gorodishche,
Gnezdovo at Smolensk and Timerevo in Yaroslavl. Typical for these centers is
that they are located on waterways, and that craft and trade is well developed,
and the material culture is international.
According to contemporary sources, the population centers of the region were
under the rule of a chief using the Old Turkic title Khagan. The Rus’ Khaga-
nate period marked the genesis of a distinct Rhos ethnos. It was succeded by
Kievan Rus’ and later states from which modern Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine
evolved.
According to Davidan the activities of the Varangians were mainly linked to
the proto urban centers of Eastern Europe and those that emerged along the
Volga river trail.
As mentioned Rhos (Rus’) comes from old Norse ro∂r meaning ‘expedition of
rowing ships’. They called their leader Khacanus.

Kingdom of Khazaria
Around the Volga north of the Caspian Sea was a Turkish empire called Kha-
zaria. They had become very rich by controlling the trade between China and
Europe.
The early al-Rus’ traded extensively with Khazaria. The Gotlandic merchants
came on the Volga trade route to the Khazar capital of Atil, and then to the
southern shores of the Caspian Sea, all the way to Baghdad. The Gotlanders
dominated this trade on the Russian rivers from the second half of the 700s
and travelled all the way to the Volga, paying duties to the Khazars and to the
ports of Gorgan and Abaskun on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. On
occasion they travelled as far as Baghdad. Most Islamic coins in the Spillings’
treasure are minted in Baghdad.
Ibn Khordadbeh wrote in the ‘Book of Roads and Kingdoms’ that ‘they go via
the Slavic River, the Don, to Khamlidj, a city of the Khazars, where the latter’s
ruler collects the tithe from them.’
Khazaria had a Nature Shamanistic religion, Tengriism, where the eight-legged
horse figures. It is depicted on three Gotlandic picture stones. It has nothing
to do with Æsir-belief and there are no signs of Æsir-belief on Gotland. The
eight-legged horse is unknown on the Scandinavian peninsula.
The Varangians 59
The unique coin from the Spillings Hoard with the inscription ‘Moses is the prophet of God’
dated to 837-838. Photo: Kenneth Jonsson

Khazaria converted in the late 700s to Judaism and became the world’s largest
empire that professed to the Jewish faith, the ‘13th tribe’.
A coin from 837/838, which instead of Muhammad as the profet of god says
Moses is the prophet of god, was found in the Spillings’ treasure. Later we find
decendants to these Khazarians professing to the Jewish religion in Russia,
Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. It is estimated that 80% of those who today
profess to the Jewish religion originate from the 13th tribe.

Mikalgar∂r, the Gotlandic Constantinople

The first documented visit by a delegation of Gotlandic merchants, Rhos, Va-
rangians, to Miklagarðr is in 838. It is documented by three written sources and
also a coin has been found in the Spillings’ treasure with Emperor Theophilos’
name (829-842).
One of the references related to the Rus’ khaganate comes from the Frankish
Annals of St. Bertin, which refer to a group of Norsemen who called them-
selves Rhos, “qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant”, and visited
Constantinople around the year 838. They were fearful of returning home via
the steppes, that would leave them vulnerable to attacks by the Magyars.
Around 830, a rebellion had broken out in the Khazar khaganate. As a result,
three Kabar tribes of the Khazars joined the Hungarians and moved to what
the Hungarians call the Etelköz. Therefore these Rhos got permission to ac-

60 Tore Gannholm
company Greek ambassadors from the Byzantine emperor Theophilus, who
were travelling through the Frankish Empire to the Frankish Emperor Louis
the Pious at Ingelheim. When questioned by the Frankish Emperor Louis the
Pious they stated that their leader was known as Chacanus, the Latin word for
“Khagan”, and that they lived far to the north.
Ibn Khordadhbeh (c. 820 – 912) depicts that also probably about the year 846
al-Rus’ merchants visited Miklagarðr and Baghdad. However some Gotlandic
Varangians remained in Mikagar∂r in 838 and joined the Emperor’s service and
took Byzantine wives.
So did the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr who married a Martiniakoi, a distant rela-
tive to the imperial family. In 840 a daughter Eudokia Ingerina (Greek: Ευδοκία
Ιγγερίνα) (c. 840 – c. 882) was borne.
On June 18, 860, at sunset, a fleet of about 200 Rhos vessels sailed into the
Bosporus and started pillaging the suburbs of Constantinople, Miklagarðr. The
attackers were setting homes on fire, drowning and stabbing the residents. The
attack took the Greeks by surprise, ‘like a thunderbolt from heaven’.
The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Photius (858-867 and 877-886)
says that it came suddenly and unexpectedly, ‘like a swarm of wasps’. Unable to
do anything to repel the invaders, Patriarch Photius urged his flock to implore
the Theotokos to save the city.
Emperor Michael III and the Imperial Army, including the troops normally
stationed closest to the capital, and the dreaded fleet, which discouraged with
the deadly Greek Fire, fought against the Arabs in Asia Minor. The exceptio-
nal time of the attack when the Rhos, Gotlandic Varangians, caught Constan-
tinople unprepared suggests that the Rhos had information about the city’s
weaknesses. It shows that the Rhos trade and communication with Miklagarðr
continued into the 840s and 850s. We don’t know how many Gotlanders took
service in the Imperial Guard in 838 and if they were involved from inside.
Still, the attack by the Rhos in 860 came as a surprise.

The Rhos–Byzantine War of 860-861 was the only major military expedition
from the Rus’ Khaganate recorded in Byzantine and Western European sour-
ces.
At the same time all the centres of the Rus’ Khaganate in North-Western Rus-
sia were destroyed by fire. Archaeologists have found convincing evidence that
Aldeigjuborg, Alaborg, Holmgard, Izborsk and other local centres were burnt
to the ground in the 860s. Some of these settlements were permanently aban-
doned after the conflagration.

The Varangians 61
The Primary Chronicle describes the uprising of the pagan Slavs, Chudes and
Finnic peoples against the Gotlandic Varangians.
Accounts vary regarding the events that took place around Constantinople.
There are discrepancies between contemporary and later sources, and the ex-
act outcome is unknown. This event gave rise to a later Orthodox Christian
tradition, which ascribed the deliverance of Constantinople to a miraculous
intervention by the Theotokos, mother of God. The Rhos campaign of 860-
861 lasted ten months at least and ended some time in 861.
Evidently the hymn Acathistus was composed and first performed in comme-
moration of the solemn procession which has been described with many de-
tails and which, according to later local tradition led to the final cease of the
siege by the Rhos.
Since the yearly performance of the Acathistus was fixed for March 22, we
may consider this date as the day when the solemn procession with the sacred
vestment of the Holy Virgin took place. In other words, at the close of March
861 the Rhos had already withdrawin from under the walls of Constantinople.
Their invasion left such a deep impression on the minds of the people that
the Acathistus has remained permanently fixed in the ritual of the Greek-Or-
hodox Church. Without doubt some of the most impressive moments during
the invasion of 860-861 were those of the solemn processions headed by the
Patriarch Photius, when the precious garment of the Virgin Mary, preserved in
the Church of the Virgin at Blanchernae, was borne round the walls of the city.
It was not the first time that this venerated relic was used during a critical ex-
perience for the capital. The best known occasion was during the siege of the
city by Avars, Scythians and Persians in 626 when, according to a legendary
tradition, the relic had saved the capital. Doubtless such religious performances
deeply impressed the superstitious populace and furnished them real consola-
tion and comfort.
It is a very interesting question whether the Gotlandic Rhos invasion of 860-
861 ended in a definite agreement with the Byzanatine government or not.
Theophanes’ Continuator writes that shortly after the Rhos withdrawal a Rhos
embassy came to Constantinople beseeching to be converted to Christianity,
and that this conversion indeed took place. We can probably conclude that
negotiations initiated by the Rhos took place at once after the campaign of
860-861 and ended in a friendly agreement.
Photius writings provide the earliest example of use of the name Rhos by the
Byzantines. He also mentions the foresaid contact in 838 between the Byzanti-
ne Empire and the Rhos.

62 Tore Gannholm
Previously, the inhabitants of the countries north of the Black Sea had been
called ‘archaic’ or ‘Tauroscyths’. The learned patriarch reports that the Rhos
has no supreme ruler and live in some remote northern country. Photius called
them ‘unknown people’, although some historians prefer to translate the phra-
se with ‘obscure people’.

About the year 864 Eudokia Ingerina became the mistress of the Emperor
Michael III, who thus incurred the anger of his mother Theodora and the
powerful minister Theoktistos. Because Ingerina’s family was iconoclastic, the
Empress Mother Theodora strongly disapproved of them. Unable to risk a
major scandal by leaving his wife, Michael married away Eudokia to his friend
Basil but continued his relationship with her. Basil was compensated with the
emperor’s sister Thekla as his own mistress.
Ingerina Eudokia gave birth to a son Leo, in September 866 and another, Ste-
phen, in November 867. They were officially Basil’s children, but this paternity
was questioned, apparently even by Basil himself.
The strange promotion of Basil to co-emperor in May 867 lends some support
to the possibility that at least Leo was actually Michael III’s illegitimate son. The
parentage of Ingerina’s younger children is not a subject of dispute, as Michael
III was murdered in September 867, when Basil became Emperor Basil I and
Eudokia Ingerina became Empress Consort of the Byzantine Empire.
The Gotlandic Ingr’s daughter Eudokia Ingerina was the wife of the Byzantine
emperor Basil I, the mistress of his predecessor Michael III, and mother to
both the Emperors Leo VI and Alexander and Patriarch Stephen I.

The Silver Stream over the Baltic Sea

To find the cause for this flourishing commerce, we must look outside the
Nordic countries. It is the economic development in Europe and the Caliph-
ate, which gave Gotland a place in the centre of the contemporary world trade.
Islam conquers North Africa in the 600s and at the beginning of the 700s also
Spain. There the Gotlandic kinsmen the Visigoths were conquered in 711. The
Mediterranean, which was previously a Roman inland sea, becomes the bor-
der between the world’s two major power groups. The world is ideologically
divided in an Islamic bloc, the Caliphate, and a Christian with a Catholic bloc
and the Greek-Orthodox, with the Frankish kingdom and Constantinople as
central powers. In 794 Charlemagne establishes his capital at Aachen, on the
border with Germany, and Scandinavia is drawn into the Carolingian Empire’s
The Varangians 63
sphere of influence. This leads for the Baltic Sea region to changing economic
conditions, that will have the greatest importance.
In the region of Samarkand and Tashkent, away in Asia, extremely rich silver
mines are discovered in the 600s within the Caliphate area. They are said to
have given the Caliphate an annual income that was 25 times higher than the
world production of silver around the year 1500. From about the year 700 sil-
ver is coin metal in the Caliphate. The silver spread to the West and according
to the Arabic literature there was a lively trade between the caliphate on the
Iberian Peninsula and the Frankish kingdom. For a few centuries Muslims were
to determine the trade and economy of the then known world.
Professor Sture Bolin, who spent a lifetime of research on the coin finds in
northern Europe and on Gotland, has in a fascinating essay entitled ‘Muham-
med, Karl den store och Rurik’ treated the silver stream from Asia and its im-
pact on the Baltic Sea trade.
Gotland’s wealth of finds with Viking Age objects of gold and silver is unique.
In relation to its surface Gotland can show a larger number of Viking Age
treasure finds than any other area in the world. Above all, Gotland is known
for its many silver treasures often with considerable quantities of coins, jewelry
and bitsilver (pieces of cut up objects). Still almost every year there is a new
contribution - large or small - to the already large amount of silver finds.
Ways to find a silver treasure varies. Treasures are found during retrieval of gra-
vel from the gravel pit, digging of foundations for houses, by rabbits digging

The Silver treasure from Stumle in Alva parish

In 1863 there was found in a field at Hammar in Fårö parish
a treasure where the youngest coin is from 804/805 and the
treasure consists of seven Arabic and one Persian coin, a spiral
and seven smaller pieces of silver. Photo Gabriel Hildebrand,
Royal Coin Cabinet.
was found almost intact in a field in 1989. The
treasure includes 1310 coins, which were kept in
a bronze box with a lid. The plow had just lifted
the lid and spread out a few coins, before the sil-
ver treasure was discovered. It dates back to after
1053. Photo Ulf Abramsson

64 Tore Gannholm
holes in the ground, in storm-felled trees, the bursting of stumps, at excavation
for golf courses, etc. To the most part, however, treasure finds of different
types are found at field work. Only in rare exceptional cases they are grave
goods in Viking Age graves. At that case these are single pieces or very small
quantities of coins.
Sometimes there are traces of storage containers, such as clay pots and copper
vessels, in which the treasure has been stored. There are also examples of iron
caskets and metal cutting, but most common are boxes made of birch bark.
This has been shown in recent years when the remains of the hidden treasure
has been taken to the laboratory in plaster for preparation and investigation.
The Gotlandic silver-treasure finds are dated to the period between about end
700s and 1140 with some concentrations at different times. The older treasure
finds are evenly distributed over Gotland. It is likely that most of the Gotlandic
Merchant Farmers, the Varangians, in some way or other have taken part in the
silver import.
The era of the Arabic coins is not a single stage. We can draw a line about
the year 900. Prior to that time the treasure finds show that trade has gone
on different paths, both over the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea as well as the
caravan route Khiva-Bulgar. After 900 we can in the treasure finds only observe
the latter route, but this trade has flourished the more vivid. From the last de-
cade of the 800s there are mainly coins from the Samanidian rulers, that have
reached the Baltic Sea region and Gotland. These coins are minted mainly in
Samarkand, Tashkent and Bukhara. An important observation is, that during
the 800s the Arabic coins distribution on different time sections and imprint
areas is similar in all Rus’ Khaganate and Gotlandic treasures. A major addition
is the world’s to date largest Viking Age silver treasure, the Spillings’ Treasure
found in 1999 at Spillings in Othem. The treasure weighs 65 kg before pre-
servation and includes about 14,300 coins (about 17 kg, with few exceptions,
Arabic), 486 arm bows, 25 finger rings, 34 needles and a large number of spiral
rings and other bit silver. The treasure was divided into two depots (25 and 40
kg) which were hidden at a distance of three metres from each other under
the floorboards of a Viking Age house. No rests of containers were found but
the shape of the depots with slightly rounded corners (about 40 x 50 cm) may
indicate that the silver objects were stored in bags of textile, hides or leather.
In the smaller depot were the remains of a wooden box, about 17 x 18 cm, in
which mainly coins were stored.
The weight of about 65 kg (325 marks of silver) can be compared with the
statement in the Guta Saga that all Gotlanders together each year had to pay

The Varangians 65
60 marks of silver (12 kg) in tribute payment for the trade and peace treaty to
the Svea king.
The items in the treasure are mainly Scandinavian, but also Eastern and Wes-
tern Europe are represented. All items can be considered to be pure means of
payment, valued by weight and silver content. Much of the material has been
joined together to regular units of weight based on the Gotlandic weight sys-
tem, where a silver mark is equivalent to 200 grams. By all accounts, the silver
treasure constitutes an unusually large stock of raw materials and cash that for
some reason never has been utilized. The find place is located just north of
Bogeviken, which during the Viking Age was one of Gotland’s most important
and best protected harbors.
The oldest coin is from 539 and the youngest from 870/71. Several coins can
be dated to 257 after hijra, corresponding to 29th of November 870 - 17th of
November 871. The terminus post quem of the discovery is formally in 870,
but probably one or more of the coins were minted during the year 871.
A possible date of deposit in the soil is 5-10 years later, preferably 875 - 880.
The scientific value of the Spillings find will be large. The finds from the 800s
are earlier fewer and smaller than the finds from the 900s, but the discovery
of the Spillings’ Treasure has changed all statistics. A partly new picture of
the relationship between the 700s and the 800s is growing. Coin production
in the Islamic Empire (Caliphate) was between 700 - 815, although uneven as
seen on an annual basis, generally very high. Earlier it was considered that the
coin production fells lightly in the 800s, but the Spilling’s Treasure and other
large 800s finds provide a different picture. The period 833-871 shows a higher
annual average than previous periods. While the average number of coins per
year before the year 833 is 35.9, the number rises to 44.3 after the year 833. The
high proportion of coins from the last decades is reflected on the pitch iden-
tical coins, each of which comes from the northernmost coin varieties. The
coins have left the Caliphate through Armenia and the Caucasus as the al-Rus’
Khaganate was abandoned in about 860.
The coin (page 60) has been dated to the 830s CE. It can be connected to an
issue of coins with the name of the mint, Ard al-Khazar (the land of the Kha-
zars), as part of its stamp. On one side of the coin there is an inscription that
says, ‘Moses is the prophet of God’. The inscription is a parallel to the Islamic
confession of faith ‘Muhammed is the prophet of God’. The inscription about
Moses is known earlier from four other coins but it has never been found with
this obverse stamp, which in this case links the coin to the Khazars.
Thanks to its location, the Khazar realm between the Black Sea and the Caspi-

66 Tore Gannholm
an Sea could benefit from the trade between the Varangian and Muslim mer-
chants. The Khazars are famous foremost for two things. They stopped the
Islamic attack in Caucasus so that the Muslims could not get to Europe from
the East and they, or at least those in a leading political position, adopted Ju-
daism. Quite a number of written sources mention the Khazars as Jews. The
composition of the Spillings treasure is very exciting and already several unique
and highly interesting coins have been found.
Four Nordic ‘penningar’ are from southern Scandinavia (nowadays Schleswig)
and probably minted in Sliesthorp approximately in 825. Sliesthorp was during
the Viking Age Denmark’s most important trading centre.
Two coins are imitations of Dorestad penningar. The other two images are on
one side a face (beaming face) and the second a deer. In the hoard is also a By-
zantine coin (in the denomination miliaresion) coined for emperor Theophilos
of Constantinople in the 830s. The oldest oriental coins in the Viking Age tre-
asures are of Persian type and they exist naturally in the Spillings treasure (Sa-
sanidian and Arab-sasanidian drachmas and Tabaristan half drachmas). Most
coins are Islamic dirhams. They are also known as Arabic, because the language
and the writing is Arabic. The writing style of the coin inscriptions has given a
third name on these coins: kufic (after the City of Kufa in Iraq).
The Spillings discovery means a sharp rise in the early Islamic coins in the Bal-
tic Sea area (of which 78% comes from Gotland). The Umayyad coins, which
are named after the Umayyad dynasty, will apparently be multiplied.
The Abbasid dynasty descended from Muhammad’s youngest uncle, Abbas
ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name.
They ruled as caliphs, for most of their period from their capital in Baghdad
in modern-day Iraq, after assuming authority over the Muslim empire from the
Umayyads in 750 CE (132 AH).
The Abbasid coins have always Baghdad’s Arabic name, Madinat al-Salam, or
‘City of Peace’. Islam’s main coining place is also the most common coining
place for the Spillings hoard. The Abbasid coins dominate in all the 800s finds.

In 725 the Byzantine emperor Leo III believes that God is only spirit and
commands that all the images of Jesus and the saints in Christian churches to
be destroyed. Thus begins the ‘iconoclastic controversy,’ - a campaign against
icon worship - that will last for decades to come. Supported by the Koran and
the religious tradition, images of living beings were also banned within Islam.
On the coins there are quotes from the Koran and a statement of coining place
and year. In the mid 1000s, the Gotlandic silver treasures become fewer but

The Varangians 67
larger, while they are increasingly found along the coasts.
Apparently the silver import was concentrated in ever fewer hands. Other sour-
ce material (surveyed settlements, pollen analysis, etc.) suggest that the Gotlan-
ders at the time were forced to, or choose to specialize. Probably more distinct
occupations are now growing up, such as merchants, craftsmen and farmers.
Around 1140 the import of silver coins ceases, while on Gotland the first min-
ted indigenous coins appear, ‘penningar’, with nominal value. The Gotlandic
coining is by all accounts made by the Guthna Althingi and presumably de-
velopments in the Baltic Sea trade required a more sophisticated method of
payment.
The coins that reached the Baltic Sea region were not used here as a coin in
the strict sense. They were used as means of payment according to weight and
silver content, and therefore considered together with pieces of silver in the
balance scales of bronze. Also all jewelry, such as bangles and other arm or-
naments, have been used as means of payment, as they seem to be tailored to
specific weights. There are also silver treasures which clearly show that several
jewelry and rods have been joined to larger units of weight.

For a detailed terminology and culture-historical study of the Viking Age

trading it is also interesting, but a somewhat ignored fact, that the Gotlandic
weight and monetary value mark in 857 is mentioned in England, where it
was introduced by the Danes. In the 1000s it reached Germany, where the
first proof is from the year 1045 from the important commercial city Colog-
ne. It forced out the one until now supreme reigning Roman pound. Then it
spread rapidly throughout Western Europe, among others also to Friesland.
The Gotlandic öre, dating probably from the Roman Empire, and the mark,
which became the Viking Age gift to the continent, are together with many
other factors eloquent testimony of the Gotlandic Varangian’s trading activities
during a whole millennium.
The following brief comments can be made about Gotlandic treasure finds
from the Viking Age:
The oldest silver treasure is from Hammar in Fårö parish, found in 1863.
The youngest silver treasure is from Burge in Lummelunda, found in 1967,
weight 10.4 kg, dated to about 1143. It is also the second largest find by weight
(after the Spillings’ treasure found in 1999). In the Burge treasure also the ol-
dest known copy of the first Gotlandic coin with face value was found. Minting
on Gotland was initiated around 1140.
The earliest found silver treasure with known finding place of Arabic coins in

68 Tore Gannholm
accordance with written information was found in 1676 at Visborg castle, when
the Danes after the liberation of Gotland from the Swedes strengthened the
fortifications. The second largest number of coins (after the Spilling’s treasure)
is the silver treasure from Stale in Rone with 5922, coins, of which 5304 are
German and 421 English. The hoard was found in 1838 and dated to after
1070.
At that time trade and handicrafts on Gotland were not concentrated to any
particular city or harbour. However, there were some places along the coast
with larger harbours, which seem to have been used as starting points for long
trips, and where they engaged in handicrafts and trade. Paviken is the best
known example for this. The find material in those is very similar to that en-
countered in Helgö and Birka, which are considered Gotlandic trading places.
Pieces of silver seem almost wastefully strewn over the ground.
Viking Age silver and silver treasures have been found in all parishes except in
Hejdeby. Most Viking Age treasure finds are found in Grötlingbo and Stenkyr-
ka parishes, each with about 25 finds. New silver treasures appear regularly if
not every year but at least a few every decade.

Silver arm rings from the Spillings’ treasure

The Varangians 69
The offcial Christianization of the Varangians
The most authoritative source on the first official Christianization of the Rhos
(Varangians) is an encyclical letter from the Patriarch Photius, datable to ear-
ly 867. Refering to the Rhos-Byzantine War of 860-861 Photius informs the
Oriental patriarchs and bishops that, after the Bulgars turned to Christ in 864,
the Rhos followed suit so zealously that he found it prudent to send to their
land a bishop.

This fits very well with Guta Saga that says:

“Although the Gotlanders were heathen, they nevertheless sailed on trading
voyages to all countries, both Christian and heathen. The merchants saw Chris-
tian customs in Christian countries. Some of them allowed themselves to be
baptised, and brought priests to Gotland. Botair of Akebäck was the name of
the one who first built a church in that place which is now called Kulstäde”.
If we can link those two notices, it means the first church on Gotland was built
in the late 860s or 870s.

Photius remembers the invasion upon the Empire by the race which in cru-
elty and bloodthirstiness left all other peoples far behind, the so-called Rhos,
and adds that now indeed, even they have changed their Hellenic and godless
religion for the pure and unadultered faith of the Christians, and have placed
themselves under the protection of the Empire, becoming good friends in-
stead of continuing their recent robbery and daring adventures.
Photius’ letter allows us to fix more exactly the time of the appeal by the Rhos
to Byzantium. He mentions Rhos’ affairs just after stating that the Bulgarians
adopted Christianity. The baptism of the Bulgarian King Boris took place in
864, but his envoys had already been baptized in Constantinople at the end of
the year 863. According to Photius’ letter the Rhos appeal and the new con-
ditions which were established between Byzantium and the Gotlandic Rhos
(Varangians) occurred between 864 and the spring or summer of 867, when
Photius encyclical letter was written and dispatched.
It is interesting to note that at that time the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr’s daugh-
ter Indrina becomes the mistress to Emperor Michael III and married to future
Emperor Basil I. On 19 September 866 Michael and Indrina had a son Leo,
the later LeoVI. According to Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, grandson
to Indrina, (905-959), who wrote a biography of his grandfather, Basil I the
Macedonian (867-886), it was his ancestor who persuaded the Rhos to abandon
their pagan ways. He narrates how the Byzantines galvanized the Rhos into
70 Tore Gannholm
conversion by their persuasive words and rich presents, including gold, silver,
and precious tissues. He also repeats a traditional story that the pagans were
particularly impressed by a miracle. A gospel book was thrown by the archbish-
op into an oven and was not damaged.
Although Byzantine sources provide the most detailed account of the Chris-
tianization of the Gotlandic Rhos in the 800s, even the contemporary Muslim
authors seem to corroborate this evidence. Ibn Khordadhbeh, when describing
al-Rus’ in the 880s, notes that “they style themselves as Christians”. We must
not overlook the fact that the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr’s daughter Eudokia
Ingerina becomes part of the Imperial family and Empress consort of the
Byzantine Empire.
The Gotlanders are accordingly present in Miklagarðr from the beginning of
the Macedonian Renaissance, that resulted in the Macedonian art, a period in
Byzantine developement of art which began following the death of Emperor
Theophilus in 842 and the lifting of the ban on icons, iconoclasm.
The Macedonian Renaissance made a deep impression on the Gotlandic school
of art. It is obvious from what remains of the early wooden and Romanesque
stone churches in Gotland.

Trade agreement in Miklagar∂ar

A very interesting point in Gotlandic Rhos-Byzantine relations at the second
half of the 800s and the beginning of the 900s may be connected with the
treaty concluded after the siege of 860-861.
In the year 911 a document was signed between the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI
and the Gotlandic Varangians: Karl, Ingjald, Farulf, Vermund, Hrollaf, Gun-
nar, Harold, Kami, Frithleif, Hroarr, Angantyr, Throand, Leithulf, Fast, and
Steinvith.
One of the aims of the treaty was to maintain and proclaim the amity which for
many years had joined Christians, i.e, Greeks, and Rhos, Gotlanders. This sta-
tement very well explains the peaceful relations between the two countries that
began in 861 or shortly thereafter. In the treaty of 911 there is a special clause
which allows the Gotlandic Rhos who desire honoring the Emperor to come at
any time and to remain in his service. They shall be permitted in this respect to
act according to their desire. We must not forget that Leo VI was the grandson
of the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr and was well aware of Gotlandic conditions.
Leo’s son Constantine VII Porphyrogénnētos writes that the Krivichs and
other tribes transported hollowed-out sailboats, or monoxyla, which could ac-
The Varangians 71
Baptism of the Bulgar Khan Boris in 864.

commodate thirty to forty people, to places along the rivers. These sailboats
were then transported along the Dnieper to Kiev. There they were sold to the
Varangians who re-equipped them and loaded them with merchandise.
Places named include Smolensk (Μιλινισκα), Liubech (Τελιουτζα), Chernihiv
(Τζερνιγωγα), Vyshhorod (Βουσεγραδε), Vytachiv (Vitichev, Βιτετζεβη), and
Kiev (Κια[ο]βα). Some of these cities had alternate names in Old Norse, and
Constantine quotes some of them: So Novgorod (Νεμογαρδα) is the same as
Hólmgarðr (‘Island Enclosure’) and Nýgarðr (‘New Enclosure’); Kiev is called
Kœnugarðr (‘Boatyard’) or Σαμβατας, which might derive from Norse Sand-
bakki-áss (‘Sandbank Ridge’).The runestone N62 from 1050-1100 preserves
the name Vitaholmr (‘demarcation islet’) for Vytachiv.
On the Dnieper the Varangians had to portage their ships round seven rapids,
where they had to be on guard for Pecheneg nomads. The rapids began below
Dniepropetrovsk where the river turns south and falls 50 meters in 66 kilome-
ters.
Sof eigi, ‘Don’t Sleep’
Holmfors, ‘Island-Waterfall’ (Ουλβορσι)
Gellandi, ‘Roaring’ (Γελανδρι)
Eyforr, ‘ever violent’ (Αειφορ)
Bárufors, ‘wave-waterfall’ (Βαρουφορος)
Hlæjandi, ‘laughing’ (Λεαντι)
Strukum, ‘[at the] rapids’ (Στρουκουν)

72 Tore Gannholm
Bury writes in 1912 : “The treaty which was concluded between 860 and 866
led probably to other consequences. We may surmise that it led to the admis-
sion of Norse mercenaries into the Imperial fleet - a notable event, because
it was the beginning of the famous Varangian service in Constantinople.” The
Treaty was very detailed and regulates the status of the Varangians i.e. the Got-
landic merchants in Constantinople.
They were to enter Miklagar∂r through a certain gate without weapons, accom-
panied by the imperial guard, not more than 50 persons at a time, which means
there must have been quite a few Gotlanders in Constantinople over the winter.
Upon their arrival they were enregistered by the imperial authorities in order
to be supplied with food and monthly alimentation in the space of half a year.
Because they could not go back on the rivers the same year, they must stay over
winter in Miklagarðr. The text says that the Rhos, Gotlanders, were settled in
the area of Saint Mamas. It was a district outside the Theodosian Walls, to the
west of the historical city.
From 902 it is recorded that they served as mercenaries to the emperor. In 910
the great naval expedition against the Eastern and Cretan Arabs was organized
with Himerius at its head. Constantine Porphyrogénnētos speaks of the pres-
ence of 700 Rhos. In 988 we read that Emperor Basil II could not trust anyone
other than these Varangians. Therefore he formed a personal body-guard, the
Varangian guard, from these mercenaries. Later in the second half of the 1000s

The Kievan Rus’ at the beginning of Sviatoslav’s reign, showing his sphere of influence in 972. Sviatoslav was the
grandfather to Yaroslav the Wise.

The Varangians 73
the Varangian Guard was joined by Scandinavians and in the 1200s even En-
glish mercenaries. In 1034 came Harald, half-brother to St. Olaf, there after he
had to flee from Norway after the defeat at Sticklastad in 1030. He eventually
became head of the Varangian Guard and later King of Norway and was killed
in 1066 at Stamford Bridge when he tried to invade England.
Al-Marwazi, reports that the al-Rus’, the Gotlandic merchants, had abandoned
their wild pagan ways and embraced the Christian faith and Christianity does
appear to be well established in Gotland. As the Gotlanders adopted Christi-
anity in Miklagarðr it was obviously the Byzantine doctrine that is the base for
the early Gotlandic Church and we can also find it in Byzantine paintings in
the early churches. There are signs of 55 Gotlandic wooden churches. Most of
them are built in the 900s and wooden churches are latest from 1029 replaced
by Romanesque stone churches.
Ibn Rustah travelled to Novgorod with the al-Rus’, and compiled books re-
lating to his own travels. His impression of the al-Rus’ is very favourable. He
says that they carry clean exquisite clothes and the men adorn themselves with
bracelets of gold, because they put great effort in trade. They have a most
friendly attitude towards foreigners and strangers who seek refuge.

Kievan Rus’
Around the year 700 travelling Radhanites, later known as Jewish merchants,
from Khazaria had founded Kiev, Turkish for ‘beach settlement’, on the Dnie-
per River. The place was during the 700s and 800s an outpost for the Khazar
Khaganate. As Kiev became an important station for the Gotlandic Varangians
on the trade route between the Baltic Sea and Miklagarðr, it was seized by the
Gotlandic Varangians in 882 and became under Varangian rule Garðaríki, the
Kievan Rus’ capital. Garðaríki, Kievan Rus’, was after that ruled by a resident
Varangian nobility, that became the nucleus of the Kievan Rus’ polity, whose
‘Golden Age’ was from late 800s to mid 1200s, when it disintegrated after the
Mongol invasion (1237–1240). They are referred to as Kievan Rus’.
As mentioned above the Kievan Rus’ empire begins in 882, when the Varangi-
ans took the Slavic city Kiev from Khazar supremacy and put it under the rule
of Prince Oleg (882–912), who extended his control from Holmgarðr south
along the Dnieper river valley in order to protect trade from Khazar incursions
from the east.

74 Tore Gannholm
Kievan Rus’ was a medieval polity in Europe, from the late 800s to the mid 1200s, founded by Gotlandic merchants
who were by the Arabs called al-Rus’. It disintegrated under pressure from the Mongol invasion 1237–1240. The
early phase of the Gotlandic rule on the Russian rivers is sometimes known as the Rus’ Khaganate (end 700s until
mid 800s, while the history of Rus’ proper begins in 882, when the capital was moved from Novgorod to Kiev after
the Gotlandic Varangians liberated this Slavic city from the Khazars’ tribute. The state reached its zenith in the mid
1000s, when it encompassed territories stretching south to the Black Sea, east to the Volga, and west to the Kingdom of
Poland and to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav
I the Wise (1019–1054) constituted the “Golden Age” of Kiev, which saw the official adoption of Christianity in
988 and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda (‘Justice of Rus’).

Saint Olga (Old Church Slavonic: Ольга, born c. 890 died 11 July 969) was
ruler of Kievan Rus’ as regent (945–c. 963) for her son, Svyatoslav.
Olga was the first ruler of Kievan Rus’ to convert to Christianity, in either 945
or 957. The ceremonies of her formal reception in Constantinople were minu-
tely described by Emperor Constantine VII in his book De Ceremoniis.
However, she failed to convert her son Svyatoslav, and it was left to her grand-
The Varangians 75
son and pupil Vladimir I to make Christianity the Kievan Rus’ religion. Svya-
toslav I (945-972) achieved the first major expansion of Kievan Rus’ territorial
control, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazar Empire. Vladimir the
Great (980–1015) officially accepted Christianity with his own baptism in 988.
Kievan Rus’ reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav I (1019–1054). His sons
assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Rus’ Justice, shortly after
his death. According to Davidson, Kiev is a striking parallel to Grobina, regar-
ding the description professor Nerman has on the development there. This is
in its turn a parallel to Paviken on the west coast of Gotland. There are many
notes in the Byzantine and Arabic literature about the Varangians as merchants
in Eastern Europe.

Gutagård
Holmgarðr (Novgorod) was for centuries an important central site for the Got-
landic trade. On an Uppland rune stone from the late 1000s, is mentioned a
St Olaf Church, which belonged to the Gotlandic trading Emporium. This
church burnt down in 1152 but was soon rebuilt. According to Davidson, Nov-
gorod goes back to the 800s, and it is therefore not impossible that Gutagård
leads its ancestry back to that time. A Kievan Rus’ source, a regulation that is
believed to have been issued by Yaroslav I the Wise, who ruled 1015-1054,
mentioned that the Gotlanders were residing at a particular street in the city.
Gutagård lies on the shores of the river Wolchow.
Yaroslav’s own house was farther from the river, indicating that it was younger
than Gutagård. Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’, known as Yaroslav
the Wise, born about 978, died February 20, 1054. He was the son of the Va-
rangian Grand Prince Vladimir the Great, and was viceregent of Novgorod at
the time of his father’s death in 1015. His eldest brother, Svyatopolk the Accur-
sed, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with
the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of a Varangian guard,
defeated Svyatopolk and became the Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’ in 1019 un-
til his death in 1054. In 1019 Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter
of Olof Skötkonung the king of Sweden. Ingegerd was born in Sigtuna. She
was engaged to be married to the Norwegian king Olaf II (later the Holy), but
when Sweden and Norway got into a feud, the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung
would no longer allow the marriage to take place.
Instead Ingegerd’s father quickly arranged for a marriage to Yaroslav the Wise.

76 Tore Gannholm
Once in Kiev, her name was changed to the Greek Irene. Ingegerd was later
declared a saint with the name of Sta. Anna in Novgorod and Kiev.
Also in
Miklagarðr there was a St Olaf Church which was connected to the St Olaf
Church in Novgorod.
In the Novgorod chronicle Rus’ are mentioned in 852.
Varangians (Gotlanders) occur for the first time in the Novgorod chronicle in
859 and are mentioned in 862, 882, 898, 944, 980, 983, 1015, 1018, 1024, 1130
and in 1188. The later year tells of battles between Varangians and Novgorod
people on Gotland. Perhaps it is these disagreements which are leading to the
treaty that was concluded with Novgorod in 1189 between the Gotlanders and
other Western peoples, and ensuring the peoples mutual benefits on trade jour-
neys. After this year Gotland occurs quite often in Kievan Rus’ sources. From
the 1200s there are some other trade treaties preserved, not only between Got-
land and Novgorod, but also between Gotland and Smolensk. The Gotlanders’
agreement with the prince of Smolensk, which also includes Riga is from 1229.
It shows that the Gotlanders had earlier regulated trading links with his coun-
try. The Gotlandic trading on the Daugava has earlier had Kiev as a target. In
the 1100s Smolensk took Kiev’s place.
As an expression for the Merchant Farmers’ weaker position in the 1400s the
Gutna Althingi rented out Gutagård to the Baltic Hanseatic cities who called it
‘Gotenhof ’ with Tallinn as the tenant. It may be mentioned that at a meeting in
Visby in 1402 the dean in Vall, mr. Jacob, negotiated with the Tallinn bourger
Hinze Stolte. On behalf of Gotland the dean Jakob received from mr Stolte,
who was the authorized agent of the Hanseatic cities and merchants, rent for
the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers old Gutagård in Novgorod for the previous
year, and the lease was extended for another 10 years. According to Yrwing,
the ‘Landsdomare’ demands and raises rent for Gutagård at least up to 1554.
The Gotlanders have thus owned Gutagård well into modern times.
According to professor Hain Rebas, the Axelsson family’s involvement was
significant: “It is clear that the Axelsson family’s meddling in Livonia intensified
around 1470. But even until then had Olof, Åke, Erik, Ivar and Laurens Axels-
son, in several respects, made themselves famous or infamous in the Livonian
towns and castles. It began already in 1453. At that time Olaf had in the name
of the Gutna Althingi started to ask new and from Reval more troublesome
demands for increased rent for the ancient Gotlandic trading Emporium Guta-
gård, called by the Germans Gotenhof, away in Novgorod.”

The Varangians 77
Primary Chronicle
According to the ’Primary Chronicle’ (written down about 1113), the earliest
chronicle of the territory of the Kievan Rus’ state, it was divided between Va-
rangians and Khazars. The Laurentian Codex says: In the year 859: Varangians
from over the sea imposed tribute upon the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merias, the
Veses and Krivichs, but the Khazars imposed it upon the Polians, the Sieverians
and Vyatichs.
However, in 860- 862, “The tributaries of the Varangians drove them back
beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themsel-
ves. There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus
ensued among them, and they began to make war one against the other. They
said to themselves, “Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us
according to the Law.” They accordingly went overseas to the Gotlandic Va-
rangians, Rhos. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the
Rhos, ‘Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and
reign over us’. They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took
with them all the Rhos they could and migrated.
According to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik was a legendary Varangian chieftain,
one of the Rus. However there is nothing that point to his existance. He must
be considered a myth for the creation of Kievan-Rus’ lineage, similar as Tjelvar
is to the Gotlandic myth.

First churches on Gotland

In the foreword to Guta Lagh one can read: “Although the Gotlanders were
heathen, they nevertheless sailed on trading voyages to all countries, both
Christian and heathen. So the merchants saw Christian customs in Christian
lands. Some of them then allowed themselves to be baptised, and brought
priests to Gutland. Botair of Akebäck was the name of the one who first built
a church, in the place which is now called Kulstäde.
Some time later it was sacrifice in Vi. There he built a second church. The
Gutna Althingi also wanted to burn this particular church. Then Botair went
up on top of the church himself and said, ‘If you want to burn it, you will have
to burn me along with this church.’ He was himself influential, and he had as
his wife a daughter of the most powerful man, called Likkair Snielli, living at
the place called Stenkyrka. He ruled most at that time. He supported Botair, his
son-in-law, and said as follows, ‘Do not persist in burning the man or his chur-

78 Tore Gannholm
ch, since it stands in Vi, below the cliff.’ As a result, that church was allowed
to stand unburnt. It was established there with the name of All Saints, in that
place which is now called St Peter’s. It was the first church in Gutland to be
allowed to stand.” This probably happened in 897.
The upper Christian social group did apparently still not have sufficient means
to self-enforce that a Gotlandic Church is accepted. However, there are Byzan-
tine-Christian motives in the tombfinds from this period such as necklaces and
painted eggs of clay found in graves on Gotland, on Helgö and on Björkö from
the second half of the 800s.
The first Gotlander, who built a Christian church on Gotland was, according to
‘Guta Saga’, Botair from Akebäck. But the time was not yet ripe and the Gutna
Althingi had it burnt. The place where the church had been built was thus na-
med Kulstäde, i.e. the charcoal place.
Akebäck, where the first church on Gotland is said to have been located, is in
Dede Thing. It is one of the most impor-
tant Things on Gotland. Within its borders
lies not only Visby, which apparently is the
Thing’s original harbour, but also Roma,
which is an important central place in the
middle of Gotland and the place for the
Gutna Althingi. Through Dede Thing goes
the old main road from Roma over Akebäck
and Träkumla straight to Visby. The antiqu-
ity of the road is confirmed by the chain
of Iron Age tombs lining the road between
Träkumla and Visby.
What is depicted in this section is not a local
incident linked to Visby, but an event of de-
cisive importance in the Gotlandic history,
namely the last final battle for and against
Christianity. On the Christian side is Botair
of Akebäck, one of the leaders in Dede
Thing, who against the Gutna Althingi de-
fends his newly built church in Vi. He may
thereby be supported by his father in law
Likkair, who might have been ‘landsdomare’
i.e. leader of the Gutna Althingi, as it is said
Plank from Eke wooden Church dated to 920 about him: ‘He ruled most at that time’. He
The Varangians 79
had most to say on Gotland. Perhaps he pointed out that the church stood in
a holy place – it was in Vi - where violence was not allowed to be committed.
This meant that the church could remain. We know that several religions were
allowed on Gotland.
Both the events described by the final decision, that the Church would re-
main, are apparently linked to one time and one place, namely Visby. If we
dare connect it to the Patriarc Photius circular letter of 867, the Kulstäde in-
cident should have taken place in the 870s, and the church in Vi built in 897,
as Strelow sets the founding of Visby to that year. The decision can thus be
compared with the later Icelandic Althing’s decision of the year 1000, when
Christianity was officially introduced in Iceland.

The seafaring Arab al-Tartûschî visited Hedeby, Visby, about the year 973 and
says that there were a few Christians and a small church. He should have re-
cognized this for he came nearest from Christian countries. Did al-Tartûschî
see Botair’s church? What al-Tartûschî means with big city seems to indicate
that he calls a monastery Fulda, in the Frankish country, for a large city. Fulda
consisted of several houses and was walled, fenced. He describes Hedeby as a
large but poor city in the world ocean’s outer edge. He took particular note of
the good supply of drinking water, the women’s free status and that a number
of the inhabitants were Christian.
One of the reasons why Visby grew was the good supply of drinking water.
Some researchers have presumed it to be Schleswig, where Ansgar had already
in 849 got permission to build a church in Sliaswic. However, it is more logical
that it is Hejdeby on Gotland. Hejdeby stretches to Visby and no one knows
the name of the place for the sacrificial place (Vi) in the Viking Age.
At the outer most edge of the world ocean’ fits better in with the place Vi,
Visby, than with Sliestorp, the name of the place in Frankish royal annals from
the year 804, founded latest in 770 CE. Sliestorp-Schleswig-Sliaswic is located
inland and not at the extreme edge of the ocean, while Visby may well seem to.
In 912 the Arabic author al-Marwazi writes that now had the Gotlandic mer-
chants fully embraced the Christian faith and abandoned their wild pagan ways
and raids. The Gotlander’s stay in Miklagar∂r coincides with the Macedonian
Renaissance. It sets its mark on the early Gotlandic churches in the 900s and
1000s.
We know from the Patriarch Photios, in his circular letter from 867 to the
eastern bishops, that the Gotlanders had, after the Bulgarians, accepted the
Christian faith.

80 Tore Gannholm
Photios is widely regarded as the most powerful and influential Patriarch of
Constantinople since John Chrysostom, and as the most important intellectual
of his time, “the leading light of the 800s Renaissance”. He was a central figure
in both the conversion of the Bulgarians and the Rhos (Gotlanders) to Chris-
tianity and the Photian schism.
Judging from the circular letter by patriarch Photios and the Guta Saga, Botair’s
church could perhaps be dated to the second half of the 800s and the church
in Vi to 897 as this is Strelow’s date for the founding of Visby.
The Gotlanders had early founded their own church with the Gutna Altingi
as higest power. They did not allow any Bishop to take residence on Gotland
who could intervene in internal matters. Therefore they used passing bishops
to inaugurate new churches.
It is thus mainly the Eastern Byzantine version of Christianity that was pre-
valent on Gotland during the first three centuries until the Artlenburg treaty
in 1161 when the German crusades were allowed to pass over Gotland to the
Baltic states and brought Pope Christianity with them.
At that time the Gotlanders made an agreement with the bishop in Linköping
against a preset fee to perform inaugurations and inspections of the Gotlandic
churches.
The Gotlanders decided completely the terms of the agreement, where the bis-
hop for a fixed fee would perform certain obligations. It was a typical business
contract.
As earlier mentioned there are from early times traces of wooden architecture
from 55 Gotlandic wooden churches. Unfortunately there remain only traces
of Byzantine painting from some wooden churches. Two of these have been
dated, Eke to 920 and Garda to 940.

The Byzantine art is very dominant in the Gotlandic art school until about
1200 when the Western influflence takes over.
The Gotlandic Varangian merchants in Miklagar∂r were mainly amber and fur
traders who were entertained by the Byzantine emperor himself. According to
the document from 911 they were advised their own quarters in the Saint Ma-
mas district in Constantinople. They could come and go as they liked and serve
the emperor when they wanted.
They came in close contact with the Byzantine Emperor, religion and its chur-
ches. The Byzantine art must have made an impression on them. It is obvious
that there were artists among those Gotlanders who got training in Miklagarðr
and brought back home the Byzantine art to Gotland and influenced the Got-

The Varangians 81
landic art school when painting the wooden churches. Only planks are left from
these churches on Gotland, but it is enough for the art historians to decide the
motives.

The church building period

It seems that art historians have been mixing Gotlandic art history with Swedish
art history, without considering the Gotlandic history. Gotlandic churches have
in the literature been dated up to 200 years too late, i.e. some dates must be up
to 200 years older than previously estimated. Art historians have in splendid
isolation been allowed to sit at home at their desks and guess.
What is needed for a stable dating evidence is more of field work in close col-
laboration with historians, restorerers, dendrochronologists, and medieval art
specialists.

There is a problem if one does not understand that the Gotlandic Merchant
Republic has its own history and its own art history closely related to Constan-
tinople and the Macedonian Renaissance and its art and has very little in com-
mon with Swedish history and Swedish art history. Gotland was the leading
cultural centre in the Baltic Sea region since before the Roman time..

There are many indications that the actual church building period began with
Byzantine painted wooden churches in the 900s. We today know of 55 wooden
churches. These were from the beginning of the 1000s until the end of the
1100s replaced with Romaesque stone churches. After that time, probably very
few new congregations have come about on Gotland.

The Gotlandic wooden churches were carved, an art that did not end until well
into the Christian period. In the old days they were perhaps carved with oral
ornaments and painted green, if one is to draw a parallel to the green vines that
al-Rus’, Gotlandic merchants, according to ibn Fadlan in year 922 had tattooed
on their bodies.

The Guta Lagh gives us information on how to go about, if you wanted to

build a new church. These provisions are included as a detail in the section
on tithes, §3 of the Guta Lagh. Under these provisions it appears that parish
formations on Gotland have been the result of purely private initiative, without
the involvement of superior ecclesiastical authorities or individual chiefs. Any

82 Tore Gannholm
other patronage holders than the merchant farmers can not be demonstrated
on Gotland. Parish formation is completely free from outside influence.
This is another proof that Gotland at this time was a supreme Merchant Re-
public, without external influences. Some merchant farmers join together to
form a community of interest, build a church, and get a priest, ‘for greater con-
venience.’ After the church is completed and consecrated by a bishop they leave
the old church. Thereafter they have to pay tithes to the new church commu-
nity. The law creates safeguards for its continued existence by making it impos-
sible for those who have been involved in the construction and inauguration
to run away from their responsibilities and return to the old church. The law
outlines carefully the evidence rules that will be applicable. It is likely that the
free and independent position the farmers had on Gotland contributed to the
fact that here one finds, in relation to the population, a very large number of
parishes. Of course it also depends on the Gotlandic merchant farmers good
economy, making it possible even for very small groups of merchant farmers
to form a parish and build a church.
The Gotlandic parishes hold a special position, which is later not only related
to the Gotlandic Church’s autonomy in relation to the Bishop of Linköping,
but equally to the position of Gotland as a separate country next to the later
Svea kingdom, Denmark and Norway.
The Gotlandic Church gives its parishes, in some cases, a very substantial au-
tonomy when it comes to matters which have to do with the parish’s internal
character. Its interests are primarily tied to the church and the maintenance of
the priest (Tithe), but the parish is also responsible for matters relating to dis-
cipline and morality. These concepts have through Christianity obtained a new
content. To this will later be added poor relief that becomes a Christian duty in
the parish framework, rather than a clan affair.
On the Swedish mainland the concession of the bishop was needed, and in
some places the king’s consent, if you wanted to form new parishes. This of
course meant a reduction in the farmers’ autonomy.

When the old law with its roots in the Germanic clan society in the beginning
of the 1200s was written down it was revised and adapted to the new Christian
faith. It delegated the new internal church matters to the church-parish to deal
with. In contrast, those in the clan society statutes, which were central to the
everyday coexistence, issues such as manslaughter, assault, theft, inheritance,
and purchase of property, remain in full force and are decided within the Thing
organization. This division was easy because the parish was a completely new

The Varangians 83
and relatively autonomous legal entity. The parish had under the Guta Lagh
not only the right to pass judgment but also impose fines. These fines are then
allocated between the priest, the church and the parish. This is due to the fact
that these violations exclusively affect the congregation as such and not the
greater Thing congregation.
As seen above the Gotlanders were resident in Miklagarðr and had close con-
tact with the Byzantine empire from the 860s and during the 900s and 1000s
with Gotlanders even employed as mercenaries. The Gotlandic Varangians
were settled in Miklagar∂ar in the quarter of Saint Mamas. They came in clo-
se contact with the Byzantine religion, churches and its art. The Gotlandic
presence coincides with the Macedonian Renaissance art and this must have
made an impression on them. Surely there must have been artists among those
Gotlanders, who got training in Byzantine art, and early brought the knowledge
back to Gotland, and embraced it in the Gotlandic high standing art tradition
and made it a Gotlandic art, as the Gotlanders always have done with foreign
impulses. Compare the picture stones from the first century and further on.
Surely this is the reason for the Byzantine painting in the Gotlandic wooden
churches from the 900s and in the early stone churches. Only planks are left
from these wooden churches on Gotland but it is enough for the art historians
to decide the motives.

In 988 Vladimir I had the Kievan Rus’ officially converted to Christianity and
as a reward he married Anna the sister of Emperor Basil II. Anna was great
great grandchild to the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr.

There are similarities in church art in some churches on Gotland, in Kiev, Nov-
gorod, Pskov, Vladimir, Suzdal and Staraya Ladoga. This church art is later than
in the Gotlandic wooden churches and seems to come from craftsmen and
painters with independant roots in craft schools in Byzantium. There are still
a few stone churches left with Byzantine paintings on Gotland but many were
demolished in the 1200s and replaced with larger western influenced churches.

Guta Saga and Guta Lagh

Guta Saga tells about St Olaf and his Christianity. Gotland, however, was
Christianized long before St Olaf came to Gotland.
As mentioned, several doctrines of faith fought for the souls. At Olaf ’s second
visit to Gotland in 1030, as a Christian, Ormica is likely to have converted to
84 Tore Gannholm
Olaf ’s line of religious belief.
Olaf had converted to Christianity in Normandy in 1015 and belonged to
Pope-Christianity. As the Gotlanders had converted to Christianity in Mikla-
gar∂r in 864 and had close contacts with the Byzatine Emperor they were main-
ly affiliated to the Eastern Byzantine version of Christianity.
According to Snorri, Olaf at his first visit took tribute from the Gotlanders in
order not to ravage. This must have been the visit in 1007 when Olaf was still
not a Christian. Olaf only became famous after he had fallen in war at Stik-
lestad in 1030, as an opportune tool for the new religion. He was canonised in
1164 by Pope Alexander III.
Gotland is said to have been an unusually homogeneous society as the po-
pulation structure is concerned. There has never been any feodal nobles on
Gotland. There were of course social inequalities. The Merchant Farmers, who
ran the trade and among other places visited outlying venues such as Aldeig-
juborg, Atil, Bagdad, Bulgar, Holmgar∂r, Kiev and Miklagarðr in the east and
Bardowick, Schleswig, Bergen, London and Spain in the west, formed a wealt-
hy upper class, who surely had power in their hands, even in political terms. It
has been assumed that for instance judges were recruited mainly from these
lineages. An intermediate position holds ‘rural residents’, that the Guta Lagh
mentions. These were probably tenants. At the bottom of the scale of ranks we
find the serfs, who performed the heavy work, and who were for sale, mainly
in the eastern trading venues. Not least in this area came Christianity and the
Church to be significant, particularly in humanizing direction.
Also from legal point of view the laws came to be mitigated by Christianity’s
increasingly strong position in the Gotlandic society. Under the old pre-Chris-
tian view of legal matters, it was a duty to avenge acts of violence and other
infringements. Now the pursued could find sanctuary in a church, where he
with his closest could be in the right to get 40-days of asylum. Such a protected
church existed in each trisection. After this time - the 40 days - a peace circle
could be entrusted, which would include a church and three farms.

A new social class arose on Gotland with the introduction of Christianity, na-
mely the Christian priesthood. In addition to the highest judge, Landsdomaren,
and the ‘Sätting’ judges the trisection deans were the most distinguished digni-
taries. Gotland was an independent country, a Merchant Republic. Gotland was
not subordinated to any other country’s governance, perhaps mainly because
of its location in the Baltic Sea region. In religious matters the Gotlanders had
close contacts with the Byzantines in the east. In the west it was Denmark with

The Varangians 85
the harbour in Sliesthorp later Schleswig. Therefore most of the early second
wave of religious influences to the Gotlandic church came from the Byzantines
and later from Denmark. To get a better understanding of life in the Christian
Gotlandic society we will analyze some of the clauses in Guta Lagh, which deal
with the functions of a parish. This offers us the opportunity to visit some of
the problems faced by the Gotlandic farmer when Church Christianity made its
inroads into the old social order.
§ 3. About tithes. All those who helped to form the parish and built a church,
shall according to the Guta Lagh also participate in church services and pay
tithes of their corn. This tithe is in turn divided between the church, the priest
and the parish, for the livelihood of the poor, etc. The entire tithe stays within
the congregation and no part of it goes to the bishop, as it does elsewhere in
the Nordic region. This tithe must be paid before the Annunciation day (25/3),
when they obviously expect the harvest to be threshed. Would perchance anyo-
ne refuse to pay tithe, ‘the priest shall pronounce thereon three Sundays in a
row, but on the fourth close the church door and suspend the service for the
parish men, until all the tithes have been given.’ All parishioners are thus ex-
cluded from the ecclesial community, which at that time would have seemed
like a very harsh penalty. It is obviously assumed that the other parishioners
shall be forced to apply pressure on the offending, that he fulfills his duty. The
offending must also pay a fine of three marks, which “all together”, i.e. all pa-
rishioners must jointly search it out. The tithe question is a pure concern for
the church, which only affects parishioners and no others. Its local restriction
is also apparent, as these kind of cases do not appear to have been passed on
to the local Thing.
§ 6. About holidays. With Christianity came the Christian Sunday and other
Christian holidays into the picture, which is an entirely new phenomenon. On
these days work was not allowed. It was only allowed to ‘keep times and listen
to worship.’ They had permission ‘to ride around their farm after the Mass
was sung and the service was over.’ The provisions were loosened further by
adding, in exceptional cases permission to go or ride on the Sunday, however,
only with lesser burdens. In case of larger loads, they needed the priest’s per-
mission to do so. It was also allowed on the Sunday to go to the marketplace
with their goods. If you break these rules you are fined and the goods, which
you brought, are seized.
These fines are distributed so that those who seized the offending receive half
the fine, while the assembly, within the limits of which the crime was commit-
ted, the other half. This is in the usual way split between church, priest and par-

86 Tore Gannholm
ish. In this context appears an informant, which is extremely rare in the Guta
Lagh. Perhaps it is in this context that crimes may be committed by people who
do not belong to the congregation. That the other half goes to the assembly,
where the crime was committed, shows it to be an internal crime, committed
against the Sunday peace of the congregation. Whether Sabbath crimes of this
nature have been passed on to the Thing is not certain. In any case, nothing is
mentioned in the law.
§8.About‘ Manhelg’. Cases involving manslaughter and assault is always dealt
with at the usual Things. However, if such an act is performed on a religious
holiday or during the major holidays, including a week at Christmas, seven
weeks at Lent, Easter and Whitsun weeks and the three ‘gångedagar’ (the three
days before Ascention day), it is paid in addition to the fines for crime sen-
tenced by the Thing as well as fines for holiday offense. These go to the church,
within which the offense was committed, and distributed in the usual manner.
Even this crime is considered a crime against church peace. This is more marked
in the case of manslaughter in the church itself, as this will automatically trigger
the ban, affecting the church in a particular way.
The whole congregation shall seek out these fines, and everyone shall have part
in it, as it says in the law.
§ 2. About Children. In the Germanic society it was very common to leave a
child in the woods, and the system was used mainly when it came to the sick
and deformed children, but could also be extended to other categories, if the
master saw it fit. This could of course not be accepted by the Christian com-
munity with its different view of human dignity. The central importance of
this question is clear from the fact that this section of the Guta Lagh is placed
immediately after the great proclamation of the adoption of Christianity as the
only religion on Gotland.
The section begins with the following sentence:
“It is now next, that one must nourish each child who is born in our country,
i.e. Gotland, and not thrown out.” Even in this section the priest plays in the
woman’s congregation a starring role. If in fact the woman who abused her
child, has confessed her crimes to the priest in the church, she should pay pen-
ance and thus not have prosecution. If she does not confess, and this matter
will be presented to the parish members, she should if she is guilty, be fined
three marks to the parish, ‘if the parish can claim them.’ If this fails, the matter
will be presented to the Thing’s men and then possibly on to the Gutna Althin-
gi. Here is therefore a crime, which can be drawn up at civil court, if the matter
cannot be handled within the parish context. However, it is an internal law, as

The Varangians 87
demonstrated by the pastor’s role. Of course, the culprit usually pays her fine
to the parish to escape further trial.
§ 4. About sacrifice. This section prohibits any invocation of ‘bogs or piles or
pagan gods and shrines or stake yards’ and all ‘such an invocation with food
and drink that does not follow the Christian faith, then he is fined three marks
to the parish members.’ This section has some fundamental similarities with the
previous one. Also in this case the fine is in the first place to the parish, ‘if they
can claim them.’ It further provides that all parish members are to participate
in the enforcement and that all should share in the fines. This applies namely
here to an offense against the Christian parish community and Holy Commu-
nion and it is thus of purely internal significance. The question, however, has
in principle a wider scope, which makes it necessary to bring the charge on to
the Thing, if the parish is not able to claim some fines. Other cases in which
the parish is frequently involved, however, concern questions of very limited
scope, where it comes natural to allow the parish to act. It should be mentioned
the roads, as the parishes are obliged to maintain them. It concerns the way to
the parish church, and the roads to the neighboring churches, then possibly on
to the Gutna Althingi. Here is therefore a crime, which can be drawn up at civil
court, if the matter can not be handled within the parish context. However, it
is an internal law, as demonstrated by the pastor’s role. Of course, the culprit
usually pays his fine to the parish to escape further trial.
It is interesting to see that almost all the cases listed here are still in the 1600s
and 1700s counted as parish affairs. As such, this is a clear continuity from the
early church until the 1700s.

Gotland and its Merchant Republic was the center for free trade, while the
incoming Hanseatic League, founded in 1358, represented monopolistic trade.
Gotland thus dominated trade in the Baltic Sea region until the Hanseatic
League outmaneuvered the Gotlanders and took over control of trade in the
Baltic Sea in the late 1300s.
Please note, Visby never joined the Hanseatic League and Visby is not a Han-
seatic city. It is an insult to call Visby a Hanseatic city. In the 1920s and 1930s
the Germans showed on maps Lübeck as the large Hanseatic centre and Visby
as a small trading office.
Visby had no physical contact with the Hanse until 1524 when Lübeck together
with the Swedish King Gustav Vasa besieged Visborg castle but had to aban-
don the attempt.
Instead Lübeck made a surprise attack on Visby in 1525 and burned the city.

88 Tore Gannholm
Are the Gotlandic crucifixes the earliest wooden
crucifixes in natural size?
Macedonian Renaissance art (867-1056), was a period in Byzantine art which
began in the period following the death of Emperor Theophilos in 842 and the
lifting of the ban on icons (iconoclasm).
Iconoclasm has generally been motivated theologically by an Old Covenant
interpretation of the Ten Commandments, which forbade the making and
worshipping of “graven images” (Exodus 20:4, Deuteronomy 5:8, see also Bib-
lical law in Christianity). Two periods of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire
during the 700s and 800s made use of this theological theme in discussions
over the propriety of images of holy figures, including Christ, the Virgin, Theo-
tokos, and saints. It was a debate triggered by changes in Orthodox worship,
which were themselves generated by the major social and political upheavals of
the 600s in the Byzantine Empire.
Macedonian art featured classical styles in beautiful floor mosaics, ornate ivory

The Rabbula Gospels (ca. 586) depicts a very busy crucifixion scene, with crowds on either side of the three crosses.
This early crucifixion is to find in an illuminated manuscript.

The Varangians 89
sculptures and more realistic paintings of people. It got its name from Basil I
who founded the Macedonian dynasty that ruled until 1056. He was married
to the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr’s daughter Eudokia Indrina. The Gotlandic
merchants converted to Christianity and had a special status in Constantinople
that they called Miklagar∂r. They were allocated their own living quarters in St
Mamas district outside the Theodosian wall.

In the 800s and 900s the military situation in the Byzantine Empire improved,
and art and architecture revived. New churches were again commissioned, and
the Byzantine church mosaic style became standard. The best preserved ex-
amples are, beside the unique Gotlandic churches, the Hosios Loukas Monas-
tery in mainland Greece and the Nea Moni Katholikon on the island of Chios.
The frescoes at Castelseprio in Italy are by many art historians also linked to the
art of Constantinople of the period.
There was a revival of interest in classical themes, of which the Paris Psalter
is an important testimony. More sophisticated techniques were used to depict
human figures.
Although monumental sculpture is extremely rare in Byzantine art, the Mace-

Mosaic in the San Clemente Church in Rome Crucifix from Björke Church dated to mid 900s.
from the 500s

90 Tore Gannholm
donian period saw the unprecedented flourishing of the art of ivory sculpture
(miniatures). Many ornate ivory triptychs and diptychs survive, with the central
panel often representing either deesis, as in the Harbaville Triptych, the Cruci-
fied Christ in the Borradaile Triptych or the Theotokos in a triptych at Luton
Hoo, dating to the reign of Nicephorus Phocas (963-969).
On the other hand ivory caskets, notably the Veroli Casket (end 900s) from
Victoria and Albert Museum, often feature secular motifs true to the Hellenis-
tic tradition, thus testifying an undercurrent of classical taste in Byzantine art.
In early Christian churches we find mosaics with crucified Christ (page 90).
We also find illuminated Gospels such as the Rabbula Gospels from the Syriac
Church from the 500s (page 89), the Paris Gospels from Basil I and the Chud-
lov Psalter.
The most striking element of the Byzantine ivory Crucifixes is the figure of
Christ. It is not the body of a corpse, but of God Himself, incorruptible unto
eternity and the source of life, radiating the hope of Resurrection. He does
not hang on the Cross, but rather seems to be supporting it. His hands are not
cramped from being nailed to the wood, but rather spread out serenely in an
attitude of supplication, that is further emphasized by Jesus’ tranquil and gentle
expression. This iconographic Crucifix does not express the brute horror of
death by crucifixion, but rather the nobility and gentleness of eternal life.
The figure of the Lord is itself instructive, for He stands upon the cross. The

Crucifix in Hall Church. Mid 900s

Crucifix on baptismal font in Stenkyrka Church by

Hegwaldr

The Varangians 91
short crossbar beneath his feet was actually a kind of shelf. This indicates that
the Lord suffered his passion voluntarily and was at all times the master of life
and death. This is also shown by the calm expression on his face and the re-
laxed attitude of his body. In Byzantine Orthodoxy Christ has open eyes since
around the end of the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. So has also Christ on
the early Gotlandic wooden crucifixes. Sacred imagery from both the Scriptu-
res and holy tradition fill this iconographic Byzantine Crucifix.

Eastern crucifixes, to begin with, had a straight Jesus’ body with two feet nai-
led side by side rather than over each other. His feet are parallel to each other
on a wooden support (Four nails type) and not one foot on top of the other
(The Pope-Catholique three nails type). On his feet he wears shoes as a sign of
ruler. The crucified Christ was presented as ruler and judge. He is victorious

Miniature from the 800s in Chludov Psalter with sce-

ne of iconoclasm. This page of the Iconodule Chludov
Psalter illustrates the line “They gave me gall to eat;
and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink”
with a picture of a soldier offering Christ vinegar on a
sponge attached to a pole.
Crucifixion and women at the grave from the 800s. On
the cross it is written “IHS NAZAREN REX IV-
DAEORVM”
Compare the crucifixion on the Sjonhem piscina

92 Tore Gannholm
 Crucifix in Stenkumla Church Mid 900s (left)
Crucifix in Linde Church. Mid 900s (top)

over death. The crown of thorns is also absent on Eastern ivory crucifixes, as
on early Gotlandic wooden crucifixes, since the emphasis is not on Christ’s
suffering, but on his triumph over sin and death. Instead of a crown of thorns
he wears a royal crown or a halo. The loincloth is highly stylized and falls in
vertical folds. These crucifixes are dated to mid 900s. The Byzantine models
are of ivory. The Gotlanders had no ivory why they made the crucifixes from
wood in actual size.
The earliest crucifix in Gotland is in stone. It is a piscine from Sjonhem Church
attributed to the earlier works by Hegwaldr. The model is an ivory plaque from
the 800s.
Early crucifixes in wood, actual Size of Christ, we find in Gotland i.a. in Björke,
Stenkumla, Linde, Hall, Mästerby. Hegwaldr has this type of crucifix in stone
on some of his baptismal fonts from end 900s. For more photos see: ”The
Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches”
From about 965 there is a modification with the legs bowed, called the S-bow
of Christs legs.
Some such later crucifixes are also found in the Ottonian Renaissance in
Germany from the mid 900s such as the Gero Cross or Gero Crucifix, from
around 965–970, the Enghauser Crucifix..The Schaftlacher Kreuz. A crucifix
from the Pfarr- and Wallfahrtskirche in Schaftlach is interesting. Until year

The Varangians 93
 2000, the cross was seen as a
significant Romanesque work in
Bavaria and was generally dated
to around 1200. Older dating at-
tempts were without significant
effect on the ‘art scientfic litera-
ture’. As part of the restoration
of the church between 1999 to
2002 the cross was studied sci-
entifically. This resulted in the
C14determination that the body
of lime-tree belongs in the peri-
od around 970.
The Ottonian Renaissance (936-
1002) was influenced by and
coincided, during some time,
Piscina from Sjonhem church early work by Hegwaldr. Compare
Christ’s dress on previous page, ivory from the 800s. with the Macedonian Renaissan-
Note the straight cross that can be found on ivory in Constan- ce. The Ottonian Renaissance
tinople until about 960. Thereafter Christ has S-form on his legs. was a limited ‘renaissance’ of
Byzantine and Late Antique art
in Central and Southern Europe during the reigns of the first three Holy Ro-
man Emperors of the Ottonian, or Saxon dynasty: Otto I (936–973), Otto
II (973–983), and Otto III (983–1002). The Ottonian Renaissance depended
upon their patronage.

We know that the first documented visit by Gotlandic merchants to Constan-

tinople was in 838. After that the Patriarch Photius in his circular letter in early
867 writes that now had the Rhos (Gotlandic merchants) so eagerly conversed
to Christianity that he found it necessary to send a bishop to Gotland.
In the year 911 there is a document signed between Emperor Leo VI and 15
named Gotlandic merchants where they are advised their own living quarters
in Miklagar∂r. In 912 the Arabic author al-Marwazi writes that now have the
Gotlandic merchants fully embraced the Christian faith.
The Gotlandic merchants’ stay in Miklagar∂r coincides with the Macedonian
Renaissance (867-1056). It sets its mark on the early Gotlandic churches. In the
900s Gotlandic artists use Byzantine triptychs in ivory as model for their actual
size crucifixes in wood.

94 Tore Gannholm
Archbishop Unni and the Danish church
According to Frederick Ochsner, “Gotlands kristnande”, p 25:
“The otherwise known churches on Gotland, as archaeological excavations and
time provisions give notice of, are the wooden churches in Hemse, Guldrupe
and Silte”. At least for the part of Silte one can with regard to the coin finds
even venture a guess at the end of the 900s. According to Guta Saga, these
churches belong to them, which were later built ‘for greater convenience’ for
the Merchant Farmers and people in the country. The churches in Stenkyrka,
Atlingbo and Fardhem are older according to Guta Saga and must therefore
have been built and inaugurated sometime in the 800s and 900s.
Pilgrim Bishops and traveling missionary bishops must therefore during these
centuries have visited Gotland. Reasonably we can also assume that one and
another archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen ventured out on an inspection tour
in their great predecessors wake. One has in any case demonstrably done so,
namely Archbishop Unni. It may be of interest to recall an old farm legend
from Hunninge in Klinte, that certainly cannot be accorded any scientific evi-
dence, but that certainly is as a clue puzzling.”

Archbishop Unni reigned between 918-936. He was like most of his predeces-
sors only a monk at the monastery Corvey, later chaplain and secretary to the
canon Leidrat at the Bremen Cathedral Chapter. King Conrad I granted Unni
the Bishop’s rod, and thus ignored the clergy and the people, who chose Leid-
rat. King Henry I the Fowler, after his victory over the Danes in 934, pacified
territories to the north where the Danes had been harrying the Frisians by sea.
The monk and chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae Saxonicae
reports that the Danes were subjects of Henry the Fowler. Henry incorporated
into his kingdom territories held by the Wends, who together with the Danes
had attacked Germany, and he also conquered Schleswig in 934.
Now Unni resumed missionary work in the Nordic countries. He came to Sch-
leswig, Jutland, Gotland and Sweden. He died in 936 during this trip and is bu-
ried at Birka. At Klinte is an old farm, called Hunninge. The church floor has a
grave slab with runes, which says: ‘With God’s grace, Rodwaldr from Hunninge
has given a tenth of his landed property for his soul and his Father’s soul and
Alvast’s soul.’
The legend says that Rodwaldr descended from Bremen and that the Archbis-
hop Unni during his missionary journey had lived with him for a long time.
The farm would have had his name and then really been called Unnigård. A dirt
road behind the farm, leading to Lojsta, is still called the Bishop Street. Lojsta
The Varangians 95
on its part is located near Fardhem, which according to Guta Saga was the
first church in the southern three-section. Of course, we must not construct
the connection, which we do not have a clue about, but it is certainly strange
that on a farm in Gotland we preserve the memory of an archbishop and his
missionary journey from the early 900s.
According to Adam of Bremen it was Harald Bluetooth of Denmark (c. 935-
986), who encouraged a merchant on Gotland to build a church. However
there were already Byzantine wooden churches on Gotland.
Adam in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae ponti cum also says, that
“Birka is a Gotlandic, Gothia, town located in the middle of the country of the
Sveoner.” Around the year 960 Harald Gormsson Bluetooth became the first
king in the Nordic countries to join Pope Christianity according to the German
church and decided to Christianize all Denmark, Jutland. Harald Bluetooth
conquered even the Lejre kingdom, the Danish islands and Skåne, as well as
Norway and the country around Sliesthorp.
On the Jelling stone raised by Harald Bluetooth in 983, it says “the Harald who
won for himself all Denmark and Norway and had the Danes Christianized.”
After the murder of Harold about 986 his son Sven Tveskägg, Forkbeard, loo-
sened the country from the German church.
On Gotland it is, however, the Byzantine version of Christianity that was pre-
valent during the first three centuries until the Artlenburg peace treaty of 1161
when German merchants were allowed to settle in Visby.

Erland Lagerlöf has identified 55 wooden churches below present stone chur-
ches. They are probably all from the 900s.

Visby is coming into being

Visby is founded long before the Germans reached the Baltic Sea region and
appeared on the scene with the Artlenburg peace treaty 1161. Visby is a pure
Gotlandic inception. Visby’s pre-German history goes far back. According to
Strelow, Visby was founded as a trading place in 897 with the first standing
church. Recent archaeological excavations testify to a settlement with its cen-
tre, market place, at just the current street Specksrum, which towards the land
side was limited by a semicircular wall inside which the St. Olaf, St. Clement
and Drotten churches were located. St. Clement was probably one of the first
churches in Visby.
Visby is likely to have started growing during the 600s, but from the 800s we

96 Tore Gannholm
can see cultural layers that show that a waterfront community starts to grow.
And in the year 1000 the entire coastline from the northern entrance of the
harbor to Donnersplats was built.
Visby can very likely have been an ancient central location for at least the nort-
hwestern part of Gotland. This can be seen from the fact that five of Got-
land’s 20 Things reach the sea in a stretch of less than five kilometres around
Visby.
These Things are counted from the south, Stenkumla Thing in Hejde ‘Sät-
ting’, which northern border reaches Visby’s southern wall, Dede Thing, Endre
Thing where Hejdeby reaches the eastern wall, Bro Thing and Lummelunda
Thing, the latter four in Bro ‘Sätting’. This shows the importance Visby early
had as worship and gathering place.
The seafaring Arab al-Tartûschî visited Hedeby (Visby) about the year 973.
Al-Tartûschî says that there were a few Christians and a small church. He took
particular note of the good supply of drinking water, the woman’s free status
and that a small number of the inhabitants were Christians. One of the reasons
why Visby grew was the good supply of drinking water.

We encounter similar phenomena in Sweden, such as Uppsala, Linköping and

Skara, where the jurisdictional districts go up in points against the ancient cult
sites. It may be added that these five Things, even in the 1500s have their
common market at ‘byrummet’ south of Visby. It’s the same place where the
country population gathered in the year 1361 to meet and be slaughtered by
Valdemar’s army.
Among those five Things, Dede Thing takes a central place. It is clear from the
fact that Gutestuen in Visby as well as Roma with Gutna Althingi, are located
in Dede Thing and are the only places to which Gutna Althingi is linked in the
Middle Ages. The Thing is also placed first in all extant Land books from 1484
to the middle of the 1600s. With knowledge of the great conservatism that ex-
ists regarding the layout of the Land books this weighs heavily. Botair of Ake-
bäck is from this Thing. His close connection to Visby suggests that he and his
Thing brothers had their harbour and their ships there. He also built Gotland’s
first permanent church, which in fact speaks enough for Visby’s importance at
the time of the adoption of Christianity. Visby is thus not only an ancient place
of worship but also an important Thing place. In this capacity, Visby of course,
has been a market place, as it is related to sacrifice and Thing and developed a
substantial trading. Visby must therefore have been a main town on Gotland
already in the pre-Christian era and long before the Germans arrived.

The Varangians 97
Bronze Age finds are completely missing in the medieval city. Cultural layers
from the early Vendel era are not known. No Iron Age farms may have lain in
the way for Visby locals when they began to utilize cultivable local land for their
food security, which may have occurred already during the early Middle Ages.
In the urban area there are six finds from the pre-Roman and the Roman Iron
Age (400 BCE - 400 CE). One of the finds consist of two Trajan denars, which
in weighted form were viable even in the Vendel era. That is in substance five
secure finds. These stray finds from a period of about 1000 years do not allow
any conclusions about how the urban area has been inhabited during this time.
Two stray finds from the Migration Period (400-550 CE) do not allow conclu-
sions of such a nature either. The opposite is more likely.
With the Vendel era (550-800 CE) the number of stray finds within the urban
area increases. Cultural layers within the urban area is guaranteed only from the
later Vendel era and then within five Visby blocks. As a memory of a settlement
next to Visby, the grave field on the ‘Östra begravningsplatsen’, used from the
700s into the 1000s, may be mentioned.
The area closest to Visby is now treeless, often with rock lying up in the day-
light. If this once has been forested, it has been the same skinny pine forests
on the entire coast as from Västkinde to Kolens kvarn. Slightly further inland
lies, however, occasional patches of arable land. Such is the case to the east and
north of Visborg castle, at Pilhagen, Gråbo and Länna from the southeast, at
Annelund and Katrinelund north and along Endre and Follingbo road, east of
the city.
Since the cultural layers from the Stone Age habitation are in direct contact
with the late Vendel era or early-medieval culture layers, no settlement can have
existed there between the Neolithic and the Vendel era. At the same time it ap-
pears that at the Vendel era and early Medieval times there was a new develop-
ment in the same habitation area. Archaeological surveys in the neighborhood
of ‘Kalvskinnet’, the years 1973-1974, provide a dating to the 900s and 1000s
for the finds. Large amounts of boat rivets, wooden pins and pieces of rope
were unearthed. A boat appeared to have been destroyed by fire. ‘Caupskip’
has apparently been drawn up on the shores of the old harbor for repairs and
storage. The old harbour meets us as the centre of activity in the 900s, which
highlights the importance of the later Vendel era for the inception of the Visby
society. It can not be linked to local area farmers. They continued to live on
their farms, although a few of its residents in the later Vendel era found their
new existence in the emerging Visby Society.

98 Tore Gannholm
The reason, that at this location there was an early emergence of a society of
central importance to Gotland, can be assumed that here in connection to the
reefs and islets was a protected bay with an excellent harbour. When Steffen
says, that at this location there were no prerequisites for this, he thinks imme-
diately of a built harbour with docks and protective breakwaters. Late Vendel
era flat-bottomed vessels, however, had no need for such harbours. It is often
enough to have a reasonably sheltered gravel or sand site, where they could pull
up their ships. Only the larger ships would have required a quay.
In contrast, Västergarn was a natural harbour where excavations have revealed
quays inside Paviken. The big difference between Västergarn and Visby is that
the former was silted up by sand and must be abandoned, while outside Visby
there is stone foundation, and therefore could be kept open. Presumably Väs-
tergarn was the larger town before it must be abandoned.
The area that limits the older Vi was, and consists still at its core elements of a
damp and swampy area. It is an irrigation swamp, soaked in water from water-
veins, which pour forth from ‘Klinten’. The area has therefore, as Steffen and
others have pointed out, not been possible to utilize for urban development
without systematic draining, which according to them was not possible and
needed before the Germans’ arrival in Visby.
When it immediately south and north of the waterlogged field at the current
’St. Hans plan’ and Specksrum was land of a suitable kind, there is no reason
to suppose that a primitive settlement on the scale, as has been outlined, would
have made its way to the swamp area. However probably the proximity to the
richly abundant water sources from Klinten have been crucial for the emergen-
ce of that to the north located oldest trading place.
It is likely when the Germans, as a result of the Artlenburg Treaty in 1161,
received the freedom of commerce on the Gotlandic coast, have sought out,
or perhaps been designated a fixed harbour namely Visby. From the end of
the 1100s the final stages of this marketplace grew at breakneck speed, so that
within the space of a few generations it became the largest and richest city in
the Baltic Sea region.
The buildings in Visby are considered to be laid out according to a regulated
plot scheme with narrow alleys between plots that passed down to the harbour.
This dividing up could be attributed to the 800s, possibly earlier.
The same type of farm and plot structure has been confirmed in several of the
contemporary town formations where the Gotlanders had trading Emporiums.
The topographic structure of Visby was thus ideal for a trading city during the
early Middle Ages. The inner city rises from the sea shore terraces up against

The Varangians 99
Klinten, the steep limestone shelf in the east, which highest point is nearly 40
metres above sea level. On the narrow, barely 300 metres wide strip of beach
between the sea to the west and the limestone shelf in the east, the first settle-
ments grew. Here was what we have seen above, a maritime extremely suitable
natural harbour, a large curved bay, protected from the sea by a reef with a flat
sandy beach, a tranquil lagoon, where, at the light and shallow draft, boats at
the time were drawn up. Added to this was, in the centre of the current inner
city, a powerful stream of fresh water found, which broke out of the limestone
rock, and provided the areas west of it with an abundance of drinking water.
For this the still preserved medieval drainage and street fillings bear witness.
This water was like the harbour an important prerequisite for Visby’s develop-
ment into a medieval city. One can still today, at a medieval well in the basement
of one of the monastery buildings at S:a Karin, listen to the powerful roar of
the stream, which now runs deep below the current street level. The north of
the swamp area, around the cathedral and the area immediately west of it, was
inhabited already in the Stone Age nearly 4,000 years ago. Then follows a long
findless time in its history, until the finds of the 700s begin to rise again in
scope and importance.
Just south of the city, a burial ground from the 900s has been unearthed, that
is indicative of an agglomeration of commercial nature.
Other similar burial grounds just north of the city is further evidence that the
coastal strip at Visby during the late Vendel era was densely populated and had
a central role. According to the Guta Saga here was a place of worship before
the introduction of Christianity, a Vi that gave the town its name. The modern
placename research supports this notion. During the 700s there are major up-
heavals in the Baltic Sea region. It is a time of city formations among others,
when a number of Baltic Sea region trading centres grew out to urban com-
munities. Visby is clearly one among these early urban solutions together with
such as Paviken, Grobina, Sliesthorp, Birka and Kiev. The fibula finds, buckles
designed as costume jewelry, in the urban area from the 800s, demonstrate that
it is a commercial society.
What is interesting in this context is that widespread peaceful trade existed
through the Varangians (Gotlanders) who went to the East.
Compare with the Viking raids that went to the West. There is a clear border
between the Gotlanders on one hand who from the 600s colonized many pla-
ces on the East side of the Baltic Sea and the Danes, Norwegians and Västgö-
tar who from the late 700s started their raids and colonization in the west of
Europe. The word Viking does not exist in the Baltic Sea region east of river

100 Tore Gannholm

Visby - Regina Maris, the Queen of the Sea. Painting by Erik Olsson.
The oldest tower in the wall is the Lambets tower at the north end of the medieval harbour, current Almedalen, now
called Kruttornet with the small harbor exit. Lambets tower was in Latin called Turris lambitus, which means that
of the water licked Tower, beach tower. Here the ships left the harbour. Into the harbor they came at Turris fluviati-
lis which means the river tower at the southern entrance. This information comes from a ship sailing instruction from
the 1400s in Hanseatische Archiv in Lübeck.

Elbe or on the Russian rivers.

What had the Gotlandic Merchant Farmer to sell in the Vendel era-Viking Age?
For export it is visible in early times in the country side and in Visby, that the
Gotlandic smithery has produced spears and swords, that were exported to
Finland and the East Baltic Sea area, still in the 1200s. An artistic production
including limestone and sandstone also worked for export. Baptismal fonts
from Gotland can in large quantities be found around the Baltic Sea region.
The Merchant Farmers produced generally wool, leather, hides and homespun
to such an extent that export may have occurred.
During the late Viking Age Visby became the gathering place for many Got-
landic Merchant Farmers, who devoted themselves to transit trade between
the Kievan Rus’ (Garðaríki) trading centers, the Baltic Sea region, Scandinavia
and Western Europe. They came from different parts of Gotland, and the
exchange of goods, which they brought about had little to do with Gotland’s
own production. For the Merchant Farmers this meant big gains in silver, and
to some extent in gold. Only in exceptional cases was it supplements to the
food supply. The indentation of the coast in Visby protected by islets attracted
an interbaltic trade during the time the Merchant Farmers stayed there during
their collectively undertaken trading voyages. At the same time there grew a
craft for the benefit of the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers ‘caupskip’ and for the
The Varangians 101
growth of the Viking Age society. This paved opportunities for an influx of
Gotlanders to the emerging society.

At the old harbour exit stands a fortress tower, a defense tower, which since
the 1700s has been known as ‘Kruttornet’ (the Powder Tower). It is the oldest
secular building in Visby. It is furthest out to sea, where the shoreline from
the north turns to the east, forming the bay, which was the natural harbour of
Visby. It has been built there in close proximity to the older Gotlandic city to
protect the harbour and market place. By its nature it is a Gotlandic defense
tower of the same type, which we encounter in many places along the coast of
Gotland. Closest church is St Olaf inaugurated in 1103 by the Danish king Erik
Ejegod, who passed Visby on his way to the Holy Land.
According to a ship sailing instruction from the 1400s it was the oldest tower
in the wall, the Lambs tower, at the north end of the medieval harbour, current
Almedalen, with the little harbour exit. The Lambs tower was named in Latin
‘Turris lambitus’ which means that of water licked tower, the beach tower. Here
the ships left the harbour. Entrance to the harbour was at ‘Turris fluviatilis’ by
which was meant the river tower at the southern entrance. It has been pointed
out that ‘Kruttornet’ is not like other defense towers on Gotland, close to a
church. However, it is not more than 160 metres between ‘Kruttornet’ and St.
Olaf ’s church, which lies on the shore of the plateau in the middle of the oldest
settlement area. St. Olaf ’s church would have been the visiting Danish Canute
guild’s church, whilst the St Clement Church a little further up was probably
one of the first churches in Visby and the Gotlanders special parish church.
We can most likely assume that Dede Thing harbour and market place has been
here. The buildings were here probably, as in Sliesthorp-Schleswig and Birka
mostly wattle and daub houses with simple rod works construction. Please note
that Visby was still part of the Gotlandic Merchant Republic. They also had a
St. Olaf ’s church in Novgorod and one in Miklagarðr (Istanbul). The St Olaf
Church in Sigtuna is also most probably a Gotlandic Guild church.
In this purely Gotlandic town there was another monumental building, namely
the Sails House.
The oldest church architecture in Visby is derived from the countryside. It is
only from around 1200 that impulses from continental style becomes domi-
nant, formed into a special Gotlandic style, the Transitial Style. At that time
most of the countryside churches are completed. End of the 1200s next stage
of the countryside churches take speed with new impulses from the continent.
That is how we see the churches today.

102 Tore Gannholm

As mentioned earlier, Visby is not a founded city. The city has grown over time
especially from the 900s. It had a rapid growth at the end of the 1100s, and
the place has in the 1200s appeared as a ‘civitas’, i.e. a city for the age. It had all
the trappings of a relatively concentrated settlement, a busy harbour that was
defended by a powerful stone tower, a major long-distance trade, and several
churches in stone, that rose above the buildings. Visby’s emergence from the
later part of the 1100s correspond well with the general city formation process.
The 1100s are again the time of upheaval in Scandinavia, where the last rem-
nants of the Viking Age were laid to rest and monks, knights and merchants
come on the scene. Visby, as one of the harbours on the Gotlandic coast,
which was already an important staging post on the way from west to east, is
now becoming a central gathering place for foreign merchants from all over the
Baltic Sea region.
The 1200s are characterized by an extensive city formation process in central
and northern Europe. Instead of travelling around between marketplaces, mer-
chants settled down and established fixed merchant families. Even craftsmen
settled down and opened fixed workshops. In addition, the larger ships de-
manded more and more investments in fixed harbour facilities. Competing ur-
ban formations, such as Paviken, stopped growing and were wiped out little by
little. It is very likely that the wealthy merchants from the country soon moved
in and established themselves in a growing Visby.
A sign of Visby’s importance is that the friars soon moved in, like they did in
Lübeck. To Lübeck the Franciscans came first. They were there in 1225, while
they came two years later to Visby in 1227.
The Dominicans must have arrived to Visby one of the years 1228 or 1229.
The 13/9 1230 the pope directed a bull to the Dominican Convention on Got-
land. At that time the order was apparently already established in Visby.
From the year 1228 we can trace the Dominican oldest rules. In them are
included as Rule No. 22 ‘De conventu mittendo’, i.e. about sending of a con-
vention, one for Visby’s part actual enacting. According to that ‘constitutio’
was a Dominican convention only to be sent out to found a new convent, with
general chapters permission, and it must also be composed of twelve monks
and a prior and a lecturer, also known as doctor. This has significance for com-
ing into being of new Dominican monasteries. When a Dominican convention
is presenting itself in a new field of activity, it is not by chance. It is carefully
prepared. The place to which the Convention is sent must have been previously
ascertained. The location for its monastery would be made available so that
they could immediately start with the construction. First, they needed food and

The Varangians 103

dormitory and a church.
It is envisaged that the Dominicans on their arrival in Visby took over an older
unfinished church building. E. Bohn, who led the excavations on the convent
site says, however, that it can not be the case (Bohn 1977 p. 95 ff). At the time
of the arrival of the dominician convent or shortly before that, a small church
had been built right on the spot where St Nicholas ruin stands today. It consist-
ed of a square choir with apse. The absid choir may have been connected to a
nave of wood. This church, by Bohn called ‘Absid church’, has in his view been
built around 1230 (Bohn 1977 p. 107). In the 1240s a nave of stone with a west
tower has been added to the abse choir. This new church is by Bohn named
‘Middle church’. The construction, however, has been interrupted by a fire in
the early 1250s. With ‘Middle church’ the Dominicans may have had nothing to
do, because it was planned with western towers and the Dominican’s churches
had no towers (Bohn 1977 s 96 f, 107). Consequently, we can not know any-
thing about where the Dominicans had their hangout before the fire. Only after
it, i.e. well into the 1250s, they have taken over the church and moved over to
the spot where their convent was built.
The ‘Visby’ name does not appear to have any significance until after the break-
away from the Gotlandic Merchant Republic in 1288. Still in 1280, when both
Visby Gotlanders and Visby Germans agree that the urban staple location in
Bruges is moved to Aardenburg, it is the Gotlandic coast that is mentioned,
and the Gotlandic large seal with the ewe is used.
The name ‘Visby’ itself first appears in 1203 when Henry Letten writes that
pilgrims arrived unharmed to ‘Wysbu’, and in 1225 the name of Visby is men-
tioned for the first time in the records, namely in Bishop Bengt’s letter about
St Mary’s Church. During the 1200s Visby was without doubt the Baltic Sea
region’s largest and richest city.
To the archaeological evidence for the great age of this place the history of
law research has annexed additional evidence. The oldest parts of Visby City
Law, which are written down at the beginning of the 1300s, have been shown
to contain a core of pure Nordic origin, with roots in a Nordic society with
a long experience of trade and merchandise. Law historian Professor Ebel of
Göttingen considers these elements in Visby City Law even to be primary in
relation to the Swedish ‘bjärköarätter’ rules.
There is thus no doubt that the law is designed in a predominantly urban Got-
landic society. Gotland has thus given impetus to the Svea kingdom and Birka,
and not vice versa.

104 Tore Gannholm

Romanesque stone churches
The Gotlandic Romanesque stone building period started in early 1000s.
Romanesque architecture is the term that is used to describe the architecture
of Europe which emerged in the late 900s and evolved into the Gothic style
during the 1100s. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Roma-
nesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 500s to the 900s.
The term Romanesque churches is used for the more restricted period from
the late 900s to the 1100s.
The term “Pre-romanesque” is sometimes applied to architecture in Germany
of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods.
Visigothic, Mozarab and Asturian constructions are between the 700s and the
900s found in the Iberian Peninsula while ‘First Romanesque’ is applied to
buildings north of Italy and Spain and parts of France that have Romanesque
features but predate the influence of the monastery of Cluny founded in 910.
The fast-growing community at Cluny required buildings on a large scale. The
examples at Cluny profoundly affected architectural practice in Western Eu-
rope from the 900s through the 1100s.
The construction of Cluny II, ca. 955-981, begun after the destructive Hun-
garian raids of 953, and led to the tendency for Burgundian churches to be
stone-vaulted.
The Gotlandic early churches are closest to the Armenian churches. Church
towers similar to some of the Gotlandic churches can be found in 800s chur-
ches in Ravenna.
The architecture developed in the 1100s, into the Gothic style, characterised by
pointed arches.
Examples of Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, ma-
king it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman Archi-
tecture. The Romanesque style in England is traditionally referred to as Nor-
man architecture.
Combining features of Roman and Byzantine buildings and other local tradi-
tions, the Gotlndic Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality,
thick walls, round arches, sturdy piers, groin vaults, tall towers and decorative
arcading. Each building has clearly defined forms and they have frequently a
very regular, symmetrical plan so that the overall appearance is one of simplici-
ty when compared with the Gothic buildings that were to follow. The style can
be identified right across Europe despite regional characteristics and different
materials.

The Varangians 105

Early Scandinavian churches
In Scandinavia Christianity was worshipped without churches until Ansgar in
830 built the first Nordic church in Birka in Sweden. Twenty years later he
founded the first Danish church in Sliestorp, and in 854 he got permission to
build a church in Ribe. About the year 935 the Trefoldigheds Church in Aarhus
was built by prince Frode, according to the Roskilde Chronicle. The following
year, the Archbishop Unni of Bremen visits King Gorm the Old and Harald
Bluetooth (see also section ”Archbishop Unni and the Danish church”).
Unni resumed missionary work in Scandinavia. He came to Schleswig, Jutland,
Sweden and even to Gotland. He died in 936 during this trip and is buried at
Birka.
In the year 948 Adaldag, archbishop of Bremen, divides Jutland into three
dioceses: Schleiswig, Ribe and Aarhus, which also had to be bishoprics for the
churches on Funen, Zealand and Skania. About the year 965 it happened that
King Harald ‘together with all his people converted to the true religion’.
Adam of Bremen writes that King Gorm ‘had appointed priests at all the chur-
ches in the Dane’s country’. Adam of Bremen, who recounts this does, how-
ever, not acknowledge that many were ‘compelled to Christianity against their
will’. The term ‘true religion’ means Pope Christianity with church buildings
and clergy, in contrast to the previously ‘heretic’ Christianity without churches.
The written sources say nothing about where the earliest churches were built in
Scandinavia. However, Harald Bluetooth’s church from approx. 965 in Jelling
has been excavated, and it was a stave church.
Nevertheless, we expect that churches of cut ashlar were built at the same time.
One example is Vindblæs church at Mariagerfjord in Northeastern Jylland.
Here has in the stone frame to a priest door in the choir been carved a ring
chain in 900s Borre Style. The same ornament is carved on a series of stone
crosses at churches on the Isle of Man, where it was called ‘Gauts ring chain’.
At one of the crosses it says with Nordic runes that ‘Gaut made this [cross] and
all on Man’. On another cross he is called Gaut Bjørnsson. Gaut could mean
that he is from Scandinavia or Gotland, and possibly has he also carved his
distinctive ornament on a stone from Väsby in Scania that resembles stones on
Isle of Man a lot. Gaut’s stone is dated within the time frame approx. 940-1000.
In addition to ring chains, Gaut’s stones are often adorned with human and
animal figures in low relief, and the same goes for the Vindblæs portal. The
figure style is simple, as on the Gotlandic picture stones and on the later Dan-
ish stone church reliefs. The culture contact between the Byzantine Gotland,
the Catholic southern Scandinavia and the Isle of Man has certainly gone both
106 Tore Gannholm
ways, within the same timeframe. A human head above the Vindblæs portal has
large Cauliflower ears, and the stylistic features are particularly well represented
in the 900s southern Scandinavian Borre Style. Furthermore, some of the lions
on the Vindblæs portal have the same type of foot as the lion on King Harald’s
Jelling stone. Also the Jelling lion is carved in low relief with a Romanesque
round arch above. The Vindblæs portal can thus very likely be dated to the
same time as the Jelling Stone, about the year 965.
It is a dogma in Danish church history that first they built stave churches and
stone churches came later. The dates reveal that both types of churches were
built at the same time, and it explains that relief carved images in the churches
look like stone image technique from the Jelling stone.
Following previous theories, there should be a break in tradition regarding re-
lief images from the Jelling stone for at least 100 years. The new dating shows
rather smooth development due to a discovery of building blocks of a stone
church dating to the Jelling stone time or shortly thereafter. The stones were
found during the excavation of the West Zealand Trelleborg, which therefore
deserves a special mention.
The following Danish churches are all romanesque stone churches: S:t Clem-
ens Church in Roskilde (1020-1030), Dalby Church in Skåne (before 1050),
Lund Church in Skåne (1050), Ringsted Church on Själland(1080s), Canute IVs
new church in Lund (early 1080s).
Around the small Lund stone church from around 1050 began on initiative by
Canute IV (Canute the Holy), in the early 1080s the building of a larger church,
dedicated to St. Laurentius, to the same extent and with substantially the same
plan as the current one. Its oldest parts consist of the crypt, nave arcade, west-
ernmost pillars and the one above the crypt lying High Church.
At the building of the second Romanesque church in Lund in the 1080s Got-
landic stone masons must have been busy. They were known for their skill in
the stone art. They were the best stonemasons in the Baltic Sea basin. Maybe
one of them carved the Dalby font. The general form of the baptism font, the
cup type with four shaft heads can be explained most easily by assuming that it
is borrowed from the existing Gotlandic type.
There is some doubt as to when Roskilde became the seat of the Bishop of
Roskilde. When Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England in 1013, he began send-
ing English bishops to Denmark, a process which was continued by his succes-
sor Canute the Great. This caused some conflict with the Archbishop of Ham-
burg, who regarded Scandinavia as belonging to the Archdiocese of Bremen.
The earliest known bishop of Roskilde was Gerbrand, who had been a cleric

The Varangians 107

with Canute the Great, and who was intercepted by the Archbishop of Ham-
burg-Bremen’s men when he sailed to Denmark in 1022. Only after swearing
allegiance to the archbishop was he allowed to continue his journey. The arch-
bishop may have had good reason to be suspicious, as documents of the time
suggest that Canute the Great may have planned to create an archdiocese in
Roskilde, with Gerbrand as archbishop.
According to Saxo Grammaticus a wooden church was built by Harald Blue-
tooth in the 980s where the Roskilde Cathedral is today. The wooden church
was called Treeninghedskyrkan, and Harald was buried in it. His son Sven ex-
panded it and was also buried in the wooden church that may have been the
basis for the later travertin chatedral. In 1028 King Canute murdered his sister
Estrids husband, Ulf Jarl in the church. The King was committted by the bish-
op to pay weregild to his sister, who used the money to build the first “stone
church” in 1035.
This may have formed the base for the later travertine cathedral.
Sweyn II Estridsson (Old Norse: Sveinn Ástríðarson, Danish: Svend Estridsen)
was King of Denmark from 1047 until his death in 1074. He was the son of
Ulf Jarl and Estrid Svendsdatter. He was married three times, and fathered 20
children or more, including the five future kings Harald III Hen, Canute IV the
Saint, Oluf I Hunger, Eric I Evergood and Niels out of wedlock.
Sweyn feared that Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg would fill the upper ranks

The bricked priest door on the south side of the choir at the
Vindblæs Church Gjerlev township, Randers County. The
total height of the Reliefs is 182 cm. The style is from the Baptismal font from Dalby Church Skåne
900s. To the left, ring chain in Borre style, which is found on
the inside of the left stone frame.

108 Tore Gannholm

of Denmark’s churches with Germans, so he brought Anglo-Danes over from
England to keep the Danish church independent. Under the influence of Sweyn
Denmark was divided into eight dioceses around 1060. He set up the dioceses
by donating large tracts of land, with the Diocese of Roskilde being the highest
favoured one, as he had a good relationship with Bishop Vilhelm of Roskilde.
When Archbishop Adalbert died in 1072, Sweyn was able to deal directly with
the Holy See. He was determined to bring men to Denmark to teach him and
his people Latin so they could converse with the rest of Europe on equal terms.
Adam of Bremen travelled to meet this learned king and came away with great
respect for the king’s patience and wisdom. Sweyn encouraged the building of
churches all over Denmark, and Adam of Bremen was astounded that there
were about 300 churches in Scania alone, more than in all other countries of
the north put together.
Sweyn could be ruthless. One New Year’s Eve it was reported to the king that
several of his guests and hired men had ridiculed him and talked behind his
back. The king was so angry that he had them murdered in the church on New
Year’s Day. When the king arrived at Roskilde Cathedral for mass, his friend
Bishop Vilhelm met him at the door and forbade the king and his party to
enter. “You stand condemned before God, a murderer, who has defiled the
house of God with blood!” cried the bishop and pushed the king back with his
shepherd’s crook. He declared the king excommunicated from the church. The
king’s men drew their swords and stepped forward to hack the bishop down,
but Bishop Vilhelm held his ground. “Let him be,” shouted the king and with-
drew to his farm. There he removed his New Year’s fine clothing and weapons
and dressed in sackcloth. Then he walked back to the cathedral in his bare feet
and cast himself face down in front of the entrance. Bishop Vilhelm had just
begun the mass when he was told the king lay humbled at the door. Bishop Vil-
helm stopped the service and went to the door to hear the king’s abject confes-
sion. When the bishop realized the king was truly repentant, he raised him up,
lifted the excommunication and led him into the cathedral. One of the legacies
of King Sweyn was a fundamental change in Danish society which had been
based on whether a person was free or a bondsman. Sweyn is often considered
to be Denmark’s last Viking king as well as the first medieval one.
Sweyn built a strong foundation for royal power through cooperation with the
church. He completed the final partition of Denmark into dioceses by corre-
sponding directly with the Pope, bypassing the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bre-
men. During his reign hundreds of small churches were built throughout the
kingdom, of which many were rebuilt as larger stone churches in the 1100s.

The Varangians 109

Sweyn sought to create a Nordic Archbishopric under Danish rule, a feat which
his son Eric I Evergood accomplished. Sweyn seems to have been able to read
and write, and was described as an especially educated monarch by his personal
friend Pope Gregory VII. He is the source of much of our current knowledge
about Denmark and Sweden in the 800s and 900s, having told the story of his
ancestry to the historian Adam of Bremen around 1070.

Construction of the travertine cathedral in Roskilde had been started by Bish-

op Wilhelm between 1060–1073 and was completed by his successor Svend
Nordmand around 1080. The new cathedral was built using travertine, a stone
found in abundance around Roskilde Fjord. It was constructed as a basilica in
Romanesque style with half-rounded interior arches to support the flat inte-
rior ceiling with two towers flanking the west front entrance. To the north, a
three-sided stone monastery was constructed for monks and others associated
with the cathedral. Svend Nordmand’s successor, Arnold, added a wall around
the building, which was to act as a guarantee of safety for anyone who sought
sanctuary there.
Further the Ringsted Sankt Bendts Church was built as a travertine chuch by
the Roskilde bishop Svend Nordmand in 1080 and a Benedictine monastery
was founded about 1100 by king Erik Ejegod. Erik Ejegod had in 1097 insti-
tuted the building of St Olafs Church in Visby. On his way to the Holy land in
1103 he consecrated that Church. This church might have served as the visiting
Danish merchants church in Visby.
The St Olaf Church in Visby is younger than many Romanesque churches on
Gotland including St Clement, St Per and St Lars Churches in Visby.
Strelow writes that it was good times on Gotland in 1097.

Professor Johnny Roosval writes:

“At first sight Gotland appeared a ‘virgin territory of art history’. However, on
the contrary it is a knot that since anchient times had its own art (on the first
hand Viking age art) and included influences of West Asian, Byzantine, Irish
and Italian art. They were well into the world-historical currents of the greatest
artistic attractions and scientific interests. This for Gotland particularly signifi-
cant composition made it difficult for the historian to group and date the Got-
landic Romanesque art. To take out individual areas and little by little analyze it
seemed impossible. It must first be considered in a broad outlined context, the
whole area with buildings, paintings and sculptures”, (Die Steinmaister Gott-
110 Tore Gannholm
lands). Roosval further writes in “Baltiska Nordens Kyrkor” that the time for
the first Romanesque stone church period is from about 1020 to about 1080.
This fits well with known inauguration dates for the first Gotlandic and Danish
Romanesque stone churches. The first known Romanesque stone churches in
Gotland have an inauguration date 1029.
We know the inauguration year for 51 Gotlandic Romanesque stone churches
during the 1000s. Within brackets is year of inauguration and type of baptis-
mal font:
Fardhem (1029), Hejnum (1029), Allhelgona Visby (1030), Stenkyrka (1032 H),
Havdhem (1040), Sjonhem (1040 H), Dalhem (1046 M), Hamra (1046 SB), St
Lars Visby (1046), Klinte (1046), Atlingbo (1049 B), Eskelhem (1049 B), Eling-
hem (1050), Hablingbo (1040 M), Rute (1050), Väte (1050 B), Dalhem (1052),
Follingbo (1052), Gammelgarn (1052), Gothem (1052), Rute (1052), Barlingbo
(1058), Guldrupe (1058), Levide (1058), Lye (1058), Sanda (1058B), Sproge
(1058), Vamlingbo (1058 B), Vänge (1058 H), Ala (1072), Källunge (1072 B),
Alva (1086), Garde (1086 B), Lärbro (1086), Roma (1086), Othem (1086 S), St
Drotten Visby (1086), St Per Visby (1086), Öja (1086), Grötlingbo (1090 S),
Hejde (1090 B), Rone (1090), St Mikael Visby (1090), Väskinde (1090 M), Bara
(1091), Vallstena (1091), Burs (1096), Fole (1096), Hörsne (1096), St Nicolai
Visby (1097), St Olaf Visby (1097).

Romanesque stonemasters
The most complete works preserved from this period that remain for posterity
are baptismal fonts. In them we rediscover and are able to more fully charac-
terize the masters. The oldest Gotlandic groups of Baptismal fonts follow in
large the same pattern. Cup and a low cylinder with conical tapered bottom. On
the foot are four diametrically projecting heads. They form the largest contrasts
in their sculptures. The decoration of one is the diametric contrast to the other.
It gives immediately a remarkably wide horizon for the Gotlandic art and unites
the amount of problems in itself that all Gotlandic history of stone sculpture
offers.
Roosval in ‘Die Steinmeister Gottlands’ groups the Gotlandic sandstone Ro-
manesque baptismal font lodges into style groups;
Hegwaldr, Majestatis, Semi-Byzantios, Byzantios, Sigrafr.
Jan Svanberg and Colin Stuart Drake consider the Gotlandic Romanesque sto-
ne masters to be contemporary and possibly belong to the same lodge. The
baptismal fonts could testify to this by looking at the inauguration dates of the
The Varangians 111
related churches.
The fonts were no doubt ready at the inauguration of the stone church. Pro-
bably they, as well as the crucifixes, were already in the wooden church. Some
of the Hegwaldr fonts have the early straight crucifix, where the ivory model
is about 960 replaced with a Christ with an S-bow on his legs. This later Christ
we find on some of Byzantios fonts.
The Barlingbo font (1058) has by researchers been placed in one or the other
group of works in fruitless attempts to incorporate it into the existing cluster
of style groups. The font is so outstanding in its whole structure, style and
iconographic program that it not entirely convincingly can be incorporated in
the usual schematic art scientic constructs, but rather combine various cont-
emporary styles. However, it can be studied as an example for the importance
of the formation of the Gotlandic Romanesque art. Other works which can
be considered to be a borderline and difficult to definitely intergrate in any of
the established style groups is the fonts in Ekeby and Stenkyrka and the façade
reliefs in Hejnum and the damaged font cup in Linde Church.
The Gotlandic art schools, that produced the Romanesque baptismal fonts and
iconic freezes, were closely influenced by the Macedonian Renaissance art (867-
1054). The Gotlanders seem to have had a boom period with church stone
work from the 900s into the 1100s.

Roosval like Otto and Monica Rydbeck consider Hegvaldr as the great pioneer,
with fashioned types and models, which are then exploited and varied.
In depictions of clothing and textiles is the style with folds often simple with
flat parallel folds. The figure style is rough with more elaborate, powerful phy-
siognomy, usually depicted in profile or a face but there are also three-quarters
a face. The hands are large and marked, almost always pointing, gesturing or
holding swords or other items. The figures in the Hegwaldr group are in several
of the fonts moving and the composition sometimes what one might describe
as turbulent, and at times unbalanced, when the whole image field is filled
with the motif and the figures seem to be fitted to comply with the shape and
size of the motif area. In the wedges between the often irregular arcades are
different forms of filled up elements that can include both plant and braid
decoration as well as animal and human figures. The whole group is, however,
not stylish homogeneous and one can note some interesting differences within
it. The style is distinctive, not least because of the interplay between figurative
and ornamental shapes. The species of the protruding animal heads on the
font foot are almost impossible to determine. Although the heads have clear

112 Tore Gannholm

animal character with large fangs in the open jaws, the silhouettes are closest to
cubic. They are covered with braided patterns of double contoured band ends
with the round retracting characteristic of the dragon motif of rune stones
where the typical neck and nose flaps have similar shapes. These bands or tabs
with the final furling is a detail that can be followed far back in time and with a
wide geographical spread.
The style that connects the work in the Hegwaldr’s group, with its relatively high
relief and soft curves is almost a contrast to the style of the Byzantios group
with its thin, flat and rather angular relief. The Byzantios group is caracterized
with the 1000s Byzantine figure style iconography with its regular silhouette,
its architectural imaginary arcade division of the Cup, its comparatively quiet
heads with always empty mouths and in general by a petite, surface-smoothing
technology.
Despite these diametrical differences, the two groups come very close. We have
already referred to the congruence in their construction, the goblet-shaped
silhouette, the radial heads of the foot, the arcade division of the Cup. To this
come a few matching ornamental details in Hegwaldr’s fonts in Endre, När,
Rone and Sjonhem where the three part gusset motif continually is repeated

Hablingbo Church. Northern nave portal that Hablingbo Church by Majestatis’ lodge. Kain and Abel.
belonged to the Romanesque church that was inau- Detail ..
gurated in 1040

The Varangians 113

in the Byzantios group. In Sjonhem comes also figure motifs from the same
classic images circle, also used by the Byzantios group.
But if one excludes these similarities, there remain an enormous discrepancy in
ornaments, figurines and everything else. This is still such a strikingly Gotlandic
art which otherwise always is distinguished by a fairly large homogeneity. Shape
is generally produced from indigenous forms, foreign influences are included,
but are rapidly absorbed through the Gotlandic nature.

How to explain the mutually so dismissive attitude of these yet so related

forms? If they partly coincide in time, which is the older? Which are its roots?
Why did the Gotlanders change from wood to stone second half of the 900s.
How much has the contacts with the Macedonian Renaissance art and Arme-
nian church architecture influenced the Gotlandic Romanesque art. What is
Hegwaldr, Majesatis, Semi-Byzantios and Byzantios relationship with the Ot-
tonian art?

Both Hegwaldr, Majesatis, Semi-Byzantios and Byzantios are exclusively typi-

cal of their own island. Here we encounter a question that can only be solved
through individual study of the works of these masters.
The oldest groups of Gotlandic baptismal fonts, that seem in the large to fol-
low the same pattern have a cup and a low cylinder with conical tapered bot-
tom. On the foot are four diametrically projecting heads. Almost every point is

Hablingbo Church lion on the left side of the tympanum and on the right side of the tympanum by Majestatis’ lodge.
Detail page 113.

114 Tore Gannholm

decorated with one in diametric contrast of the other. This gives immediately a
remarkably wide horizon for the Gotlandic art and unites the principal amount
of problems in itself that the Gotlandic history of sculpture offers.

The direction of the cultural current is even more apparent when one looks at
some other preserved fragments of Gotlandic architecture of the 1000s, which
are related to Lund. The reclining lion that crowns the abutment of the arch
on the north portal in Hablingbo, by Majestatis ca 1040, with similar ones on
both later portals in Lund.
The tower portal in Grötlingbo where the animals between tendrils adorn an
Archivolte reminds on the outermost Archivolts of the later south portal in
Lund.

Gotlandic Romanesque churches

The first Gotlandic parish or farm church was usually, as shown above, built
of wood. During the 1000s wooden churches were systematically replaced with
stone churches. The first stone church building period is as mentioned above
by Roosval set from ca 1020 to ca 1080. The building material was in Gotland
sandstone and limestone. The design of the parish church is strangely uniform.
It has a rectangular nave with a lower and narrower choir and with a tower in
the west. The main entrance was normally placed on the nave’s south side. This
is a Nordic characteristic that may be related to the climate. Also on the north
side was often an entrance during the Romanesque period. It was called the
Women’s Gate, as it led to the women’s side, St Mary’s side. In the choir was
often a separate entrance in the south. The windows, which were small and
narrow, generally sat on the south side and were placed high to get more light.
There could be a small window in the east, sometimes with four-circle format.
The ceiling in the nave consisted mostly of an open truss or a flat wooden ceil-
ing. The choir could be vaulted with a barrel vault of stone. If the church had
an apse it was covered with a hemispherical vault helmet.
Two main types of the early simple parish churches can be clearly distinguished,
noticeable mainly in the choir. In the east it is either straight or finished with
an apse.
There are some much richer churches, a crossformed construction with central
tower i.a. Hamra, St Lars in Visby and St Olaf in Sigtuna. The closest compara-
ble churches are in Armenia, the Gregorius church in Dwin from the beginning
of the 600s, also the main church in Thalin from the time before 783 and the

The Varangians 115

Cathedral in Kutais from the beginning of the 1000s.
There are no completely preserved Romanesque churches on Gotland. But in
almost all the churches that give to some parts the impression of 1200s and
1300s Gothic architecture one can find remains of older stone constructions
and under this signs of a wooden church. It could be a choir, a western tower,
a nave that remains due to not be able to complete the new building, reused
ashlar stones, moved portal or building remains that are included in later ma-
sonry or are hidden under the church floor. There are also movables that have
been taken over from an earlier church, such as baptismal fonts, crucifixes
and wooden sculptures. The picture of Gotland’s Romanesque church art is
rich but fragmented. The material offers both attempting and difficult research
tasks.
As mentioned, there are signs of early stone church buildings in several parish-
es. As the Gotlandic church was closely related to Miklagar∂r and the Macedo-
nian Renaissance art we must presume that the early Gotlandic churches had
Byzantine paintings. The first known Romanesque stone churches on Gotland
date to 1029, Fardhem and Hejnum.
We know the name of some persons involved in the early stone church build-
ing period.

A mosaic in Hagia Sophia showing Leo VI paying homage to Christ

116 Tore Gannholm


Atlingbo Church. Windowpane that originally belonged to an
vestibule window in Atlingbo Church depicting Christ Panto-
crator by the Intellectual.
Now in the Zorn Museum in Mora.
In Hellvi church the tympanon has a clean sharp carved runicinscription: “La-
frans botvidar sun maistera gerdi kirkiu pisa; af yskilaim”. It can be translated
as: Lafrans master Botvid from Eskelhem’s son built this church.
There is a runic inscription in the
tower in Hejnum Church (1029)
that has been interpreted as Bot-
vidr hainmaistari (stonecutter)
Further on in Hellvi church there
are runic inscriptions on the nave
and choir corner chains with a
plaster rib. The base is all the way
the same except on the nave on
the northern side. There is a sim-
ple face from an older church. The
choir portal capital ribbon with
palmettes in thin relief is of re-
markably old-fashioned form.
On the baptismal font in Etelhem
is the name Hegwaldr. Baptismal
fonts were probably made to the
inauguration of the Romanesque
stone church. However, Hegwaldr’
fonts might alredy have been in the
wooden churches.
Gairvid was a stonemaster in San-
da around 1050.
Harbard built Hablingbo church.
On the baptismal font in AAkirke-
by on Bornholm is the name Sig-
rafr, as on a gravestone in Sproge.
Wooden artifacts like crucifixes
and sculptures were taken over
from the old wooden church and
placed in the new Romanesque
stone church.

The style that was in the 900s inspired by the Macedonian Renaissance art de-
veloped in the Gotlandic school of art characteristics in an entirely distinctive
The Varangians 117
Dalhem church. Top windowpane in the middle of the three eastern windows with Christ Pantokrator,
by the Judas-master.

way that makes the period to an art historical heyday on Gotland.

Professor Arthur Haseloff, the area’s main connoisseur, has observed a varia-
tion of the Byzantine Christ Pantocrator type, namely with a small pile tuft in
the forehead and side part on all Gotlandic stained glass paintings.
We find the original in a Mosaic Panel of Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, locat-
ed in the tympanum above the gate, that was used only by the emperors when
entering the church. Based on style analysis, it has been dated to late 800s or
early 900s. The emperor with a nimbus or halo could possibly represent em-
peror Leo VI the Wise, the grandson to the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr. He is
bowing down before Christ Pantocrator who is seated on a jeweled throne,
giving His blessing and holding His left hand on an open book. The text on the
book reads in Greek as follows: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows
me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”. (John 8:12) On
each side of Christ’s shoulders is a circular medallion. On His left the Archan-
gel Gabriel, holding a staff, on His right His Mother Mary.

118 Tore Gannholm

 Iconic churches
The baptismal fonts dominate the Romanesque stone art on
Gotland more than in the two major stone cutting areas in
Scandinavia, Skåne and Västergötland.
Relief adorned portals, which Västergötland is rich in, are
fewer in Skåne and still fewer on Gotland. However, there
is another form of external relief ornament on Gotlandic
Romanesque churches, namely sculptured friezes along the
top of the wall. No such frieze is left in situ. All the chur-
ches that have had them have been rebuilt in a later period.
When a new church was built the Romanesque frieze stones
have been reused and set up in the new walls. However in
a couple of churches so many frieze stones have survived
that it has been possible to make a reconstruction of the
friezes, as we shall see below. Ancient tradition to adorn cult
buildings with picture friezes and many other elements of
Sproge, Lid of tomb chest
of sandstone with runic
Romanesque architecture and visual art, such as Thorn ex-
inscription and signed by the tractors had been resumed in the 1000s. This time on chur-
stone master Sighrafr. Now ches, especially in Italy and southern France. The period for
in GF.
the ‘iconic churches’ with stone sculpture on Gotland by
aliases masters Hegwaldr, Majestatis, Semi-Byzantios, Byzantios and Sighrafr
show significant murals from the Byzantine school. As shown above the boom
in the Gotlandic church art has its base in Gotland’s international, tradebased
material prosperity, and its massive presence in Miklagar∂r during the Macedo-
nian Renaissance. Even the road from Denmark to the Holy Land went over
Gotland, the Russian rivers and Miklagar∂r.
The Gotlandic shool of art has produced quality ware since early times. With
a fixed place for the Gotlandic merchants in Miklagar∂r, in the centre of the
Macedonian Renaissance, the knowledge of the Bysantine art from the Eastern
church has early reached Gotland. The Gotlanders themselves were conducive
to the special bloom of Gotland’s medieval art. With this close contact with
Miklagar∂r it is very logical that artists from Gotland also went there and stu-
died in Byzantine lodges and brought back influences from the East Christian
world. This art became incorporated into the local Gotlandic tradition, which
among other things was famous for its unique picture stones.
The issue of Byzantine influences in Gotlandic art has attracted scholarly in-
terest for a long time. This is not surprising when we know the Gotlandic pre-
sence during the 800s, 900s and 1000s in Miklagar∂r.
The Varangians 119
Hejnum Church, Christ’s ascension
Hejnum Church, pretzel

Hejnum old Church from 1029, nave and choir

When the floor in Hejnum Church in 1914 was partly broken up, in order to
make a new floor, remains of foundations of a small stone chapel was found.
These were investigated by Lic. Ephraim Lundmark. The older floor was 50-60
cm below the present and consisted of a continuous mortar cake. The interior
walls were of dressed stone with such a thin plaster that unevenness clearly
emerged. In the eastern parts of the foundations of the old nave there were
two semicircular recesses for aisle altars. Socket was the current nave socket.
The exterior walls were of hewn stone and adorned with reliefs. On the choir
was probably a round freeze without reliefs. A lot of such blocks both straight
and absidial are entombed in the current walls. The choir had thus an apse.
On the west and south nave façades are parts of roundbow freezes with figure
reliefs, two birds, Lamb of God, lion, eagle, pretzel, basilisk, donkey (?), dog
(?). All the bow fields have a length of about 67 cm and height of about 39
cm. In the northern gable of the altar, largely hidden by the wooden floor is
an inverted relief, a mounted hunter with spears. The animal is well signed, the
man consists almost entirely of head and legs. In addition there are two large
reliefs on either side of the southern portal. One represents the crucifixion of
Christ, the other is showing a Christ-like, winged man, enthroned above a ring

120 Tore Gannholm

Hejnum Church, Lion Hejnum Church, birds

cross and surrounded by angels. Below the cross arms are seen soldiers. It is
probably the guards at the tomb of Christ and the one to heaven taken. That
is an unusual representation of Christ’s resurrection. The reliefs have probably
also originally flanked the entrance, as they are carved in corner blocks. The
two entrance columns are preserved in the current southern portal. A compa-
rison of bird head type on the wall reliefs shows that the strange bird capital is

Hejnum Church, Christ on the cross

Fardhem Church. A man with an ax seems to want to smash
a church. He is, however, run down and trampled by a rider
who triumphantly raises two rings in the air and turns his head
and gaze backward.

The Varangians 121

sculpted simultaneously with the façade reliefs. Part of an other portal is also
preserved, or possibly a window or niche. It is one of the tower’s western faça-
de masoned work piece, in the edges adorned with a rod that in the western end
widens to a bump like base. This block must have belonged to the west end of
the old church. A part that when the tower was rebuilt, was ripped out to have
an opening between the chamber and church. The old church nave was, as can
be seen, older than the tower.
The described kind of façade decoration has been known under the artists
anonymous name “Byzantios”. This is, however, not Byzantios’ classical figure
drawing, but on the contrary very clumsy. The animal types are, however, akin
to Byzantios, and a rod of a type that occurs in the window in the Byzantios’
church in Väte is built into the tower.
It may be pointed out that the form of the windows is with only inwards wi-
dening window-splays as is the rule in Armenia. The easterly influence is also
emergent in ornamental art of the time.

Fardhem old Church from 1029

The Hegwaldr lodge has not only made baptismal fonts and a relief decorated
piscina in Sjonhem but also the choir portal on Fardhem church, whose reliefs
bear his very characteristic style. It has no tympanum but the base profile is
brought up around the door, and on this sockle are reliefs.
On the left outside is seen at bottom, one through the precarious state weathe-
red picture, how a man sits on a seat suspended by something like a basket.
Above this he is surrounded by two griffins and toward one of them he holds
up something with his right hand while the left is holding the handle of a par-
tially weathered scepter.
It is none other than Alexander the Great, as we see here ascend into the sky
in a basket to which the two griffins and eagles are fastened. In order to fly
upwards he holds up a piece of horse liver as bait, over them. So tells the one
in the Middle Ages widely dispersed Alexander novel, which is also found in a
later Swedish translation from the 1300s. It represented the era’s most popular
science fiction book. The World Conqueror who knew no boundaries wished
in this way to examine even the sky but when he had risen very high, he heard
a voice that urged him to turn back. He did so by keeping the lure beneath his
winged carrier, and eventually landed the carriage softly on earth. “Alexander’s
pride” in the double sense of the word became an interesting subject with a
warning against hybris common in Romanesque churches in Europe. This can

122 Tore Gannholm

be seen in the stone reliefs on cathedrals in Venice and Basel, to name two
examples.
On the Fardhem portal the Alexander relief is demonstrating pride, the worst
of the seven deadly sins. It is located under a relief of Mary and Elizabeth’s
meeting. The design of the two pious women, who both in joy submit to their
great task of wearing sacred fetus, is a main example of humility, the foremost
of the virtues.
Around the corner, on the same side of the door, facing the portal, is seen at
bottom two holy men with halos. The one with a hand cross is representing
Christ, and probably the second, with the pilgrim’s staff and mussle adorned
bag, the Apostle James the Elder. They are located inside a church crowned
with towers and crosses. A man with an ax seems to want to smash it. But he is
run down and trampled by a rider who triumphantly raises two rings in the air
and turns his head and gaze backward.
Aron Andersson has claimed that it is the first Christian Emperor, Constanti-
ne the Great? The only thing one can safely say, concludes Kennerstedt in his
detailed study of this relief, is that it is a secular leader “who is in the service
of the church and defeats the enemy”. Opposite the second portal-splay is a
blessing Bishop and outside the portal on the right side is a large lion with a
small man in the gap.
Again an edifying object is balanced against one that warns. A portal decora-
tion in this form does not exist elsewhere on Gotland or in Skåne. However,
it is common in Jylland, where the granite Romanesque churches often have
their portals adorned with reliefs on the side posts. A similar large embossed
upstanding lion as the one on the Fardhem portal is unparalleled in Sweden but
has to both style and position many parallels in Jylland.

Grønning Church. Judas hengd, Baptismal font by Hegwaldr.

This type of hanging is already practised on Gotland earlier. The Hammars picturestone shows a man who waits to
be hanged with a rope around his neck. It is attached to a tree whose top is tied down so that when the rope is cut the
hanging is completed.

The Varangians 123

How has this clear Jylland influence reached Hegwaldr? The simplest explana-
tion is that he himself visited Jylland to deliver a baptismal font to the church
in Grønning. Unfortunately only the foot of the font is preserved. Between
the typical Hegwaldr beast heads with large wall-eyes and wicker around the
mouthes, from which human faces are peering, there are three low reliefs. They
show how Judas makes and implements the decision to hang himself from a
tree that has been bent down and then straightens up.
The hanging is arranged in three stages:
(1) Judas feel on his neck,
(2) he has tied the rope around his neck, and around the bent tree,
(3) the tree has been released freely and then straightened up and the hanging
is executed. Hanging of this kind is shown already on the Gotlandic picture
stone from Hammar. How Judas hangs himself has “Trydemästaren” shown
in a picture on the Löderup font, but it is typical of “Hegwaldr” to stage it in a
dramatic series and in the Gotlandic way.

Fardhem Church. Mary and Elizabeth’s meeting. The

design of the two pious women, who both in joy submit
Fardhem Church. The Alexander relief is demonstra-
to this great task of wearing sacred fetus, is a main ex-
ting pride, the worst of the seven deadly sins.
ample of humility, the foremost of the virtues.

124 Tore Gannholm

Väte Romanesque Church (1050)
Plenty of material from the older Väte Romanesque stone church has been
recycled when it was replaced in late 1100s by a larger church. From its carved
stone material there are significant residues. Probably almost every preserved
stone in the southern façade of the present church, in the completed eastern
wall of the tower, in the vestry walls, in the altars and in the northern portal and
vestry portal are from there. Probably the old main portal has been recycled as
well as the nave north portal. It has an internal round-arched extent. The outer
one is in the upper parts complete and now rests on the base of the present
church, breaking through the round torus. To the west there are two reliefs
with plant motifs, one above the other. In the eastern entry, at the top, a vine
relief is connected with the lower relief from whose upper arch the vine grows
upwards. This lower relief represents the hell torment.
The present Väte church has adorned the sacristy entrance with a relic of the
earlier church from 1050, a door frame. The round-arched tympanum is sur-
rounded by circular letters, which unite in a knot and are completed by filling
a fold-like palmette. The same is found in other older churches originating
from iconic window surrounds. See also Hogrän Church high up under the ea-
ves. The vertical framework consists of between vertical circular letters drawn

Väte Church The frame for the north portal by the Byzantios school
Väte Church. It is Terra, the Earth, which gives her mother breasts to the vegetative original dragons, a picture of
generative power, that lets all life sprout.

The Varangians 125

tendrils that run in S-shape and finish with a cloverleaf. On old Gotlandic art
known from Hegwaldr, the tendril has become an ingenious linkage. It has
something of the Byzantine ornamentation. Related forms can be found in the
later southern side portal in Lund. The outermost right bottom border is simi-
lar. One of the mentioned window surrounds in Hogrän Church shows one on
Gotland otherwise unusual vine motif. The tympanum of the later cathedral
in Lund has similar ones in the small northern side portals. The same panel
shows, that in Hogrän observed peculiarity, that the tendril is held by a vine
growing out of the window fitting. Further illumination of this connection
is made with plaited work on the Atlingbo baptism font, which is particularly
similar in details to the one in Lund.
The pictures and figure drawings, without a doubt, show Byzantine origin. As
in the case of the Romanesque reliefs on the friezes in Vänge several attempts
have been undertaken to reconstruct and interpret the meaning of their coun-
terparts in Väte. The latest and most accurate survey conducted by Elisabeth
Ohlson found that the Romanesque church at its various parts of the building
has had three rows of friezes below the roof - one without and two with round
arches. “With the motives that remain you can, with regard to two of the frie-
zes possibly see large dangerous animals, lions and wildboars, running hunters
seized by the deadly sin of hybris - Superbia. The third frieze may illustrate the
devil’s crackdown on the souls,” writes Elisabeth Ohlson. Some key motifs are
missing, why a more precise interpretation can not be substantiated.
In this study, Elisabeth Ohlson, however, has in new and compelling ways in-
terpreted the perfectly preserved Romanesque portal that stands on the north
side and is also part of the iconic church in Väte. The portal lacks tympanum
but has reliefs on either side of the door. Three of them consist of creepers or
whole trees that are sculpted so that they look like growing out of the portal
scope. The fourth and largest relief shows a woman holding two dragons to
her breasts. This is a woman in a high hat and short skirts standing on the in-
tertwined tails of two dragons that are biting her breasts. The woman’s hands
stick out from wide sleeves holding each dragon in a grip to the throat. A snake
stings her in the right armpit and in the left one is seen a toad biting her.
In the same manner is fornication punishment presented in the church of
Moissac in southern France inspired by the Apocalypse of John. The dragon’s
tails, which are intricately intertwined in Semi-Byzantios’ beloved way are en-
ding in leaves. Such a punishment could lustful people await in hell. Would the
Väte residents need such a special warning in large format for this sin?
The motive, with its roots in antiquity has, however, here a different and in Eu-

126 Tore Gannholm

 Väte Church north portal iron clouted door.
Väte Church. Niche west of the nave portal. The reliefs show Christ and
the apostles, two birds, a rider.

ropean Romanesque art more common meaning. It is Terra, the Earth, which
gives her mother breasts to the vegetative original dragons, a picture of gene-
rative power, that lets all life sprout. The vegetation may be hitting and kicking,
which is the subject of the other reliefs on this portal. One of the three trees
has its root down at a dragon’s tail. Earth does even nourish the animals. Terra
has not only dragons at her breasts but also frogs at her armpits. The subject
can be seen in Romanesque book paintings, frescoes and reliefs in stone and
bronze in Europe.
There is an iron-bound door that has been restored in 1927. All the fittings
seem original, even door-ring and escutcheon.
The eastern entry has vine ornamentations on two seemingly non-related relief
stones. The left one is profiled. The wooden door with its iron fittings, which
resemble the north portal, also here appears to be original, except the key plate.
The remains of a third portal are seen horizontally lying against the base of the
present southern façade of the nave. The Romanesque church should thus, in
addition to the choir portal, have had two portals, certainly opposite each other
in the nave.
Two of the window coverages from the Romanesque church are preserved in
The Varangians 127
Väte Church. Niche west of the choir portal. Top with Väte Church. Sleeping guards.
sculpted vines and leaves

the form of niches in the present nave walls, one west of the south portal, the
other in the east wall of the nave at the choir portal. In the round arch from
the former is portrayed the Twelve Apostles and the Lord, who is enthroned
in the middle, leaving the key to Peter. On the other stone under the arch are
seen flying birds and on the eastern one a hunter on horseback with a hunting
falcon sitting on his hand and with a shield pointed downwards. It is hanging
on his left arm. The second window has a round arched lintel with graceful vine
reliefs on the front of the arch.
In the southern façade of the present choir and nave are in no particular order
reused numerous relief stones from the relief frieze of the former church.
The present church in Väte has altogether 52 Romanesque relief stones placed
at the portals and windows. Most of them are scattered around the walls - some
in groups near the nave and the pitched roof of the choir. There are according-
ly remnants of an iconic church from the 1000s which was in different stages
replaced by the current church. Roosval attributed in 1918 the Romanesque
reliefs in Väte to Byzantios and in 1939 to Sigrafr and in 1950 again to the
Byzantios school. They are earlier and too different from the Byzantios’ façade
frieze in Vänge both to style and subject to have been made by him, which
Roosval thus eventually realized. His last attribution to the early Byzantios’

128 Tore Gannholm

school is probably correct. The Romanesque church in Väte was inaugurated
in 1050 and the one in Vänge in 1058.

Sanda Romanesque Church (1058)

Sanda church is adorned on its façade with a long flat cut palmette relief. The
relief has been split in three parts and built into the naves southern façade of
the present church. If put together in original order the ashlars would show an
11 to 12 m long wavebine, ending in both ends with snakeheads. In each arc
there grow a richly branched palmette. In one arc in the middle a cross rises out
of the palmette as it does on so many runestones that also have combined sna-
ke and palmette motifs. Two of the palmettes are crowned with a trianglepoint
that looks like it is fastened to the palmette branches with a ribbon. It has the
same form as on a runestone from Hogrän, now in Gotland’s fornsal, where
the arabesque is said to have been made by Gairvid.
It is of course only a guess to see Gairvid as the stonemaster in the first Roma-
nesque stone church in Sanda. There is, however, no question that the church is
built during his time. Von Friesen dates the runestone to the time about 1050.
This proves that there was in Gotland an artistically developed ornamental art
in Sanda, partly of an oriental type, Assyrian palmettes very close to the Islamic
and Byzantine art stone architecture, already in the first half of the 1000s.
Later in the richly developed grave art that simultaneously appear on Gotland,
in Södermanland and Västergötland we have the same palmett but now gene-
rally worked in a more Nordic spirit and mixed with animal ornamental art.

Sanda Church, palmette relief.

The Varangians 129

To the old church belongs a small semicircular window, now used in the sacri-
sty. It has probably given light in the choir.
All the cut material in the southern façade as in the tower belong to the old
church as well as isolated blocks inside the church. They are in a niche in the
choir as well as in the outer surfaces of the sacristy where several have been
decorated with closely fitted small carved crosses.
There are no portals preserved as they probably were too narrow as are the pre-
served portals in Källunge Romanesque stone church from 1072. The quantity
of cut stone material in the present tower in Sanda proves that the church from
the 1000s had a tower as had Källunge and Garde.
In Källunge remains the tower and the nave. The latter is very damaged. In
Källunge is also a vane in bronze from the 1000s.

Vänge Romanesque Church (1058)

“Byzantios” in addition to his famous baptismal fonts also have made friezes
on church façades on Gotland. Ancient tradition to adorn cult buildings with
picture friezes had also been resumed on churches in Italy and southern France
in the 900s. This includes many other elements of Romanesque architecture

Hogrän. Rune stone dated by von Friesen to 1050 Vänge Church. John the Baptist.

130 Tore Gannholm

and visual art such as Thorns extractors. The best preserved frieze is found at
Vänge Church as it crowns the whole southern choir wall up under the eaves.
There is now about a 9 metres long frieze which should have been in a similar
position on the original Romanesque church. On the Romanesque church it
should have been under the nave pinnacle. When the church was rebuilt from
scratch to a larger church they used the old friezes, though they now were set
up in any order. Probably some disappeared and others ended up on lower
places in the walls. Nearly all of the approximately 30 different characters that
are left of the Romanesque friezes are placed in its own bow of the same sort
as those columnborne arcades found on the master’s fonts, and they are made
with the same low relief. The frieze shows traces of colours.
The noblest motive, which includes four arc fields on two boulders, now sits in
the new vimperg above the main portal of the church and represents the Last
Judgment. It is reproduced in a strict Byzantine manner. In the middle the Lord
sits on a now invisible throne. It was probably only painted.
He announces his verdict by raising his right hand as sign for the saved souls
and he lowers his left hand assign to the lost souls. On his right is Mary, and to
the left St. John the Baptist, both with their hands appealingly lifted towards the
World judge where these here emerge as the people’s intercessors this crucial

Vänge Church. Last Judgment on the main portal vimperg.

The Varangians 131

day. In the fourth preserved bow field outside John is an angel in orant posi-
tion. He has his hands lifted in prayer. All are solemnly frontal in Byzantine
manner except Mary who stands facing sideways in vivid contrapost position.
Evald Gustafsson, the “Byzantios” chief explorer after Roosval, in his penetra-
ting study of this Deesis motif in Vänge believes that it has been sitting above
the original main portal.
There is a very plausible proposal for reconstruction of the original nave frieze
comprising of 22 bow fields. They are all from the current choir frieze and
some other secondary sites. Its total length is consistent with the length of
the old nave wall. The sequence of the characters is determined by fine obser-
vations, among others how broken bow fields continue on the other blocks.
The motifs turn out to be the same as those on Byzantios’ fonts, except a few,
especially two kings, a bishop and a messenger. And it is as impossible, as on
his fonts, in this frieze, to find a consistent theme. Besides when riding into
Jerusalem with Christ in the Byzantine way, seated in the “side-saddle” on the
donkey together with a couple of apostles, he uses the usual crowd of people,
animals and mythical creatures.
Master ‘Byzantios’ was perhaps not a man of ideas but primarily of decorative
brilliance for whom the comfortable shape and a well-balanced composition
was most important. The question is how important the meaning of these
images really were to him. However, in a formal sense he was extremely skilled.
He was the first artist in all of the Baltic Sea area who portrayed people fairly

Vänge Church. The frieze on the southern façade. To the left is Jesus riding into Jerusalem.

132 Tore Gannholm

Vänge Church. Bird. Vänge Church. Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Note that Christ is
sitting the Byzantine way.

anatomically natural according to the Ancient Greek ideals. His classicism is

built on Byzantine models. Such a refined and deeply dedicated Byzantine style,
as this master has, can hardly be taken only from specimen that he got hold
of in Gotland. It must have been learned in a Byzantine environment. Mainly
Gustafsson, but also other researchers have shown that this must be the case.
His lodge has also been involved in the church in Lund (1050) where we can
recognize his design of the lion heads. There is a round-curved façade frieze
from the old church resembling that in Vänge. The remains of it are now
placed on a part of the north side of Lund Cathedral. In Dalby (1060) is the
Samson relief in the tympanon and especially the foot on the baptismal font
perfectly in ‘Byzantios’ style. One must take particularly the foot of the font to
be the work of his hand.
On Gotland ‘Byzantios’ works became type forming for both façade friezes
and the arcade division and foot portions on the baptismal fonts.
His motives were copied by his followers, especially by Sigrafr.
In Vänge Church it is striking that the majority of Byzantios reliefs from the
old Romanesque stone church are on the outer walls of the choir whilst the
nave that has a much larger surface only have a few reliefs. This is peculiar and
might be interpreted that the reliefs originally belonged to the choir in the old
church. When the old choir was taken down to give space for the new choir, the
old stone material has been reused, after which the reliefs have been placed in a

The Varangians 133

Vänge Church. Woman with halo and blessing Bishop.
Vänge Church. The thorn extractor

certain order on the south façade. Only a few reliefs were spared for use on the
nave. Originally it seems that most reliefs, perhaps all, have decorated the long
at south façade of the Byzantios choir.
It is interesting to note the connection with the old parts of the cathedral in
Lund with an arched frieze with reliefs, which has, inter alia fragments from si-
milar Gotlandic rows of hunting scenes. There are extant immured remains of
some now sitting above the northern portal. Others can be found in the crypt.
The direction of the cultural current is even more apparent when one looks at
some other in Lund preserved fragments of Gotlandic architecture from the
1000s. There are similar reclining lions on both portals in Lund as those that
crown the abutment of the arch on the northern portal in Hablingbo, by Ma-
jestatis ca 1040. The outermost Archivolts on the tower portal in Grötlingbo,
where the animals between tendrils adorn an Archivolt, remind of the south
portal in Lund.
There are several walls on Gotland that have relief-stones taken from ‘iconic
churches’: Bro, Grötlingbo, Hablingbo, Hejnum, Hogrän, Väte and perhaps
more. These are attributed to Byzantios kinsmen Majestatis, Semi-Byzantios
and Sighrafr. From Byzantios we only know of Vänge church. These sculptu-
res constitute a marvellous personal work with which Byzantios won his first
victory. Otherwise he is known for his baptismal fonts. The most beautiful of
these fonts are characterized by a refinement and a care in the modelling of the
figures that remind of the Vänge reliefs

134 Tore Gannholm

Vänge Church. Lion. Vänge Church. Griffin.

Reliefs in Grötlingbo Church (1090)

Among the stones from the Romanesque church in Grötlingbo there is a lar-
ge number of ashlar stones with reliefs. Most relief scenes are placed in arch
fields, but also stones with only reliefs appear like stones with only arches. The
stones have probably formed a frieze, which has run immediately beneath the
eaves of the nave and choir. A console, which probably is related to the arc
frieze, sits near the southeast corner of the southern façade of the nave. A
total of 67 stones from this frieze can be distinguished in the present masonry
of the church.
In the west wall of the nave are 10 blocks in two rows about 60 cm above the
base. In the south façade of the nave 36 blocks are built in. Here is seen west
of the top of the nave portal, eight blocks in three rows, and below these four
blocks below each other. East of the portal are five blocks below each other.
A sixth block above them starts a frieze with 17 stones, located approximately
one meter above the base. Added to this is a stone between the lower portions
of the two windows and a stone under the second easternmost of the friezes.
On the south choir wall are three stones placed one above the other west of
the choir portal, one on each side of the window and one immediately east of
the window’s sunbench. In addition there are two limewashed stones in base
height between the choir portal and the window, one to the left of the upper
part and one above its arc tip.
On the inside of the southern wall of the choir are three reliefs above each
other west of the choir portal. East of the portal are three stones at the same
height. A stone with fragmentary traces of a circular arch is also in the nave

The Varangians 135

attic, used as building material in the northern part of the triumphal arc. Mea-
surements: blocks with reliefs, height 45-50 cm, height of arcs approx 40 cm,
width of arcs 45-75 cm. Blocks without reliefs: the height of the blocks 35-40
cm, the height of the arcs 30-35 cm, the width of the arcs 40-45 cm. Reliefs
without arc field: height 48 cm, width 45 cm.

In the Romanesque art are designs that do not originate in the Christian imag-
inative world. Here we have the various hunting scenes. They likely reflect dif-
ferent legends and folk tales and can be interpreted as the battle between good
and evil. Already in 1918 Roosval came up with the idea that the reliefs in
Grötlingbo could illustrate a legend of the same kind as those of Eustachius
and Hubertus or a story similar to that of Dietrich of Bern.
The Fairytale figure of Dietrich of Bern originates in a historical person, The-
odoric the Great, who died in 526. In his capital Verona, in the fairies Bern,
was an equestrian statue, which appealed to the imagination of the Norsemen.
Theodoric was a Christian, but Arian Christian and not Orthodox. He is some-
times depicted as a Christian hero, sometimes as a heretic. On the west façade
of San Zeno in Verona is a suite of “Didrik’s wild hunt”. It depicts how Didrik
during a hunt comes across a black horse and mounts it, after which the horse
is galloping with Didrik to hell. Roosval later pointed out the stylistic similar-
ities between the reliefs in Grötlingbo and reliefs on the church in Andlau in
Alsace, founded in 880.

Grötlingbo Church. Left nave portal. Reliefs from the Grötlingbo Church. Right nave portal. Reliefs from the
old church old church.

136 Tore Gannholm

 Grötlingbo Church. Animal relief
Grötlingbo Church. Two warriors

The Sculptures on the Western side in Andlau abbey are dated to about 1050.
These are the best examples of Romanesque stone sculpture in Alsace. Outside
is the enormous and well known frieze comprising 40-odd scenes. Amongst
them is the Roman legend of virginal virtue in which Theoderic the King of
the Goths saves a knight from the dragon’s mouth. There are hunting scenes,
animal fighting, the devil tempting the winemaker and a tradesman, scenes of a
meal being prepared and scenes from mythology full of symbolism. The scenes
in the frieze depict the tribulations of this life as opposed to the peace of the
Kingdom of God which is symbolized on the portal. The sculptures aim to
teach about God. The proof of this can be seen in the magnificent ram’s head
on the façade. Abraham’s ram represents man approaching God.

The tower portal in Dalhem

The only portal in the group that has caused major difficulties in the interpre-
tation of the depictions is the tower portal in Dalhem. In the capital bands are
the following scenes, beginning on the south side:
- 1. Centaur with shield and sword in attack position .
- 2. Dragon devouring a man. A seated man beats the dragon in the head with
a large mace. With his left hand he holds a sword .
- 3. Nude man in bed. With his right hand he raises an ax. A woman puts a cup
instrument against the man’s back.
- 4. Man with pots in his hands.
- 5. Sitting woman holding up two windings children (twins?).
North side:
The Varangians 137
- 1. Leaf ornamentation.
- 2. Horn blowing walking man.
- 2. Man walking with large drinking horn.
- 3. Winged sphinx with suit and beret.

Johnny Roosval assumed that the southern capital band, with Dragon that is
clubbed down, symbolizes the victory of good over evil. It would thus be
Christ representing the sovereign power, who defeats the dragon and the evil:
Psalm 74: 13. It was you who split open the sea by your power; you broke the
heads of the monster in the waters.
14. It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to
the creatures of the desert.
The other unusual scenes on the capital band have been left aside as more enig-
matic. The figures on the northern capital band would quite probably generally
symbolize a sinful life.

Diedrich of Bern
In the Middle Ages was told, mostly orally from generation to generation, fairy
tales and legends that were widely distributed throughout the Roman Catholic
world. One of the most widespread tales was about Dietrich of Bern, actually
Theodoric the Great († 525). It is suspected that many of the reliefs on the Ro-
mansque iconic churches on Gotland, for example, Grötlingbo, inaugurated in
1090, Väte, 1050 and Hablingbo, inaugurated in 1040, whose figurative reliefs
are largely preserved in the later larger churches, had Dietrich of Bern’s story
as inspiration. We find this motif in the sagas in Southern Europe.
One of the more famous scenes in the Saga is about King Didrik’s battle with
a dragon that has a man in the throat. It is this scene, which is depicted on a
capital in the choir in Münstern in Basel, which caused Erland Lagerlöf to try
a new interpretation of the capital bands in Dalhem.

Chap. 107 of the currently available version of the tale reads:

When they came through the woods, they saw a flying-dragon, who was very
cruel and strange. He had a big body, big legs, long sharp claws, big eyes. He
flew along the earth and where he touched the earth with his claws there it was
as if it had been plowed. He had an armed man, with his feet up to the shoul-
ders in the throut and hands were inside the lower jaw. The man lived and saw
138 Tore Gannholm
 Andlau (Bas-Rhin) Eglise St.-Pierre-et- St-.
Paul Porte
Andlau, animal frieze

the two ride and said to them:

Good men help me, this cruel animal took me when I fell asleep on my shield.
Had I been armed with my weapons, nothing bad would have happened to me.

Chap.108:
Didrik and Fasholt jumped off their horses and ran up to the dragon and cut
in on him all they could. Didrik’s sword bet something, but Fasholts’ sword did
not bite at all. The dragon was strong and big. However, he could not fly, or
could not defend himself against the one he had swallowed.

Dalhem Church. Tower portal southern capital Dalhem Church. Tower portal, southern capital band. Dra-
band. Cenatur that is attacked by a dragon. gon with man in its mouth and a sitting man (king?) who
hits the dragon with a club.

The Varangians 139

Chap. 109:
When the man who the dragon had swallowed saw that Fasholt’s sword did
not bite, he said to Fasholt: “Take my sword in the dragon’s jaws. It cuts down
everything that its edge meets if the man who holds it is good enough for it”.
Fasholt ran forward with great strength and took the sword from the dragon’s
jaws. Then the man who was in the Dragon said: “My legs are far down the
dragon’s neck, therefore tuck gently that I will not be wounded by my own
sword. And now do your best good men for the dragon bites me so hard with
his jaws that blood flows from the nose and mouth”.
Then they cut into the dragon until he died. Sintram’s sword bet on it as the
sharpest hairknife can bite your beard and so the man was free from the drag-
on’s mouth.
The great dragon that is depicted in the southern capital band in Dalhem’s
tower portal has absolutely without a doubt a man in his mouth. But here the
man has been swallowed head first in contrast to the fairy tale Sintram who is
standing in the throat and speaks with the two rescuers.
Another important difference is that the dragon is attacked with a battleclub, i.e.
not with the sword as in the fairy tale. It should be noted that the man, possibly
Didrik, holds with his left hand on the bracket on a sword hanging at his side.
The man has a not fully formed object on his head, possibly a crown. Several
color tracks on the capital bands suggest that they were originally painted. The
crown may thus have been marked with painting, which apparently happened
in other cases (cf. Lärbro, Hablingbo). From the back the dragon is attacked by
a centaur with lifted sword, that also must be considered a deviation from the

Dalhem Church. Tower portal, southern capital band. Dalhem Church. Tower portal, northern capital
Man that is taken care of by a woman with a cup instru- band. Winged sphinx with dress and beret.
ment and a man with two pots in his hands.

140 Tore Gannholm

 Dalhem Church. Tower portal, northern capital band.
Hornblowing man and man with large drinking horn.
Hörsne Church. The western nave portal capital.

Didrik Saga. At least from the variant that has been preserved for posterity. It is
accordingly uncertain whether it is really the Didrik Saga that formed the basis
for the depiction, but very possible.
In the scene to the right of the dragon is seen a man in a bed nursed by a wom-
an. She holds a pot (a cup container) against his bare back. The man has in his
right hand a battle ax. In the Didrik Saga several sections are dealing with how
the men after battle are cared for by women, for example, Chapter 255, where
it is told how Queen Erka heals Didrik’s wounds, ‘Then took Queen Erka
Didrik Waldemarsson from the tower and healed him the best she could and
gave him every day delicious dishes.’ The seated man with the pots in the next
scene could possibly be a doctor who assists the woman when she is nursing
the wounded man.
Queen Erka had two sons (Chapter 267). In the last scene in the southern
capital band is seen a woman with two winding children in her arms. Possibly it
may be queen Erka with the two sons. In Didrik Saga is told: “King Attila had
two sons. One was named Erper and the other was called Ortún. They were
as old as Thetmar, Didrik’s brother, and all three were brought up by Queen
Erka. They had each other so dear that they never wanted to be separated if
they could prevail. Queen Erka was as much in love with Junker Dittmar as in
her own sons. The three young men were very popular in King Attila’s yard in
Hunaland.
Whether the scenes in the northern capital band have any connection with
these representations has not been clarified.

The Varangians 141

Danish expansion
As part of the Danish expansion, one has to see the advent of the St Canute
guild in Visby, documented from the middle of the 1100s. The Danish king
Erik Ejegod passed Visby already in 1103 on his way to Jerusalem and conse-
crated at least one church, St Olafs Church.
In the case of merchant vessels, which were all linked to the guild organizations
in Visby, it may have been an obligation for them to pass the city in order to
declare their cargo, and pay their fees. In Visby everybody was offered a berth
during the late1100s, as long as they respected the Gotlandic harbour peace -
Pax Porta Nova - and used the Gotlandic coins. There are such glimpses in a
few surviving letters from the end of the 1200s, where Visby is requesting the
Council in Lübeck to seize ships, which passed Visby without prior written
notification.

Even individuals are mentioned in the chronicle that they took the road over
Visby. That the path over Gotland was the usual is clear from an episode from
the 1190s. The Lithuanian population are forcing Bishop Meinhardt to cancel a
proposed trip to Germany. When he returns to his episcopal see he is met with
the ironic question: “How much does now salt and cloth cost in Gotland?” It
may here be added that salt and textiles in addition to wine were some of the
most important import goods to Eastern Europe. As earlier mentioned, Snorri
Sturluson says that as early as the 1020s, they went all the way from Norway to
Novgorod on the coast up to Öland and then over to Gotland.
The Chronicle also contains a dramatic and vivid eyewitness account of a batt-
le outside Visby year 1203, between the Pilgrim fleet from Germany and the
Estonian peasant call-up, who were on return home after having plundered
churches of bells and silver in Listerby in Blekinge. They had also brought a
variety of people from Blekinge in order to sell them as slaves in Eastern Eu-
rope. Even Archbishop Andreas Sunesen, when he returns from Riga to Lund
in April 1207 passed Visby.

Visby’s role, as an important stop on the way from western to eastern Europe,
explains much of the allure the city in the 1100s and 1200s exerted on the
Northern European merchants and their organizations. Perhaps that was part-
ly due to the fact that Gotland was a democratic Merchant Republic without
power resources that otherwise the European princes offered. The city could
here develop with more freedom than in many other places. Next to the trading
Emporiums, we meet many guild associations with their curias or commercial
142 Tore Gannholm
farms. In the medieval sources the curia of the Order of the Sword is mentio-
ned. It apparently was a shelter for the Knights, perhaps associated with their
own church. Someone has come up with the theory that the Helge And Church
(Holy Spirit Church), that remains as a ruin, may be identical to that church.
Mentioned may also the Riga residents’ Church St. James be, which was appa-
rently linked to the Riga residents’ trading yard in Visby.

As seen above the Danes come early into the picture. Their influence is more
noticed in connection with the Danish expansion during the Valdemarian days,
when Denmark is a great power. In 1203 Valdemar invaded and conquered
Lübeck and Holstein, adding them to the territories controlled by Denmark.
Lübeck becomes for a period a Danish town until the Battle of Bornhöved in
1227. Even to the east the Danes’ ambitions stretched. The Teutonic Knights
had been attempting to Christianize the peoples of the eastern Baltic Sea re-
gion. By 1219 they were being hard pressed and turned to Valdemar for help.
Pope Honorius III elevated Valdemar’s invasion of Estonia into a crusade. Val-
demar raised an army and called all of Denmark’s ships to gather to transport
the army eastward. Once assembled, the fleet numbered 1500 ships.
When the army landed in Estonia, near modern-day Tallinn, the chiefs of the

Visby harbor in Almedalen

Eight Estonian ships had anchored in the roadstead outside Visby in 1203. The Visby citizens did not want to fight
with them, but German pilgrims, who were then in Visby, asked Bishop Albert of Riga to bless them before they went
off to kill the pagan crews. The Germans killed 60 Estonians, of whom 22 were brought down by a big German with
a two-handed sword, before he himself succumbed. Painting by Erik Olsson

The Varangians 143

Estonians sat down with the Danes and agreed to acknowledge the Danish
king as their overlord.

Visby grew into a metropolis and the largest city in the Baltic Sea region. It
must during the high season have shown a colourful and bustling life around
the harbour and the city, where there are monasteries, shelters and foundations
that see to the bodily and religious welfare. Here met a throng of merchants
from all parts of Europe, the Teutonic knights from their order state in the east
in their armour, prelates, monks and pilgrims on their way. The buildings must
already have made an impression of a city. In the harbour has over time been
sailing life and movement. Trading ships brought not only foreign merchants
and expensive continental goods. They also had products from northern and
eastern European forests, mines and agricultural areas, which were coveted in
central, western and southern Europe.

For the Baltic Sea region’s merchants, Visby was a known target. In 1237 the
Gotlandic merchant Peter Galve negotiated in London with King Henry III
about trading privileges in the harbour of London. When Henry at the same
time issued a letter to ‘all merchants from Gotland and their heirs’, it really was
Gotlanders, both from Visby and the rest of Gotland. The exemption is from
customs duties and charges on their trade in England. Even here it is the old
Gotlandic trade on England that allows this as the explanation for the gener-

Visby harbour in Almedalen. Entrance to the harbor was at Turris fluviatilis by which was meant the river tower at
the southern entrance. Painting by Erik Olsson

144 Tore Gannholm

ous exemption from customs duties and fees. The privileged letter for ‘all the
merchants from Gotland’ from 1237 is linked to that which Lübeck and other
German cities obtain in 1238. It is a result of the booming Novgorod trade in
Visby and Lübeck. Together with the Cologne merchants the Gotlanders had
been especially favored in England, something that even the German mer-
chants in Visby could exploit.
The Gotlandic merchants had for some time a privileged position in England,
where they mainly sold Russian products. Royal orders to the treasurer for pay-
ment of the court’s purchases have been issued for Gotlandic merchants 1237,
1248 and 1250. Over the course of sixteen years (1235-50) the Gotlanders have
thus provided the English king with wax and furs for no less than 1216 pounds
sterling. Among the Gotlandic purveyors from this period except for Peter
Galve we know Jacob de Albo, Paul, Sigurd Bonde and Botulf Byrkin. Already
in the 1100s we have proof that the Gotlanders traded in Norway. In the year
1191 Danish pilgrims saw Gotlandic ships in the harbour of Bergen and in
1248 when Bergen was fire-ravaged, there were many cogs from Gotland in
the harbor. Tönsberg appears to have had a Gotlandic trading Emporium. The
reason may have been the Bohuslän herring fishery in which the Gotlandic
merchants seem to have been interested. According to a papal bull, issued in
1334 at the request of the Gotlandic clergy and people, the Gotlandic Mer-
chant Farmers still in the 1330s sailed on Norway. However, there was a more
convenient way to London and southern England through Holstein over the
Netherlands and Flanders. Of old the Gotlandic merchants were familiar with
this road. When Lübeck and Hamburg from the Holstein counts in 1253 ob-
tained a special protective letter for their transport of goods between the two
cities, the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers also got their passage through Holstein
guaranteed in the same way 1255.
At the same time the Gotlandic merchants are helping Birger Jarl to build a
new venue in the Lake Mälar area, named Stockholm. In 1187 Sigtuna was de-
stroyed. According to some sources Sigtuna was attacked by Karelian pirates,
who partially burned the town. Other sources speak of Estonians, other of
Karelians in Novgorodian service. Other possible candidates are the Curoni-
ans.

In 1250 a merchant from Lübeck appears for the first time among the Gotland-
ers in England. When the English king in 1255 orders payments, the relation-
ship has drastically changed. Only one Gotlander appear in the picture. In just
five years, the German merchants have forced out the Gotlanders from their

The Varangians 145

position as suppliers of luxury goods in eastern England.
Control over the transit trade in Europe, across the Baltic Sea between East
and West, has in a very short time passed from the Gotlanders to the Germans.
The Germans have thus, by settling in Visby, been able to fly the Gotlandic
flag and take advantage of the trade contacts and privileges the Gotlanders had
established since long ago.
Between 1303 and 1307 Gotlandic Merchant Farmers are once again active
in England. They appear in London, Cambridge, Ely, Hull, Lynn and Ra-
venswoorth. The Gotlandic activity coincides with the German cities block-
age of Lynn from 1303 to 1310. A number of merchants from Gotland are
named. Several of the 1300s Gotlandic merchants have been interested in trade
between Norway and England. Among the goods imported to England are
dried fish, whale-oil and falcons which give ground to assume that this trade
has gone over Norway. A few times there is talk of Gotlandic ships, namely
the Salomons from Gotland. Other products the Gotlanders have taken to En-
gland are timber, homespun, tar and copper. From England they have exported
especially cloth, salt, wheat, barley, malt and almonds.

The Guild Organizations on Gotland

In the 1100s a Danish guild organization is formed in Visby, whose patron is
initially Canute the Holy, recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as patron
saint of Denmark in 1101, under the name of San Canuto.
Canute the Holy’s brother Eric I Evergood c.1060 - July 10, 1103, also known
as Eric the Good (Danish: Erik Ejegod), was King of Denmark following his
brother Olaf I Hunger in 1095. Erik Ejegod visited Gotland in 1103 on his way
to Jerusalem and inaugurated at least one church.
It is clear that the Danish kings, and later also Henry the Lion have managed to
achieve agreements with the Gotlandic Merchant Republic.
The only source that has been preserved about the Canute Guild is found in
Valdemar the Great’s charters from the 1170s. Already the initial greetings in
these charters give us a picture of the scale of the guild. It reads, “Valdemar
sanctimonious King of the Danes to all those under my dominion, who sail
to Gotland our good graces and favors.” The letter is addressed to the Canute
Guild’s central organization on Gotland, where all brothers at that time were
tied.
What is meant is an organization of Danish and thus also Scanian merchants,
146 Tore Gannholm
which on Gotland formed a trading company in the form of a sworn broth-
erhood to the Holy Canute’s honour. In this guild Valdemar himself as share
holder enters to give the guild the government guarantee, which is badly need-
ed in competition with other guild organizations in Visby.
That they have met some resistance, is shown in Valdemar’s call to the broth-
ers, that they neither because of protests or hostile behaviour of competitors
should refrain from what they started. In this context, king Valdemar refers to
the brothers’ guild house on Gotland, on which construction had started in or-
der to keep a solemn feast, a “convivium sollenitatem”, to use the letter’s own
Latin formulation. There are many indications that this guild house remained
in Visby, even in the 1600s in the building which was called the Great Compa-
ny’s house.

The admission fees would go to the building of the guild house. The funds
raised among the brothers would be forwarded to the monastery and church in
Ringsted, that became the funeral church for the Valdemar clan and a centre for
the Canute cult. The letter ends with a quiet greeting: “May God and our own
peace for ever shield the one who keeps all the above that is said”.
The Canute Guild on Gotland was an association of all Danish merchants,
who ran the trading on Eastern Europe and primarily Novgorod (note 8). This
central Canute Guild would, like the later German guilds, have kept their cash,
their brothers catalogue and other documents concerning the guild organiza-
tion in Visby. Apparently it has also from the very beginning existed the equiv-
alent local guild organizations at home in the Danish and Scanian towns. The
charter speaks of the voluntary gifts that poured in to the guild in Ringsted,
both from the guild on Gotland and from all cities in the country, where the
Holy Canute’s feast was held.
Later in the 1200s the Danish Canute guilds focused mainly on its trading activ-
ities on the Skåne market. These guilds were eventually transformed into gen-
eral society guilds with a very broad recruitment and came so to dominate the
sociable intercourse in the respective cities. They therefore had a significance
beyond the purely commercial.
German merchants had after the Artlenburg peace treaty 1161 been allowed
to settle on Gotland and form their own guilds. During two decades at the
beginning of the 1200s Lübeck was a Danish town, whose inhabitants were
assimilated with other Danes. As a result of this development, the originally
Danish guild became in Visby a mainly German guild. About this the preserved
seal of the 1300s carries witness. The same is also valid for the guild in Tallinn.

The Varangians 147

The entry of German merchants into the Baltic Sea
In the 1000s, Germany was not so large and the German population was con-
centrated to the Rhine valley up to the River Elbe. The trading centre Bar-
dowick near Hamburg was one of the places where the Gotlanders came in
contact with the Germans. This can be seen from coins in silver treasures. Be-
tween the German trading places and the Baltic Sea region were non-christian
Slavic areas.
New farming techniques meant that the German economy began to grow.
Between 1050-1250 the German population doubled to about 11 million. In
the early 1100s the Germans began a policy of expansion and German pea-
sants conquered and colonized previously entirely Slavic areas.
When the Germans in the first half of the 1100s broke through the Slavic bar-
rier to the Baltic Sea region it was the first time they had access to the Baltic Sea
coast. At that time the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers still completely dominated
trade in the Baltic Sea region, which was a continuation of Gotland’s domina-
tion of Eastern European trade from the Viking Age. Already in the 700s the
Varangians (Gotlanders) dominated the trade on the Russian rivers and in 911
confirmed a trade agreement, originated from the 860s, with the emperor Leo
VI in Miklagarðr. They also at that time established their famous trading Em-
porium in Novgorod (Holmgarðr), Gutagård.
By the early 800s Charlemagne, whose Christianisation attempts were opposed

On Visby roadstead.
Visby was an early base, and its harbour had a key position for the German crusades against the non-Christians in
the Baltic Sea states. In Visby Bishop Albert of Riga came to play a central role. When in the summer 1199, he for
the first time passed Visby on the journey east, he preached in the city and ‘up to 500 men took the cross’, a startling
figure if it is correct. In any case, this is testimony of Visby's great importance at this early stage. For Albert, Visby
became a central point for all the upcoming crusades. The one that tells about this is a priest named Henry, called Henry
Letten, who had been the bishop's companion and eyewitness to the events. Painting by Erik Olsson.

148 Tore Gannholm

by the Saxons, moved the Saxons out from the Trave area and instead brought
in Polabian Slavs, who were allied to Charlemagne. Liubice (‘lovely’) was foun-
ded on the banks of the river Trave about four kilometres north of the pre-
sent-day city centre of Lübeck. In the 900s it became the most important sett-
lement of the Obotrite confederacy and a castle was built. The settlement was
burned down in 1138 by the non-Christian Rani from Rügen.
Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein, built in 1143, as a German
settlement, on the river island Bucu a new castle which was first mentioned by
Helmold in 1147.
The castle was destroyed by fire in 1157. Adolf had to cede the castle to Henry
the Lion in 1158. In order to attract the Baltic Sea region merchants travelling
to Gotland, in competition with Schleswig, Henry the Lion had the destroyed
castle rebuilt and founded the City of Lübeck in 1159. He invited Danish, Nor-
wegian, Swedish and Kievan Rus’ merchants to carry on trade without tariff
in his new city foundation Lübeck. He did everything to attract merchants to
this new city.

The Gotlanders had at least since emperor Lothair’s time as duke of Saxony
(1106 - 1125), been guaranteed trading rights in Saxony. Probably since far back
the Gotlanders had been trading on Bardowick where they had to pass Artlen-
burg and continued to do so.
The Gotlanders were not attracted by the new city foundation and the pre-
vious agreement, dated to the 1120s, between the Emperor Lothair and the
Gotlandic Merchant Farmers is broken, and there is mention of bloody clashes
between Gotlanders and Germans. The hostilities mentioned in the Artlenburg
document ensued (1159-1160).
Peace was concluded in 1161, in the Saxon customs village Artlenburg, between
the Gotlandic Merchant Republic, officially called the Gotlandic coast (Gut-
niska kusten), represented by Liknatte from Stenkyrka, and Henry the Lion
of Saxony. This meant that trade peace between the Gotlanders and the Sax-
on-German merchants was restored. The Gotlanders are secured, against reci-
procity, continued trading privileges in the Duchy of Saxony and are equated
with the duke’s own merchants.
The Gotlanders thus have the right, without duties, to trade in all the Saxon
towns, while the Germans have the same right in one of the harbours on the
Gotlandic coast, namely Visby, where the Danes already had a guild. It is clear
that the Gotlandic Merchant Republic was a trading power that Henry the
Lion must bow to. At the same time, however, it clearly shows his policies and

The Varangians 149

goals. Sale of furs and wax on the markets in Western Europe was expanding
and the best way to get some of that was to settle on Gotland and exploit the
Gotlandic Merchant Farmers’ knowledge of the transit trade. There is no sign
that the Germans participated in any remote trading across the Baltic Sea until
some time after 1161. The Germans lacked both ships and naval experience.
However, the Gotlandic success in the transit trade in the Baltic Sea region
was attractive to the Germans. It did, however, take a long time before they
managed to get Lübeck to play a role in the Baltic Sea trade and for a long time
thereafter the Gotlandic coast was still the leading trading place. The Novgo-
rod market was opened for the German merchants in 1201.
The German merchants would, in due course, gain access to the Baltic Sea tra-
de and in the wake of the Gotlanders’ contacts achieve relations with Garðaríki
(the Kievan Rus’ market). The treaty thus opens the way, firstly for a German
trading house and then a German immigration to Visby, which through the
German guild organizations later came to obtain a dominant place in the Bal-
tic Sea region. During the latter part of the 1100s German merchants began
to move to Visby, and in the first decades of the 1200s immigration became
significant.

It is, however, first with Danish sovereignity over Lübeck in the early 1200s that
trade in Lübeck started to take off. As we have seen, the Danes were establis-
hed in Visby long before the Germans.
To monitor the Gotlanders’ rights in Saxony Henry the Lion appointed a bai-
liff, Odelrik. His mandate was to ensure that the rules of the Artlenburg Trea-
ty were followed on how the Gotlandic merchants would be treated ‘in omni
Regno meo’, i.e. that the treaty was followed in the duke’s entire area. Thus
Henry the Lion had defined the jurisdiction area for both his own and Odelriks
powers. These are linked to ‘regnum meum’, i.e. the area in which Henry the
Lion had jurisdiction and where the Gotlandic merchants were privileged since
emperor Lothars time. It is likely that Odelrik by Henry the Lion, at the take-
over of Lübeck before the Artlenburg negotiations, had been contracted to be
‘the common Trave merchants’ bailiff and judge in the newly founded Lübeck.

The Artlenburg peace treaty has only been preserved in a transcript.

The Germans, for their part, were entitled to exercise their trading activities
on Gotland under the corresponding guaranteed trade peace and legal security
that existed for Gotlanders on Gotland. Henry the Lion had no powers to
intervene in the German merchants’ conditions on Gotland. It was their own

150 Tore Gannholm

sake to organize their lives in foreign countries after the trade peace had been
secured.
The German merchants can now use these by the Gotlanders established trade
routes, contacts and agreements, with various places and areas. Presumably it
was initially in agreement with the Gotlanders. As the boom continues, more
and more German merchants move to Visby.
Slowly even Lübeck gradually becomes stronger. In order to travel over the
Baltic Sea they need their own ships. After the year 1188, we have evidence that
they start shipbuilding in Lübeck. As the availability of their own ships was
limited, they were not allowed to sell either ships or shipping timber. To Visby,
which until now had only been one of the harbours on the Gotlandic coast,
more and more trade was concentrated. In 1180 Henry the Lion was stripped
of his lands and declared an outlaw. He was exiled from Germany in 1182.
When emperor Frederick Barbarossa went on the Crusade in 1189, Henry the
Lion returned to Saxony, mobilized an army of his faithful, and conquered
and ravaged the rich City of Bardowick. The old trading city was razed to the
ground, with the exception of the churches. Until that time Bardowick was
the most prosperous commercial city in north Germany. Bardowick (Bewick
in Low Saxon) is located five km north of Lüneburg on the navigable river
Ilmenau. The town was first mentioned in 795 and was raised to city status in
972 by Otto I. Its name is derived from the Longobardi, the tribe for whom it
was the home and centre, and from it the colonization of Lombardy started.
In 1146 the collegiate church of Saints Peter and Paul is recorded. In 1186 the
then competent Prince-Bishop of Verden, Tammo (d. 1188), further privileged
the collegiate church.
After Henry’s fall from power Lübeck became in 1181 an Imperial city. Em-
peror Frederick Barbarossa gave the city a ruling council with twenty mem-
bers. This organization survived into the 1800s. The council was dominated by
merchants and caused Lübeck’s politics to be dominated by trade interests for
centuries to come.
The Lübeck town and castle changed ownership for periods. In 1203 Valdemar
Sejr invaded and conquered Lübeck and Holsten. Lübeck became part of Den-
mark until the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227. Around 1200 Lübeck became the
main point of departure for German colonists leaving for Visby and further
transport to the Baltic Sea territories conquered by the Livonian Order, and
later the Teutonic Order. In 1226 emperor Frederick II elevated the town to the
status of an Imperial Free City, by which it became the Free City of Lübeck.
In the 1300s after the foundation of the Hanseatic League in 1358 Lübeck

The Varangians 151

became the ‘Queen of the Hanseatic League’, being by far the largest and most
powerful member of this mediaeval monopolistic trade organization with its
heyday in the 1400s. Remember Visby had been the leading city in the Baltic
Sea region up until now but did not want to be subordinate to Lübeck. Visby
wanted to decide over its own destiny. Therefore Visby declined to become a
member of the Hanseatic League.
It is completely wrong to call Visby ‘HANSESTADEN VISBY’ (the Hanseatic
City of Visby) as it is done in todays touristic propaganda and World Heritage.
It should say ‘MEDELTIDSSTADEN VISBY’(the Middle Age City of Visby).

The treasure from Burge in Lummelunda is a good proof of Gotland’s close

contacts with these German regions. It is striking how strongly the Burge trea-
sure is dominated by German coins and how, among them the emphasis is on
northwestern and central German imprints, e.g. from the duchys of Saxony
and Thuringia. E.g. here occurs the first known coins with inscriptions by the
Saxon ruler Lothair of Supplinburg, duke from 1106. He was elected German
king in 1125 and was crowned emperor in Rome in 1133. Around the same
time in 1130 the Novgorod Chronicle tells about Russian Lodjas, that came
from Gotland, North-west Germany and Northern Kievan Rus’. At this time
this is more or less the same as Novgorod and Schleswig. Both were linked to
the north-west European trade route, that for centuries was one for Northern
and Western Europe very essential commodity exchange way. Gotland was the
spider in the web. The Kievan Rus’ silver ingots, and the northwest German
coins make the Burge treasure a particularly important historical illustration
and source.

A milestone is the Yaroslav treaty concluded between the Gotlandic and Ger-
man merchants, on the one hand, and the Novgorod prince Yaroslav on the
other. It belongs to the period 1189-1199. The treaty provides reciprocity in
terms of freedoms and rights in trade both in Novgorod, on the Gotlandic
coast, and in Germany. Through the treaty the Kievan Rus’ market was fi-
nally opened for the German merchants. The increase in influx of German
merchants in Visby, which we can see in the early 1200s, was probably related
to the fact that they had their relations with Novgorod regulated by the afo-
rementioned Yaroslav treaty. This influx of German merchants together with
the German crusaders that passed Visby on their way to Latvia had during the
1200s obviously great importance on the bustling trade to the south and its
rapid development on Gotland.

152 Tore Gannholm

Gotland was an independent Merchant Republic whose chief representative
was the country judge (Landsdomaren) and had since ancient times trade and
defense treaties with the Svea kingdom. Under this treaty the Gotlanders had
later in Christian times agreed to participate in ‘Ledungen’ with seven ships ‘to
heathen lands, but not against Christians’. This was a low price to pay to still
dominate the trade with the Pope Christian countries. The Gotlanders had sin-
ce anchient times good relations with the non-Christian peoples on the other
side of the Baltic Sea. The crusades which began c. 1200 in the Baltic Sea re-
gion against non-Christian peoples mainly in the north and east (Finns, Kare-
lians, Estonians, Latvians) sets Gotland in a difficult position. The Gotlanders
maintained a neutral position, ‘let the money decide’.

The German merchants in Visby had a completely different approach to this

issue. They were close allies with the crusaders, which since 1193 had been
active in Latvia. Gradually this came to lead to strong disagreements between
Visby and the Gotlandic countryside.
The old Merchant Republic wanted to preserve its social structure and its in-
dependence, while the merchants in Visby wanted to exploit the country as
efficiently as possible and integrate it into a larger context. However, events
went out of the Gotlanders’ hands and the monopolistic ‘Hanseatic League’
was founded in 1358 with Lübeck as its leader, but without Visby as a member.
Riga maintained in 1225 that the city at the foundation in 1201 was awarded ‘ius
Gutorum’, and in 1238 it was declared once again, that the dwellers ever since
the foundation enjoyed ‘iura Gotlandiæ’. What was referred to was a series of
rights and freedoms that distinguished the Gotlandic harbours in accordance
with the legal relations within the Gotlandic community. These included free-
dom from duty, shore rights and within the judicial system freedom from the
use of God’s judgment, single combat and red-hot iron. The Gotlanders were
of the opinion that if you torture someone, it was a great risk that the tortured
would be lying. These laws contrasted strongly with the German town laws.
The Germans in Riga were during most of the 1200s requested to maintain
their relations with the German mother country, as well as with the rest of
Europe, over Visby. When the bishop, almost every year, was on his way to and
from Germany, he therefore visited Visby. From there pilgrims and crusaders
were taken to Riga, and from Visby they fetched, to begin with, artisans and
some necessary import products such as salt and homespun. From Henry Let-
ten’s description it is unambiguously shown that the overall German merchant
fleet, and later pilgrim fleets with crusaders in spring and autumn on their way

The Varangians 153

The seven ‘Ledungs’ ships. Since the Gotlanders made the agreement with the bishop in Linköping, they also had to
join the crusades and follow the Swedish king in raids with seven ships against non-Christian countries, but not against
Christians. Painting by Erik Olsson.

to or from Riga always passed Visby. For the Gotlandic export sheep farming
was important. We can trace the old Gotlandic sheep (gutefår) back to the
Bronze Age. The wool was used for the manufacture of homespun, both for
domestic needs and for export. We can also see from the Gotlandic national
symbol preserved in the Gotlandic Merchant Republic’s ‘Great Seal’ that the
ewe lamb has a prominent place, and in the Beowulf epos the Gotlanders are
called the ram people.

As we have seen, Visby was at the beginning the target for the German mer-
chants trading voyages. From Visby they found, over the last decades of the
1100s and early 1200s, the way to Kievan Rus’, Livonia, Estonia, Finland and
Novgorod. Of that reason German merchants willingly moved over to Visby.
There the settled German merchants obtained an organizing and mediating
role for the visiting German merchants.
During this preparatory stage in the German-Baltic trade there has been in
Visby a mutual guild ‘Gilda communis’, which included the visiting and the
resident German merchants. The German guild had its centre in St Mary’s
Church, which served as a visiting church in Visby. For storage of transit goods
they exploited both the church itself as well as a later built second floor. Even
today the lift bar on the east gable of the church testifies to its function as a wa-

154 Tore Gannholm

rehouse. St Mary’s Church was originally in the 1190s used as the guild church
and had a fairly modest absid sanctuary. It was expanded to a parish church and
was as such completed in 1225. Until then the Germans had been using other
churches as parish churches. St Mary’s Church became a natural centre for the
German merchant guilds. Visby grew during this time to become the largest,
richest and most important city in the Baltic Sea region with a population esti-
mated to between 6 000 and 10 000 people.
The German immigrants to Visby obtain more influence in Visby and strive
with time towards a growing independence from the Gotlandic Merchant Re-
public and its Guthna Althingi.
In addition they wanted more control over the trade. The competition with the
Gotlandic Merchant Farmers, who had hitherto had a dominant influence on
the trade sharpened thus in a critical way. There is no doubt that the Visby Ger-
mans among compatriots in the German cities were regarded as an outpost for
German trade interests. The establishment of a separate German commercial
trading post in Novgorod, first time mentioned in 1259, was therefore a great
success for the Visby Germans. They had thus secured the future leadership
in the Novgorod trade for themselves and their city. At the same time they or-
ganized themselves in their own urban society in Visby. The Visby Gotlanders
followed the example to form a similar Gotlandic social organization. Together
they thereafter built the city wall around the urban area and prepared for both
urban communities secession from the Gotlandic Merchant Republic.

Merchants from to begin with Soest and later many other West German ci-
ties, Cologne, Dortmund, Minden, Hannover and many more, and from the
new towns that emerged in the previous Wendish area at the Baltic Sea region,
Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, etc. took part in the profitable Kievan Rus’ trade.
These merchants formed a trade organization in Visby first mentioned in 1252:
‘The German Gotland travelling society’ or as it is officially named ‘universi
mercatores Romanii imperii Gotlandiam frequentantes’. From the beginning it
was this that connected the German cities’ trade in the Baltic Sea region. They
sailed under Gotlandic flag and could therefore trade under Gotlandic trade
agreements. The composition of the German trading towns bear witness to the
Germans’ widespread organization and of the importance of Visby.
Soest is a central town in Westphalia, in close connection with the great East-
West trade route from the North Sea to the Danube basin. Soest plays along-
side Dortmund an important role in the German eastward expansion. From
here Lübeck was populated and also with the German immigration to Visby

The Varangians 155

the Westphalian element is significant. The medieval buildings in Visby have a
typical Westphalian character like the actual street network.
Visby’s role as a centre for the German trade guilds is clear in St Mary’s Church
in relations with Novgorod. To begin with, during the first hundred years, the
Germans were using the Gotlandic trading Emporium Gutagård. However,
Gutagård became overcrowded and the Gotlanders organized a second trading
farm, St Petershof, which became the German commercial yard in Novgorod.
The German St Petershof is, as said above, first mentioned in the Trade Treaty
of 1259, when merchants from the Gotlandic coast begged the right to own
three commercial yards in Novgorod, which was granted. These yards are iden-
tified under the draft treaty from 1269 to Gotland’s St Olaf Manor, Gutagård,
and their guild house, sold before 1269, and the Germans’ St Petershof. When
St Petershof wintertime was shut down, its documents and papers were trans-
ferred to St Peter’s coffin in St Mary’s Church in Visby. The coffin was locked
with four locks. The keys were in the winter stored in four different cities:
Visby, Lübeck, Soest and Dortmund. In the spring, when the spring fleet came
to Visby, representatives for those four cities had to be present when the ‘Sunte
Peters Keste’ was opened and the documents brought to St Petershof.
In Visby, as mentioned earlier, the German crusaders appear from end 1100s.
They were colonists who were followed by other migrants. Before the end of
the 1200s the Teutonic Knights of St Mary established a state which included
Prussia, Courland, Livonia and from 1346 Estonia, which area Valdemar Atter-
dag sold to the Teutonic Order.
Thus came during the 1300s the areas from Holstein to the Gulf of Finland by
degrees under German domination, and thus finally the control of the Baltic
Sea region. All this changed Gotland’s position. Gotland’s Merchant Farmers
were at the start of the period the leading merchants in the Baltic Sea region,
with trade treaties and extensive connections in all directions. The Crusades
and the struggle for trade routes affected their vital interests. The German
advance led to a build up of a large German city community on Gotland, and
this was fatal to the old Merchant Farmers’ trade.

The central importance of the Visby harbour is also apparent in the documents.
Bishop Albert, the founder of Riga and the Livonian state formation, went the
year after he became bishop of Livland, i.e. 1199, over to Visby. There he ac-
cording to Henry Letten, the portrayer of the Livonian mission, devoted nearly
500 men with the sign of the cross.
He also secured the same forgiveness to those crusaders and pilgrims, that was

156 Tore Gannholm

given to the Jerusalem crusaders. The Livonians knew, as mentioned above
as early as the 1190s, Visby as a place where they bought salt and homes-
pun. When Bishop Albert in the following decades almost every year went to
Germany to solicit pilgrims and crusaders, he always went via Visby. Since he
1202 had founded the Livonian Brothers of the Sword ‘Fratres militiæ Christi
Livoniae’, the influx of crusaders and pilgrims increased, and on their behalf
the orden acquired a hostel in Lübeck, where they could await the crossing to
Visby for transfer to Livland. The Livonian Brothers of the Sword also had
such a shelter in Visby. We meet them in the Franciscans’ death list, where one
is taken up as ‘Ruthwi de Curia Militum Christi,’ i. e. Ruthwi from the Brothers
of the Sword’s yard. Ruthwi from Visby died during the first half of the 1300s.
The term ‘the Brothers of the Sword’s yard’ has in Visby, as in Lübeck persisted
long after the Teutonic Order took over the property of the Brothers of the
Sword.
In 1237 the Brothers of the Sword were assimilated into the Teutonic order.
At that time the art historically curious Holy Geist Octagon had come into
beeing, built on two levels, probably designed for worship congregations from
different social positions. Its architecture bears witness to the Crusaders in
Jerusalem with the church and tomb of the Dome of the Rock, and the West
German palace chapels in Aachen and Schwarzrheindorf. Also the octogon in
the seal of the Templars is interesting.
The architecture of the Holy Geist Church, has feudal origins, which may be
explained in that it was built by the Teutonic Knights, whose members were
familiar with the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and West Germany’s palace
chapels. Between the knights’ fellowships and hospital brothers and hospital
sisters was a significant rank difference.
The Teutonic Order was still a special Hospitaller Orden. In the 1230s they
took over the Holy Geist hospital in Bremen, which they kept until the Re-
formation. For a short time in the late 1220s, they also held the Holy Geist
hospital in Lübeck, but the bishop and cathedral chapter had forced them to
return it to the Council in the city. A Holy Geist hospital existed in Hamburg
since 1247, in Kiel since 1257, and in Riga Bishop Albert founded a hospital
in 1220. When they committed to undertake mission in Prussia, they should
have brought a similar interest in basing their position in Visby on a Holy Geist
hospital there. Land had been taken over from the Brothers of the Sword. A
‘curia Militum Christi’ existed already and was apparently allowed to continue
as a guest hostel. The Holy Geist Octogon was apparently planned to connect
to the south of the church situated medieval Holy Geist house.

The Varangians 157

Visby had the charcter of a metropolis with central importance for the Baltic
Sea region trade and also for the mission in Livland and Prussia why it makes
the initiative of the Teutonic Knights natural. That the church is built in an
architecture of feudal origin, mainly taken from southern Germany’s palace
chapels is then also natural.
There is yet another reason for the Teutonic order as the founder of the Holy
Geist hospital on Gotland. The hospitals of the Order were open to everyone
in the hospital province because the Holy See in its conditions conceded the
Order the right to collect alms in the parish churches once a year. Therefore,
there were Holy Geist money boxes both in the Gotlandic parish churches as
well as in St Olaf ’s and St Peter’s churches in Novgorod. This also implies that
the Holy Geist hospital came about as one for the entire island shared facility.
The judges on Gotland had therefore during the Middle Ages the right to mo-
nitor, that half of the charities annually were sent to the Holy Geist hospital
in Visby.
For Visby the conformation of the Teutonic Knights into the local society in
1237 was an event of significance, because the city thereby became committed
to its mission and colonization activities.
As early as 1230 the Holy See had called on a series of ‘faithful’ provinces, of
which Gotland alone in the Nordic countries is included, to turn against the
heathen Pruss, who threatened the newly converted Christians. The invitation
is repeated in a new papal letter 1231. In 1243 the papal throne started a great
campaign to support the Teutonic Knights missionary work in Prussia, and this
time the whole Nordic region as well as Gotland were included.
The Dominician convention in Visby got its own bull to preach the crusade in
Visby and on Gotland.
The result was a stream of pilgrims and crusaders from Germany and Scandi-
navia that via Visby went to Prussia. One is inclined to assume that both the
Holy Geist Church and the Holy Geist house were established to receive the
travellers at that time. The Holy Geist house functioned also as a guesthouse.
The Brothers of the Sword ‘domus Militum Christi’ has filled a similar role.
Merchants, crusaders and pilgrims have helped to give the impression of Visby
as a city in the mid 1200s.
Still in 1259 the Visby Germans, however, seem to lack the status on Got-
land, which could entitle them to make their own trade treaties. They are still
completely subordinated the Gotlandic Merchant Republic and their Guthna
Althingi.

158 Tore Gannholm

While Visby during the 1100s and 1200s was the largest city in the Baltic Sea
region and the place where all threads in the Baltic Sea region trade came to-
gether, Lübeck came at the end of the 1200s and early 1300s increasingly to
challenge this role. In 1368, 10 years after the formation of the Hanseatic Le-
ague, we find a letter of the following wording from the cities of Zwolle and
Kampen: “Lübeck has announced to the cities, ....... that it is neither per-
missible for Frisians or Flemish people to sail across the Baltic Sea to Gotland,
as they to date according to old right have done, or that in the future might not
be allowed for the Gotlanders to visit the Western Sea, such as those under the
The Varangians 159
old right have done for a long time.”
With this quote the newly formed monopolistic Hanseatic League (founded in
1358) fully expresses its takeover of the supremacy in the Baltic Sea region. No
wonder Visby refused to become a member.

Shift in Religion in 1164

The Gotlandic Church makes a deal with Pope Christianity.
The Gotlandic Church was initially heavily influenced by the Byzantine Eastern
Church since the Gotlanders accepted Christianity in Miklagar∂r (Constan-
tinople) in 864 and the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr‘s grandson became Byzantine
emperor in 886 under the name of Leo VI. The art and ritual of the Gotlandic
Church was Byzantine until the late 1100s and heavily influenced by the Mace-
donian Renaissance art.
The Gotlandic Church had the same structure as the church in Miklagarðr. In
the Byzantine Church the Emperor was the supreme decision-maker. In the
Gotlandic Church it was Gutna althingi. No one was able to force their will on
the Gotlanders, not even later the Catholic Church.

The Germans had in religious matters no influence on the Baltic Sea region
before the founding of Lübeck in 1159 and the Artlenburg peace treaty in 1161
between Gotland and Saxony. After that time followed immigration to Lübeck
and further to Visby from Soest in North Rhineland-Westphalia.
The Gotlandic Church had up till now relied on passing bishops and kings to
inaugurate churches. The Guta Saga remembers very well that bishops came
to Gotland, although in memory immediately attach themselves to those who
were pilgrims on their way to and from the holy Jerusalem.
For example, the Danish king Erik Ejegod on his way to the Holy Land in 1103
consecrated St. Olaf ’s Church in Visby. The road to the Holy Land went over
Gotland, the Russian rivers and Miklagar∂r.
In 1164 the Gotlanders concluded an agreement with the bishop in Linköping
that he against a fee every third year should take care of the administrative func-
tions in the Gotlandic Church as required, ‘since he resided closest to them.’ At
the same time the Linköping bishop brought monks from Nydala monastery,
and the monastery in Roma, “Sancta Maria de Gutnalia”, was founded.
The agreement stated that the bishop, at a fixed payment, should perform the
functions required by the church from a bishop. The Linköping bishop was

160 Tore Gannholm

Fårösund in 1210. Henry Letten talks about a battle in 1210 between the Crusaders and the Curonians in Får-
ösund. Tradition says that when the bishop after having left his vassals with some pilgrims in Livonia, he was with
pilgrims on the return journey to Germany. Curonians unexpectedly arrived, enemies of the name of Christ, in the
strait at the seashore with eight warships. The Courland ships were within the reef at Hau grönu. After a few of the
pilgrims had been killed by the enemy’s lances, some drowned and some have been wounded, the others returned to the
cogs and escaped. The Curonians then gathered the dead corpses, stripped them and divided the clothes and the rest
of the booty among themselves. The burghers of Gotland, however, afterwards collected the bodies and buried them in
prayer. But it was almost 30 knights and others who were killed. Painting by Eric Olsson

to visit Gotland only every three years, when he went around and consecrated
churches and inspected congregations. Also the crusades from Germany over
Gotland, to the Baltic states end 1100s, brought Pope Christianity rituals.
The Gotlanders did, however, not subordinate to the Catholic Church when
they signed the Treaty with the Bishop of Linköping. They only contracted the
services from the Bishop to undertake required duties. Of course, Gotland
had in this way an exceptional situation, which came to be reflected in the ec-
clesiastical life. Gotland had its own church, and was open to the larger world
through its bustling trade and passing pilgrimage. This connection lasted until
1570, thus also into the Danish period.

The Catholic Church’s missionary policy has always been, that whenever there
is a viable Christian community to appoint a bishop, and to charter the local
church organization with ordinances that were only reserved for a bishop. And
from this diocese work towards neighboring countries.
This was not acceptable to the Gotlanders as they did not accept that any
church could indirectly gain power over them through religious blackmail and

The Varangians 161

other such means.
Therefore the Gutna Althingi put down their own conditions for the associ-
ation with the bishop in Linköping, and Gutna Althingi remained the higest
authority over the Gotlandic Church, even after the signing of the agreement.
The Gotlanders are one of few peoples who themselves determined the con-
ditions for the association to the Pope and the Catholic Church and did never
submit to the Pope. It is important that we are aware that the Gotlanders had
experience of many Christian and non-Christian doctrines of faith and that the
Gotlanders were very tolerant towards other faiths.
For the Gotlanders trade was more important than any religion and they could
not imagine to subordinate themselves to any bishop.
The Bishop in Linköping, who the Gotlanders concluded contracts with, ‘be-
cause he was closest to them’, seem not at all to have been able to interfere in
the decision making in the Gotlandic Church, in spite of complaints by various
Bishops to the Pope. The Bishop was only contracted to every 3rd year perform
dedication ceremonies and tours of inspection as required. He did not even
have a say in the selection of priests, although he protested to Rome. Even the
compensation, that the Bishop received, was decided by the Gotlanders.
Although the Gotlandic Church did not surrender to the Pope the Catholic
rituals did de facto infiltrate the Gotlandic Church.
Therefore it can be characterized as a religious shift from Greek rituals to
Pope-Catholic rituals.

The Gotlandic Church and the Linköping diocese

The medieval country church is Gotland’s pride and honor. So peculiar and so
closed in itself is the Gotlandic ecclesiastical art, that the island in all art history
books must always have its own chapter. Gotland has its own art history!

Gotland is also the island of the proud church towers. The white towers with
sharp, brown tarred tips is its architectural signature. They are the descendants
of cathedrals. Their parents are the mighty West German domes. The towers
of Tingstäde, Stenkyrka and Vall belong to the most impressive tower buildings
in Scandinavia. In the east stands the tower of Gothem and in the southeast,
slender as a ship’s mast, Rone tower ‘Lang Jakaå’. In the west under the moun-
tain slope in Visby is located the cathedral’s large three-masted towers wreath
as in a harbour, and on Sudret rests, looking out over the sea in east and west,
‘Gra Gasi’ (Grey Goose) in Öja in its nest of lush meadows.

162 Tore Gannholm

Over Martebo bog watches the thick Lokrume ‘Boddu’, and over the rich Dal-
hem district reigns a cathedral tower with boastful pinnacles, borrowed from
French Gothic.
During the 1200s and first half of the 1300s an impressive rebuilding and
enlarging of many churches took place on Gotland. Sometimes it was for rea-
sons of necessity, because the church had burned down, but for the most part
rebuilding was a free parish initiative. The goal was to make the church greater
and more impressive than before. The old Romanesque stone churches on
Gotland, many with Byzantine art, had become comparatively small. Using in-
come from the thriving Baltic Sea trade the Gotlanders could now greatly mag-
nify their parish churches in the Gothic style with distinctive local character.
Under the influence from northern Germany the St Mary’s Church in Visby
was rebuilt to a spacious and magnificent hall church, a pattern that spread
across Gotland. The country churches received often two- or triple-aisled na-
ves with high arches supported on slender pillars. The 1200s churches stand
today as veritable peasant cathedrals, eloquent witnesses in stone of a period
for the Baltic Sea region’s incredible riches.
The upgrade to larger churches of the Gotlandic church project was, however,
abruptly halted after the mid 1300s. A contributing factor was the decline in
trading activity after the formation of the Hanseatic League in 1358 and their
ambitions to stop free trade and monopolize their own trade.
Another factor was the Black Death. In the wake of a bubonic plague epidemic
1347-1352 came church buildings across Europe to a halt. Further Valdemar
Atterdag’s invasion of Gotland in 1361 killed a large part of the remaining rural
male population.

Since the dawn of history Roma on Gotland has been an important central
place, with good road links in all directions. East of Roma extends primarily,
as a protection against attack from the east, a mile-long chain of swamps and
marshes. At Högbro just south of Roma is an passage, which is an important
defense point in Gotland’s medieval military history. From Högbro beams the
road out towards the east and southeast. In the north you have to go all the way
up to Dalhem to find the next passage.
In 1164 the Cistercians founded a monastery in Roma, at the inauguration
called ‘Sancta Maria de Guthnalia’. The monastery is considered by archaeolo-
gical finds to have been built on the site of the Gutna Althingi where Things
negotiations were held and named after the Thing. This in turn suggests that
the monks had been called by the Gutna Althingi. It will become an outpost for

The Varangians 163

the idea of crusades and part of the Pope Catholic Church’s missionary work
in Eastern Europe (note 9). With the Artlenburg peace treaty in 1161 contacts,
between the German culture in the North Rhine-Westphalia area headed by
Soest and Gotland, were opened. This will have the greatest impact on the Got-
landic Merchant Republic and its policies in the Middle Ages. In 1318 Ruma for
the first time appears in the records and the year 1419 ‘Rumm-kloster’.
The Cistercian order is at this time heavily involved in the crusade idea and it
is Cistercians behind the birth of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the
crusades against the Baltic states at the end of the 1100s and beginning of the
1200s. Bishop Albert of Riga (Albert of Buxhoeveden) founded the military
order of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (Latin: Fratres militiæ Christi
Livoniae, in German Schwertbrüderorden) in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanc-
tioned the establishment in 1204. The membership of the order comprised
German ‘warrior monks’.
Alternative names of the order include the Christ Knights, Sword Brethren,
and The Militia of Christ of Livonia. Following their defeat at the Battle of
Saule in 1236, the surviving Brothers merged into the Teutonic Order as an
autonomous branch and became known as the Livonian Order.
Roma monastery is closely linked to this policy and obtains later by the Danish
royal family, who took the monastery under its protection, very large estates in
Estonia in connection with the Danish conquest of this country in 1219. In
connection with this extension the monastery builds a large palace in Tallinn
for the monastery’s manager and large warehouses for storage of farm yields.
In 1249 a Cistercian nunnery is opened in Tallin. Roma monastery and the
Cistercian order become a support for the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers in the
1200s in their struggle against Visby and its German burghers, and give their
policies an Eastern European focus.
We also see it later at the end of the 1300s, when the Baltic Sea cities in op-
position to the Wendish cities are given access to the Gotlandic Merchant Re-
public’s Gutagård.
According to the Landbook from 1635 the Roma monastery also had large
estates in Högby and Källa parishes on Öland (A. Ahlqvist, Ölands historia
och beskrivning).
The Guta Saga explains in a separate chapter Gotlands relations to Linköping
diocese and of the agreement, which was reached between the Gotlandic Mer-
chant Republic and the bishop in Linköping.
The correctness of the narrative information is confirmed in a letter, that some
time between 1220 and 1223 was issued by Archbishop Andreas Sunesen in

164 Tore Gannholm

Lund to Bishop Bengt in Linköping.
Guta Saga says that before Gotland ranged itself in Linköping diocese, fo-
reign bishops, who temporarily passed Gotland on pilgrimages to the Holy
Land had consecrated their churches and cemeteries. ”At that time the road
went east over Gotland through Kievan Rus’ and Greece to Jerusalem.” This is
consistent with reality, as Gotland in those days was in the middle of the great
trade route from Western Europe across Kievan Rus’ to Miklagarðr (Constan-
tinople), Greece and on to the Holy Land. Guta Saga notes not without pride
that fact.
It may be mentioned in this connection, that Saxo in his chronicle tells how
king Erik Ejegod from Denmark on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his queen
and a splendid retinue of knights and attendants about the year 1103 passes
Visby, where he inaugurates St. Olaf ’s church near the harbour. From there
he goes through the Russian rivers to Miklagarðr where he was kindly received
by the Byzantine emperor, after which he continued down through the Greek
archipelago. Neither he nor his queen came back home to Denmark again.
King Erik died on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean and his Queen
Bodil in Jerusalem.
It may be mentioned that from 1123 there is a letter from Pope Callixtus II
(1119-1124) to emperor Henry V, which sets Hamburg-Bremen supremacy
over the bishops of ‘Sveciae, Gotlandiæ, Norvegiæ’. It should be noted that
the Gotlandic Church was regarded as an independent political and church or-
ganizational unit. It is also interesting to note that the popes in letters talk about
establishing ‘ius Gutorum’ in the now Christianized areas in the east.
This meant that they were granted the same rights and freedoms conferred on
Gotland, which was considered valuable.
Special ‘protection letters’ were issued by various popes for the Gotlandic
Church in the years 1253, 1296 and the 1334. The Pope promises in those to
give his protection against various kinds of injustices committed against the
church and the people on Gotland.
The Gotlanders appear to have had a strong presence in the border zone
between the Pope Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The
final break between these two churches occurred in 1054 when the Pope in
Rome and the Patriarch in Constantinople excommunicated each other. Since
the Gotlanders in their trade relations were deeply involved in the Greek Ort-
hodox Miklagarðr (Constantinople), Kievan Rus’ and the Catholic Denmark
with Schleswig, they had an unique position and could thus probably play out
the two churches against each other. This shows up later when the Linköping

The Varangians 165

bishop, from time to time, tried to interfere in the internal affairs of the Got-
landic Church.
The disturbances with the Pope Catholic Germans, which resulted in the Art-
lenburg treaty of 1161 may well have had a religious undertone. Soon thereafter
the Roma monastery was founded and Gotland’s association to the Linköping
diocese has probably also occurred at that time.

As shown in Guta Saga it gradually became necessary to integrate the Gotlan-

dic church in the Pope Catholic system of administration. For this purpose,
‘they sent message to the bishop of Linköping, for he was closest to them,’ and
made an agreement, which is of great interest for our understanding of Got-
land’s peculiar ecclesiastical political position in the Nordic countries.
According to Guta Saga the Gotlanders themselves took the initiative and it
is also acknowledged by the Archbishop who issued the letter, which states
that the Gotlanders voluntarily adopted the faith, and yielded to the bishop of
Linköping ‘without anyone forcing them to do so’. As we have seen, different
Christian faiths were obviously represented on Gotland. What had happened
was that, of convenience, they had confined themselves to the belief that the
bishop in Linköping represented.
The reason why they to their ecclesiastical head elected the Bishop in Linkö-
ping is according to Guta Saga just that he lived closest to them. The decision
would therefore be purely practical considerations and did not involve any po-
litical statement.
Judging by Gotland’s later history this seems true.
There is no doubt that it is the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers, who dictated the
agreement themselves. This gives namely the Gotlandic Church a very high
degree of independence, which is larger than in other places. Looking at the
actual design of the Agreement it may immediately be regarded as a purely
commercial contract, which not only regulates the financial dealings, but also
limits the bishop’s actions.
The agreement primarily fixes the duties and burdens, which the Gotlandic
Merchant Farmers assume in connection with inaugurations and visitations,
which the bishop is obliged to perform, and for the allowance, which will then
be paid. The Gotlanders pay for his real effort but no more. This is documen-
tary covered by a letter from the Gotlandic population to the Archbishop in
Uppsala, dated 1304, in which they complain that the Bishop in Linköping, at
the inauguration of the churches in Hörsne, Västergarn (Garnae) and Sanda
made one too extensive and expensive visit on Gotland.

166 Tore Gannholm

In that context it may be stressed that the Merchant Farmers on Gotland never
paid the bishops tithes, one thing that the Gotlanders probably are alone with
throughout the Catholic world. The tithes issue has apparently been settled al-
ready when the agreement was signed. A long series of Acts show how bishop
after bishop during the 1200s tried to achieve an audit of the agreement, which
now showed Gotland like an anomaly within the Linköping diocese. The Got-
landers defended themselves ably because their cause was formally strong and
they knew how to exploit their vast connections outside the diocese. When Bis-
hop Karl in the 1210s, wanted to change the division of tithes, the Gotlanders
appealed to the church’s primate, the learned Archbishop Andreas Sunesson in
Lund. He had been to Gotland himself and knew the island’s circumstances,
and he mediated in Gotland’s favor.
This communication probably triggered the archbishops suggestion that the
Guta Lagh should be written down. During the following bishops, Bengt and
Lars, the mediator role was played by the legate from the Holy See William of
Modena (later of Sabina). During 1226 and 1248 he resided in Visby, ratified
constitutions and confirmed Bishops’ privileges, and he also put in a word in
Rome for the Gotlanders. As early as 1230 the Holy See had called on a series
of ‘faithful’ provinces, of which Gotland alone in the Nordic countries is in-
cluded, to turn against the heathen Pruss, who threatened the newly converted
Christians. The invitation is repeated in a new papal letter 1231.
It is interesting to note that when the Swedes had Skänninge möte in 1248
the papal legate William of Modena did not come from Rome but from Visby
where he was resident.

Gradually the Gotlanders obtained a good habit to acquire papal letters, which
confirmed their ancient rights. A concrete picture of how this rather peculiar
relationship between bishop, clergy and congregation in this part of his dioce-
se turned out is the following. Year 1217 Pope Honorius III confirmed an old
agreement on the tithes division on Gotland.
When the Linköping bishop wanted to implement a change in the old tithes
division the Gotlanders obtained by Gregory IX in 1230 a confirmation of the
old division. Probably the bishop wanted to introduce bishop’s tithes. Accor-
ding to a new papal confirmation of 1253 the tithes on Gotland were divided
between church, priest and poor. A document from 1296, says that the bishop’s
representative at the papal curia Master Helyas from Spoleto, an Italian lawyer
who had helped the Swedish church with several services, entered a formal
protest against the Gotlandic deputy Master Nicolaus Gisonis.

The Varangians 167

This otherwise unknown man had persuaded Boniface VIII to confirm the
Gotlandic Church’s own practices in the appointment of priests and deans.
The agreement determines the outset “that the bishop should come from Lin-
köping to Gotland every three years with twelve of his men, who will follow
him with the Merchant Farmers’ horses, so many and no more.” The bishop’s
entourage is here clearly limited to twelve men. He is not allowed to bring his
own horses. The Merchant Farmers themselves shall make horses available to
him and his companions. The size of the bishop’s crew is obviously a factor,
when it comes to maintenance. Possibly it is purely political consideration be-
hind the provision.
The wording of the letter may suggest that. After leaving the details of the
twelve companions and their horses it is added: “for with larger party or en-
tourage he is not allowed to travel through the country.”
His visits are also clearly limited to once every three years when he will inspect
half of Gotland’s parishes. The other half will pay one between the Merchant
Farmers and the bishop agreed ransom in money, which varies depending on
parish size and economic capacity. The parishes on Gotland are thus divided
into two groups, alternately those inspected, and those which pay the ransom.
According to the letter, he has ‘no right’ to come to Gotland more frequently.
For each church the bishop inaugurates, he will have three mark penningar and
also three meals, ‘and no more.’ At the consecration of an altar, he shall have
twelve öre (i.e. 1 1/2 mark) and a meal. However, if both church and altar are
consecrated at the same time “then they shall both be consecrated for three
mark penningar and three meals,” i.e. the same compensation, which applies
when the church alone is consecrated. There is a clear and businesslike limita-
tion of the bishop’s compensation for services rendered.

Even on the bishop’s jurisdiction over the clergy, or in cases of parishioners’

discipline and morality, there are some typical restrictions. The agreement pro-
vides that these cases should always be adjudicated in the trisection on Got-
land, where the crime was committed, “because the men that live there next
know best about the truth.” The addition testifies to common sense. Even the
very location to Gotland was probably a Gotlandic wish, even if the distance
across the sea to Linköping may have played a role.
If the case was not judged in the trisection, it would be referred to the decision
of Gutna Althinghi. Exceptions apply in very difficult cases and when such a
big sin has been committed that deans can not adjudicate the case. A certain
amount of sentencing authority has apparently been transferred to the deans

168 Tore Gannholm

on Gotland, but the Gutna Althinghi, not the bishop, is the highest authority.
Even the fines, which the bishop has the right to impose, has a certain limita-
tion. They must not exceed three mark penningar. That is the same restriction
that applies to fines in the lower district units on Gotland.

The bishop did not have anything to say in case of priest elections, which the
Linköping early bishops were very unhappy with. Since ancient times, election
of priests on Gotland was done by an introduction system, whereby the Lin-
köping bishop’s influence was limited to essentially a formal confirmation. The
right to introduction belonged to patrioni, which in general was a commoners
patrioni.
The provisions testify to the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers independent posi-
tion in relation to the Bishop in Linköping. Also in connection with the eccle-
siastical law, it is the Gutna Althingi that makes the real decisions.
Regarding the law on leaving a child in the woods it has, according to Guta
Lagh’s own words, had the design ‘which all men agree’ (§ 2). This also applies
to public holidays, to be authenticated on Gotland, which in the final analysis
must be approved by the Gutna Althingi. The law would therefore undoubted-
ly be an expression of the Gotlandic society’s own views.
With its extensive links and its more continental civilization Gotland and Visby
could provide input, that the Swedish dioceses were without. And on several
occasions it appeared to be a strength for the Linköping bishop that his diocese
went outside the Swedish king’s effective power range.
During the 1300s, we see several examples of where Swedish bishops who
get into conflict with the secular Swedish power come in exile to Gotland. In
1371 the sources confirm that Archbishop Birger Gregersson was in exile on
Gotland (note 10).
Much speaks for that the Gutna Althingi signed the agreement to use the ser-
vices from the Bishop of Linköping in 1164. At the same time the Bishop
brought monks from Nydala monastery that was founded a few years earlier
and got permission to found a monastery on Gotland, which was close to the
Thing place of the Gutna Althingi in Roma, Sancta Maria de Guthnalia.

The Varangians 169

The Novgorod Trade, the German St Petershof
There was since the Artlenburg peace treaty 1161, which gave the Germans
through the newly founded Lübeck access to the Baltic Sea region market, an
understanding based on common commercial rights for the Saxon-German
and Gotlandic merchants. This was the result of the reciprocity principle of
the Artlenburg peace treaty. To this community the Livonian merchants won
association after Bishop Albert had founded the Livonian state. It is clear-
ly shown that Gotland was the leading party in the Baltic Sea region trade.
At the founding in 1201 Riga obtained ‘ius Gutorum’, i.e. the same freedoms
that characterized Visby harbor. After Riga in 1229 had opened a new Kievan
Rus’ market, the Smolensk treaty was extended to apply also to the Gotlandic
coast (Gutniska kusten). This was confirmed with ‘all merchants seal’ through
a special editing of the text that the same year was presented in Visby for the
German ambassadors and ‘all Latin merchants’. This could not have occurred
within a society of travellers to Gotland (Gotlandsfararesällskap) but within
a representation of the merchant guilds, which represented all of Gotland’s
merchants, i.e. both rural and those in Visby, and for all German merchants,
i.e. both those who lived in Visby and in the German cities on the continent.
Therefore, one speaks in the charter of ‘all Latin merchants’ and ‘all merchants
seal’.
Visby had in the decades before the mid-1200s, by the influx of German mer-
chants, developed into the leading commercial city in the Baltic Sea region.
The buildings must have made an impression of a great city. The marina has
over time been full of sailing life and movement. Commercial ships did not
only bring foreign merchants and expensive continental goods. Also products
from Northern and Eastern Europe’s forests, mines and agricultural areas were
sought after in Central, Western and Southern Europe. With it came, from the
Continent and Scandinavia, Crusaders of noble birth and high rank, together
with the pilgrims on their way eastwards. For the Baltic Sea region’s merchants
Visby was a known target. The merchant ships from different harbours in the
Baltic Sea region, that in the late 1100s and early 1200s left the harbour of Sch-
leswig, were bound for Gotland according to Schleswig City Law. The Danish
merchants had since the 1100s a Canute guild in Visby, which would have exi-
sted into the 1200s but probably was absorbed by the Germans when Lübeck
was under Danish rule. That of Henry the Lion in 1159 founded Lübeck had
during the 1160s opened the way to Gotland for the German merchants mainly
from Westphalia. In the 1200s the German Baltic Sea trade was sharply acti-
vated.
170 Tore Gannholm
Around 1200-50 Visby was unchallenged leader of
the Transitional Style
It is true that the country churches by far surpass those of Visby by originality
and imagination. But even Visby had its artistic culture, which require attention.
It is a very young culture, that takes speed from the end of the 1100s, that in
seniority cannot compete with the rural more than a thousand year old tradi-
tions in art culture.
It is enough to compare the gleaming row of Gotlandic picture stones, one
of the major international phenomena in the history of art! But Visby needs
attention. Partly for its own sake. The city grew namely fast to a small giant in
its short medieval prosperity and created, though not in so autonomous forms
as the country parishes, a treasure of architecture that still in its ruined state
arouses admiration with its solid proportions, and its rare successful fit to the
land and sea.
Visby must also be recognized for her performance in the wholeness of the
Gotlandic art. During the heyday of the Transition Period in Visby, this input
was high. Yes, Visby was then the undisputed cultural leader of the whole is-
land.
The city achieves now, around 1200-50, its manhood and now is created the
cityscape, which is actually still alive today. Churches took shape, a real Visby
Style is borne, and most churches have not changed since they were completed
during this short period, that in art history bears the unfair watery name called
the ‘Transition Period’.
Like today it was the serious cubic shapes as in S:t Lars, S:t Drotten and St. Cle-
ment that characterizes the Visby style. S:t Hans and S:t Per in the stile of that
age and S:t Nicholai, which later changed its character by extensions, originally
had the same temperament. So had also Helge And, though its main part was
octagon, not cubic.
The German national shrine of S:ta Maria was leading in front of all others,
but none of the others dispute the German blood, although in most of them
an element of Gotland is undeniable. The Germanization of Visby was a fact.
Germany during this century was an artistically impressive power. The question
is if not the 1200s represent the absolute level of height for the whole of the
current German-speaking area in art.
In building, sculpture, mural- and glass-painting and goldsmith’s art the Trans-
itional Period gave some of its best qualities to Visby, which by some simplifi-
cation and firmness, however, were adapted to a Gotlandic flavor.

The Varangians 171

In the newly prosperous harbour city the foreign concessions competed with
each other, and with the new arrivals of monastic orders.
Happy are the artists who landed at the Visby bridge at the beginning of the
fertile half-century 1200-1250. They did not wait for orders. The sacred edifices
grew with pictures and paintings as grape stocks in a fired hothouse.
Such a production could not fail to expand, and then of course, primarily to
the rural areas. The young artist subject from the parishes went as journeymen
to the Visby churches. They then returned with ideas to their native home area,
over large parts of Gotland, and included the new ideas into the Gotlandic art
school. One thinks not only in architecture but also in saint sculptures and wall
paintings, which spread like a reflex from the Germanization of Visby. The art
can geographically in those about fifty years be considered to form a whole for
the whole island, town and country under Visby’s leadership.

Gothic architecture is in itself as a style, a jewelry, a lyrical outburst. The ma-

terial in the walls is eliminated by an optical magic and becomes the transpa-
rency in the window frames and tracery. The transparency comes forth in the
perspective widening portals, where daring boldness boasts in the steep water
roofs. The simplicity was in the top flight spiers. No weight, no care.
This dream made inroads in the Gotlandic culture, although inspired by the big
European Gothic plant sites in France, Germany and England, Gotland beca-
me very different from these. Wall dissolution of the French wiry frame work
was completely unknown here. The Gotlandic churches have clean, flat mural
surfaces and still no material weight. It is the color and the light daring surface
in the bright plaster, which repeals the mass weight. The church in its whiteness
is like wearing light summer clothes. The sacred meaning with the building is
completed by the tower. The tower is Jacob’s dream ladder. Gothic towers are
always by nature high, but nowhere so ruling as in these country churches (n.b.
those who managed to get their tower finished).
In Sweden’s model Gothic Cathedral, Uppsala, is the ratio that the spire is as
high as the church is long. For the Gotlanders apply, as we have seen, another
law, which gives the tower such a massive predominance, that the church seems
almost like a pagoda, a tower as a symbol of saintliness, but without practical
use.
Yes, in this way Gothic architecture grows in the country. What is done at the
same time in the city? In Visby there are no Young Gothic influenced churches!
Of course, something has been built in the new style. However, the main im-
pression of the current churches is that they in the 1200s must have been about

172 Tore Gannholm

the same as we now see as ruins. Visby is the city of transitional style. It is the
costume that Visby clericalism has chosen and that it keeps.

Was it of mood or economics?

Both parts! Visby could not and would not in its cold calculation, build another
municipal building than a solid wall. A wall facing the sea, but also against the
country, and with double moats. How would stone and people be enough for
churches, when it came to building a wall 3,440 m in length? It is obvious that
Visby’s rearmament meant a force against the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers.
The aspiring Germanized merchant city, that laid claim to take over the lead-
ership in the Baltic Sea region, was seriously annoyed by the competition from
the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers.
Visby looked forward to a rectified international trade in accordance with prac-
tical modern German methods and meant by all means to implement their re-
quirements, and reduce the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers to what suited them,
namely the plow and milk bucket.
But there was another reason for the city wall. Every Christian riparian owner
on the Baltic Sea shores believed themselves in danger for not yet Christianized
Estonians, Karelians, etc. peoples. Year 1226 had the papal nuncio Wilhelm of
Modena with his own eyes seen, in the open sea, a ship of prisoners from the
Swedish coast, robbed by people from Saaremaa.
It is at least his own statement. Perhaps it was political propaganda, that so
eagerly colored the Holy See, that was working for a ‘crusade’ alliance against
the non-Christians in the east and the Orthodox Kievan Rus’?
The Germans in Visby as well as the Danes and the Swedes were not averse to
the crusade. Repeatedly they seek to attract even the Gotlanders, but they are
keen on their neutrality and continue even their trade with the non-Christians.
In Karelian soil many Gotlandic ornaments with 1200s decor have been found.
Yes, the Gotlanders sold even without inhibition weapons to the non-Chris-
tians! All this helps to explain the admirable economy of the country side,
which in full measure came to benefit from the fine arts as a whole.
Here no money was sacrificed on fortifications. They contented themselves
with the ancient defense towers from the 1000s and with a few simple fortifica-
tions at some churches and cemeteries, which are now difficult to observe and
are in general from the 1000s.
The gothic inspired churches, far from being useful as closed fortresses, in con-

The Varangians 173

trary called to the whole world with its wide ingenuous windows and portals:
‘Please come on in!’
What a difference from the Swedish Öland and Danish Bornholm, that had
professionally militarized churches that seemed like giant ships floating on the
Baltic Sea, packed with gun turrets! Also on high risk stretches of the Swedish
mainland coast we have these round churches!
In his foreign policy liberality, his defense nihilism and his aesthetic orientation,
the 1200s Gotlandic country person is like the finely cultivated Dane from ‘to
what use can it be’?
What a difference in the way of thinking from the people in Visby! We seem
to hear the German council members energetic propaganda for building a
city wall, mocking rural residents’ waste by building new, large churches with
strange portals.
The rural Young Gothic champions are innumerable, their work spread out
over the hole of Gotland. As a whole the Young Gothic can not have any lim-
its on the map.
Lafrans, the son of the transition time champion Botvid, the only in name
known, has his clientele mostly in the northeastern part of Gotland, Bro, Rute
and Kräklinge Things, plus a few stray cases in the west and south. He is the
decorative talent, magnificent carpentry, resourceful in his portals, sometimes
almost textile decorated in stone. His snobbery with the Greek foot in measur-
ing up, shows that he in some way, some time has been the assistant to a Frater
Barbatus, although his ornamental way does not match the strict Cistercian
taste. He is the best in his last works, e.g. Lau sanctuary, where he enacted its
shape under the influence of Ronensis.
The contemporary glass paintings are so beautiful that one is astonished to dis-
cover that such masterpieces are found in every window from the period. Glass
fragments and traces of fasteners in stonecross-bars prove it. In the country
churches, built in Gotlandic stones by Gotlandic hands, in the islanders’ own
now purely national, explicit simple style, stood in every window the magnifi-
cent treasures from afar acquired art skills.

The Gotlandic culture tradition has since the Bronze Age incorporated good
ideas from outside and made them their own. During the 900s and 1000s there
were massive Byzantine influences from Miklagarðr with the Gotlandic Va-
rangians presence there. It is the rich Merchant Farmer who adorns his Got-
landic girl in wedding dress with a tiara of precious stones.

174 Tore Gannholm

Contra Gothic, the Gotlandic national architectural
golden age
Contra indicates the contrary. But of course, the time 1325-1370 is not an
absolute contrast to the Gothic. It is itself Gothic, in some things more gothic
than high Gothic, e.g. the striving after height. See the ‘Lang Jakaå’, Rone Chur-
ch’s bold tower. And remember the new rule for the proportions, which we
know from Egypticus! Among the great masses the new era is thus still faithful
to the verticality. It is in the details that the reaction ‘Contra’ is found, namely
with the heavy, thick and square instead of the light, crisp and sharp.
Master Egypticus is dominating this period with the most candid expression.
He has as distinctive feature the windows’ sun benches with a powerful pro-
jecting heavy rain drop and is rounding its interior columns fat and strong. It
is the proportions of the Transitional style that are coming back. On the bases
he puts instead of leaves, thick quadrangle lumps, also there in reactionary
compliance with such from the 1230s, as in Vamlingbo and Dalhem. In his
sculptures he can go even deeper back in the art of the paternal island. His
Christ mocking in the Stånga façade can be compared with Hegwaldr’s Christ’s
capture in the Etelhem font. Egypticus is with one word Gotland’s true son
and speaks his Gotlandic language with conviction. He has a remarkable un-
derstanding for ancient times, among others it shows in his ability to adjust his
own shapes to older periods, e.g. in Stånga, which is a reconstruction of a 160
years old building. Egypticus follows in his portals, to begin with, the schedule
of high Gothic. Probably he was a journeyman in Fabulator’s workshop. In the
oldest Egypticus’ building, Lye sanctuary, the headbands are in figure Fabula-
tors’ style, and the glass paintings are on the level with high Gothic. It is Christ’s
story in small figurative fabulations. But the small scale is not suitable for an
Egypticus. His plastic fantasy insists upon the cubic ells. He cuts Christ or the
Mother of God in supernatural size of the gables on the portals, and plans a
huge frieze with Christ’s tortured history and worship of the Magis for Stånga
Church. It is the iconic façade from Byzantio’s days in ten-fold magnification.
However, even if Egypticus is the Gotlander in front of others, the spark has
kindled at the touch of a foreign art skill.
All of Europe after High Gothic tend toward drastic realism and heavy earth-
bound proportions. Has Egypticus had a hand in the English sculptures in Lin-
köping Cathedral, the heavy reliefs in the main portal tympanon? Between the
diocese cathedral and Gotland was of course a traditional connection. None
of his churches is a fully executed work by him with sanctuary, nave and tower.

The Varangians 175

Completed are only the two, where Egypticus with a tower or otherwise supp-
lemented an older building: Rone by Ronensis and Stånga by the ‘Veck-kapi-
tälmästaren’. His greatest work, the sancturaries and naves in Hablingbo and
Grötlingbo have remained unfinished. They have for all times had to give up the
Gothic in spirit and size to the nave matching tower. And why? After Egypticus
the Gotlandic church architecture’s thread of life was cut. After him, nothing,
other than a single inner outfit. All building plans were broken by Valdemar’s
invasion in 1361, whose main result was a thorough devastation and plunder of
the Gotlandic country side, especially to judge from the inscription in Fide in
southern Gotland, Egypticus’ field of action. The disaster in 1361 has been as
crippling to the church building as was the civil war in 1288, only even deeper.
When it was possible for the strength to return in the plundered parishes came
the result of the creation of the Hanseatic League from 1358 in the Baltic Sea
trade. It was strictly monopolistic implemented and accepted no competition
from the Gotlandic Merchant Farmers.
It is possible that one of Egypticus’ great works was completed only after
1361, it would be Stånga. Its giant sculptures appear in one detail, console
and canopy, to be affected by the Swerting chapel in Visby and thus being ad-
ded after 1350. They were obviously designed for a nave of very great length.
After 1361, the company was doomed. Egypticus saved then what could be
saved by a compromise. The old church from the Cisterciensian time had its
arches raised, and the already finished sculptures of the portal and huge friezes
were cemented in, as much as possible, on the south front. Egypticus’ area of
concentration is the very southern part, the country of the mighty gray-green
sandstone blocks. Other relevant things spread far and wide, but it is clear that
the emphasis now lies to the south. It is noteworthy that the most important of
the following period wooden sculptures and paintings also belong to the South.
See e.g. Rone crucifix.

Cultural background
Gotland’s medieval mural painting
As seeen above, on the painting area, Gotland holds since old times its own
position as a home for high quality art. Often the paintings join closely and
admirably, complementary to the architecture, and the character is always here
and seems to distinguish the Gotlandic art. It makes the study of painting an
important part of the Gotlandic art research.
In the older ferment of the Gotlandic stone church painting stand the pain-

176 Tore Gannholm

tings in Vamlingbo, where the 1100s arch ornaments are perhaps partly perfor-
med by the architect-sculptors themselves. The figure compositions in Klinte
church chapel vault, as well as the paintings in the Heiliger Geist Hospital in
Lübeck, with related apostles in Lärbro, are the most important. The Gotlan-
dic painting affinity with Swedish and Baltic painting from about 1300, with
Strängnäs paintings type, is shown by the beautiful vault paintings in Sanda.
The 1300s take us otherwise to meet the paintings of the Dalhem Master in
Dalhem and Lojsta and in the extensive, from separate times deriving decora-
tions in Bunge. Of great interest is also the painted sacrament cabinets, painted
in several churches, and those from a ruined chapel chair derived painted bo-
ards in Kräklingbo?
The 1400s artistically most remarkable paintings include the magnificent apost-
le suit in Othem.
The passion paintings belong to the characteristic features of a Gotlandic coun-
try church interior. Recent years church restorations have greatly increased the
number of monuments. Individual suites have apparently never been covered
with lime and have been portrayed by ancient antiquarian travel writers, such as
Wallin, Hilfeling and Ekdahl.
In Fide church on southern Gotland, in the triumphal arch, there is left a small
free from plaster surface, on which is applied a painting, depicting Christ as
Man of Sorrows, a thin wavering figure in front of the cross. Above the picture
is a renowned and multifeatured inscrip-
tion: ”Edes succense gens cesa dolens
ruit ense”. It is a chronograph which
itself conceals the year 1361, the year
of Valdemar Atterdags war expedition
to Gotland. This, in all its poverty ra-
dical painting with the taciturn inscrip-
tion, gives an irresistible fatal mood. It
can be said to be the prelude to the late
medieval art on Gotland. It can stand
as an illustration to Roosvals congenial
characterization of the Gotlandic art
of the time of Engelbrecht: ... an air
of piety and proletarian ...The suffering
Savior wept in hopeless bitterness, and
this enclosed in servalistic rigid angular
Vamlingbo Church. Emperor Henry’s soul-weighing face and friendly bodies .... Either the
The Varangians 177
 inscription of this painting is the
year it says or is to be placed a
generation later. This Misericordie
picture with its pathetic mood of
sorrow and distress, of intensely
experienced passion time, stands
as a beginning entrance to the fol-
lowing representation.
The ending of the 1300s and Got-
land’s 1400s art had to contend
with great difficulties. Its subject
Hejdeby Church. matter is branded with the coun-
try’s political and economic pow-
erlessness. The free and powerful
Merchant Farmer class, who were carriers of the earlier Byzantine art, and the
magnificent art culture of the High Middle Ages, had already for a century
been competed out of the Baltic Sea large trade through the city of Visby, and
later North Germany’s powerful trading groups.
The beginning to the end of the Gotlandic Merchant Republic’s free trade
could already be set at the civil war between city and country in 1288. The last
crushing blow fell with the Black Death and Valdemar Atterdags expedition
in 1361. The events of this fateful year must, however, not be overstated. The
importance and need to restrain to deeper causes for the fall of the Gotlandic
Merchant Farmers culture is not directly related to the Valdemar campaign but
farther back in time. However, it is undeniable that 1361 forms a border line in
the Gotlandic cultural history. After 1361 ceases the big church building com-
panies on the Gotlandic countryside, and the former 1300s high level sculpture
workshops such as the Vamlingbo Master and Ala Master as well. Only through
the Bäl Master’s strong rural-related art is the domestic development brought
forward.
Even Visby, that was victorious over the Gotlandic Merchant Republic in 1288,
had in the early 1300s seen its better days. Its dominant position among the
Baltic Sea region cities weakens. It is pushed more and more in the background
through the formation of the Hanseatic Leaguein in 1358, and must give up
hegemony in the Baltic Sea region to the rapidly growing Lübeck. This is not
only in the economic and political field but also within the world of art.
Previously the decline was directly related to the Valdemar campaign. Legends
tell of ransom and looting.

178 Tore Gannholm

 The excavations in Kors-
betningen and the resul-
tant new studies of the
history of the Valdemar
campaign clearly shows
that the city was not af-
fected by the disaster.
Visby only payed the stip-
ulated ransom not to be
looted and immediately
got its trading privilages
confirmed, including the
Sanda Church. S. Nicholas saves a ship from distress caused by the
whole of Denmark. The
Sea-wife by the Nicolaus Master.
real devastating effects hit
the countryside that had to bear the brunt. In the mass graves at Korsbetningen
rest mainly Gotlandic peasant warriors. It is the Gotlandic country people who
have fought their last battle, not the Visby citizens. It is also clear that Visby af-
ter 1361 still enjoyed some wealth and still was able to finance the construction
of larger building projects.
However, precarious times during the wars between King Albrecht and Queen
Margaret, with supporting pirate empires on the sea, could not have failed to
inhibit Gotland. In the late 1300s the splendid reconstruction of S:ta Karin’s
choir was completed and its new choir chairs were inaugurated in 1408. Around
1400 also S:t Nicolai had a new hansom choir and slightly later, the building of
S:ta Maria’s east tower was finished. All this is entirely in a rich and beautiful
Gothic, which at this time was only surpassed by a building in Sweden, the new
choir in the cathedral in Linköping.
There is hardly nothing preserved of art from the Visby churches. It thus
eludes us our present knowledge, which significance the late medieval Visby art
may have had for the countryside. Even stronger than previously has, generally
towards the end of the Middle Ages, art practice been focused on cities. How-
ever, the special situation on Gotland suggests that some rural dependence of
the city need not necessarily be assumed. Gotland’s countryside has often be-
fore been able to come in contact with foreign art centers without Visby media-
tion. Dissension between the political power groups and plagued by battles and
sieges is Visby during the 1400s more and more withdrawn. Erik of Pomerania
built his pirate nest, the fort Visborg, which becomes in the Danish mortgage
lords, Axelsönerna, a tyrant’s castle. It depresses the burghers to completely

The Varangians 179

depend on the master of the castle, during which likewise all the country is
tributary. The bad times have come in earnest. Gone is the Merchant Farmer’s
free merchandise trading, or he is at least leading a languishing time. Already
now we encounter the Gotlandic farmer of modern times type, assigned to
other, less lucrative trades:
masonry, tar and coal burning, fishing, and a reluctant and primitive carried
on agriculture. But the remarkable and historic interesting thing is to find how
Gotland’s folk still during this difficult time maintain their independence in
many respects. They appear as a political entity and holds in the 1400s still their
old famous trading Emporium in Novgorod, Gutagård, that now does not give
other income than its rent. The country’s main center is still Gutna Althingi in
Roma, the seat of its jurisdiction.
In the Gotlandic art one may almost have to go back to the 900s, to ‘the wild
style’ champion, Hegwaldr, to find a counterpart to this indifference to beauty
of form before the need for expressive power. In times of trial a people sticks
together around its national traditions. In Gotland of the 1400s appears really
a national archaic feature. Ornamental and figurative style join often with older
designs, and several direct copies of ancient works of art can be demonstrated.
More visual and truer can not the Gotlandic mental quality in the 1400s art be
interpreted.

The expansion of Christianity, the Crusades

On July 11, 1930 they took down the old spire on Källunge church to be re-
placed by a new one. It was found then that the old weathervane was too rusty
and broken to be put back up and was therefore sent to a coppersmith in Visby
for obtaining new hinges. It was here that Professor Johnny Roosval got know-
ledge of the discovery, and it soon became known that the vane from Källunge
was an art historical sensation, whose single counterpart in Sweden was the
famous vane from Söderala in Hälsingland.
According to Roosval the vane should be from the early 1000s, and originally
it would have been used as commander’s flag on a warship, an article of kit,
which at the mobilization of Gotlands naval forces in the 1000s would be
retrieved from its storage room in what might be called ‘roll marketing area
church’. The gilded copper vane, now kept in a booth in Källunge church,
is richly decorated with ornaments in the so-called Ringrike style. A winding
dragon is enmeshed in ingenious ornaments of snakes. On the opposite side
is fought a battle between a lion and a snake, perhaps symbolizing the struggle

180 Tore Gannholm

of good against evil. The surrounding palmette vine shows the artist’s contact
with Christian art. The vane is crowned by a lion in free sculpture, among oth-
ers a symbol of the victorious Christ. During the first centuries of the Middle
Ages the history of Northern Europe was characterized by the crusades aga-
inst the Baltic Sea coastal countries in South and East. These areas were inha-
bited by none-Christian tribes consisting of Slavic, Baltic and Finnish peoples.
The Roman Catholic Church declared that the conquest of these countries had
the same meaning as the Crusades to the Holy Land. The official startingpoint
for the Northern Crusades was Pope Celestine III’s call in 1193. The east Baltic
world was transformed by military conquest: first the Livs, Latgallians and Es-
tonians, then the Semigallians, Curonians, Prussians and the Finns underwent
defeat, baptism, military occupation and sometimes extermination by groups
of Danes, Germans and Swedes.
The Danish king Valdemar I had in 1168 conquered Mecklenburg and Pome-
rania with Rügen lying between the Elbe and Oder and the Wends were Chris-
tianized. Saxony was interested in the same areas and in the long run, it was
they who retired with victory and a number of large cities grew up there. The
Germans also came to Prussia, Courland and Livonia.
The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, and was part of the
Viking Age Gotlandic Daugava-Dnieper navigation route to Miklagarðr. A
sheltered natural harbour 15 km upriver from the mouth of the Daugava, the
site of today’s Riga, has been recorded as Duna Urbs as early as the 100s. The
area was settled by the Livonians.

Along with German traders from Westphalia arrived also the monk Meinhard
of Segeberg in 1186, in order to convert the non-Christians to Pope Christiani-
ty. Pope Catholic and Greek Orthodox Christianity had already been spread in
Latvia more than a century earlier, and many Latvians were baptised. Meinhard
settled among the Livonians and built a castle and church at Ikškile, upstream
from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livonians, however, conti-
nued to practice their own religions. Meinhard died in Ikškile in 1196, having
failed in his mission. In 1198 the Bishop Bertold arrived with a contingent of
crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Bertold was
killed soon afterwards and his forces defeated.
The Church mobilized to avenge. Pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a
crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Li-
vonia, by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen and
Hamburg, in 1199. Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 West-

The Varangians 181

phalian crusaders. In 1201 he founded Riga together with Gotlandic Merchant
Farmers and transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikškile to
Riga, extorting agreement to do so from the elders of Riga by force. There
were several Danish crusades against the Baltic coast in the east. By 1219 most
of the northern part of Estonia was conquered. This was done in collaboration
with the Germans in Livonia.
North of the Gulf of Finland the Swedes pulled forward through Finland to
Karelia. They were met from the east by the Greek Orthodox Novgorod. The
Gotlanders seem to have maintained the old relations with Novgorod all the
time. They now found a new export item, baptismal fonts which can be found
all around the Baltic Sea. Even gravestones were exported.
Behind the efforts to spread Christianity were economic and power politic rea-
sons. From Estonia, Denmark dominated the Gulf of Finland. King Valdemar
and archbishop Andreas Sunesen served his subjects well when they undertook
the crusade in 1219.
Lübeck celebrated Valdemar Sejr as its overlord in 1203 until 1225. In a num-
ber of Danish cities had earlier been founded fraternities of merchants, whose
members traded on Novgorod from a fixed commercial yard in Visby. Valde-
mar Sejr had given these organizations, St Canute guilds, special privileges.

Swedish kings searched as late as Magnus Eriksson in the mid 1300s to gain
dominion over the River Neva, which navigable channel went to Lake Lado-
ga and further over Wolchow to Novgorod at lake Ilmen. The Swedes and
Novgordians fought for a century over this hub.

The Germans in Riga controlled the second river route to Kiev and Miklagarðr,
the route over the river Daugava to the springs of the river Dnieper, where
Smolensk was the main marketplace. Gotland’s importance, still at that time as
a center, probably the most important, can statistically also be demonstrated by
its huge exports of baptismal fonts.
Within the Baltic Sea region Gotland dominated artistic movements, even in
the late 1200s. Gotland’s own need for baptismal fonts was now satisfied, the-
refore very little of the new baptismal fonts in young gothic style can be found
on Gotland. Gotlandic baptismal fonts of this new style on the other hand are
to be found everywhere in countries around the Baltic Sea region.
During the 1000s the Gotlanders used sandstone from the south of the island,
then limestone. More than a thousand Gotlandic fonts went in the 1100s and
1200s on export to Scandinavia and Northern Europe.

182 Tore Gannholm

Gotland and the future Hanseatic towns
It is commonly believed that Gotland and Visby flourished thanks to the Han-
seatic League.
The truth is very much the opposite. Visby was never a member of the Han-
seatic League. The Hanseatic League was the reason for Gotland’s decline. For
over a hundred years the Germans sailed under Gotlandic flag and used Got-
landic trade treaties.
After their arrival in the Baltic Sea region it took 200 years before the founda-
tion of the monopolistic Hanseatic League in 1358, which definitely put a stop
to the Gotlandic Varangians former trade dominance.
First appearance of the Hanseatic League in Visby was a surprise attack on the
city in 1525 when part of Visby was burnt down.
‘Hanse’ is an old Germanic word that originally signified an armed group. Mer-
chants from Cologne appeared in early 1100s in Flanders and England in such
types of ‘Hansas’ to protect themselves from assault and harassment during
their commercial travelling and when on foreign sites.
On Gotland and in the Baltic Sea region the word ‘Hanse’ does not occur in
the 1100s and 1200s because there was a resident German population obeying
to Gotlandic law.
The Gotlandic merchants were called Varangians when they traveled on the
Russian rivers and served in the Byzantine emperor’s guard in Miklagarðr. The-
re are no traces of a Merchant Hanse in Visby.
Visby was, however, one of the participant founders of the embryo of the
Hanseatic League in 1356 but did not join and take part in the first Hanseday
in Lübeck 1358. Lübeck, however, took for granted that Visby wanted to be a
member. On the Hanseday in Lübeck 1364, where Visby was not represented,
they stated that the merchants in Visby belonged to the German Hanseatic
League.
On the Hanseday in Cologne in 1367 two representatives from Visby were
present and stated that they would not like to be forced to be connected to the
Hanseatic League, but as before they would like to determine their own trade.
Their request was accepted.

The Gotlandic Merchant Farmers’ trading on the Russian rivers during the Vi-
king Age seem to have joined together in organizations sworn to support each
other and share the profits. They called themselves ‘Varangians’ from ‘var,’ so-
lemn pledge.They acted also as mercenaries enrolled by the Khazarian Khagan,
the emperor in Miklagarðr and later the Kievan Rus’ princes.
The Varangians 183
In 988 Basil II formed a bodyguard of Gotlandic Varangians as they were the
only ones he could rely on.
Alongside the German merchants, who appeared as guests in Visby, a nume-
rous group of Germans gradually settled in Visby an became residents. These
took eventually the decisive influence in ’Gotlandsfararesällskapet’ (an associa-
tion of German merchants travelling to Visby).
Its main seal with which documents for the German merchants’ common inte-
rests should be sealed was kept in Visby. This seal was abolished in 1298 after
which only the seal of the Germans living in Visby was to be used.
Other conditions pulled the development in the same direction. At the end of
the 1200s the whole of the Baltic Sea region’s south-east coast was in German,
Danish and Swedish hands and merchant ships from Lübeck could safely fol-
low the coast on their way to Novgorod.
The old route, where Gotland had been a vital staging point was no longer ne-
cessary to use. In addition, they now used better ships and navigation.
Lübeckian ‘Cogs’ sailed in an increasing number directly to Novgorod. Got-
land became superfluous as an intermediate point. The trade center shifted
increasingly from Visby to Lübeck.
However, in 1323 Visby was still in full control of the Novgorod trade. At the
peace negotiations between Sweden and Novgorod this year two Visby repre-
sentatives, a Gotlandic and a German, looked after the interests for the transit
harbour Visby, and for the immediate future secured their merchants free Neva
passage.

Visby is burning after Lübeck’s looting of it year 1525. The city now sunk into poverty and oblivion.
Painting by Eric Olsson.

184 Tore Gannholm

To get an idea of what goods were shipped from and to Visby we can refer
to the pound duty accounts. According to professor Hugo Yrwing, ‘Gotlands
medeltid’ p. 145:
“1368 was imported to Lübeck from Gotland butter, iron, copper, oil, skins
of various types, including salted and cut hides, furs and skins such as ermi-
ne-, sheep-, goat- and hareskin, unspecified skinbales, tanned leather, tallow,
wax, chalk, limestone, millstones, meat, fat, flax, herring, fish, tar, honey and
nuts. The export from Lübeck to Gotland was not very versatile. It consisted
in particular of honey, cloth of various kinds, such as English broadcloth and
Poperinge cloth, silk, linen, salt, pepper, beer and wine. The list includes also
casks without detailed information and shopkeepers’ goods without specifica-
tion. Iron, copper, hides, furs, skins, fur bales and wax are transit goods, partly
with the exception of hides and skins. In addition to Stockholm, Visby was the
principal transit place for the Swedish copper and Swedish iron.

The following is a letter in 1368, the year after Visby declared that they did
not want to become a member of the Hanseatic League, of the same wording
from the cities of Zwolle and Kampen to Lübeck: “Lübeck has announced
the cities,.......that it is neither permissible for the Frisians and Flemings to sail
across the Baltic Sea to Gotland, as sofar the old law has allowed, or that in the
future might not be allowed Gotlanders to visit the Western sea, such as those
under the old law already for a long time have done. “
In this quotation, the Hanseatic League’s complete takeover of supremacy in
the Baltic Sea region comes to the expression.

The Varangians 185

Note 1
According to Prof. Birger Nerman, Fv 1954 p 274:
“The Scandinavian connections during the Late Bronze Age have been areas
further east than Eastern Russia, and this will primarily concern Gotland. It is
especially to Caucasus where a very rich culture flourished, that contacts during
the relevant times apply”.
“You can imagine that the Gotlandic merchants during the late Bronze Age
went out on the roads east and southeast of the Baltic Sea. Even people from
other parts of the Nordic countries have probably made their way out on these
trade routes. The Eastern influences have certainly in a significant way been
mediated by the Gotlanders to the other tribes in Scandinavia.”

According to Dr. Vello Louga, ”Kontakter mellan Skandinavien och Östeuropa

innan vikingatiden”, p 123:
“The eastern contact zone between the Scandinavian and Finno-Ugrian tribes
is the upper and middle Volgaregion. Especially the Mari region is interesting
in terms of the central area. It seems quite clear that relations between Scandi-
navia and the Volga region during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age were
direct.” “In the 1970s a well-preserved cemetery from the late Bronze Age and
early Iron Age was excavated, the old Achmulova grave field, where there is
more than 1000 graves dating back to 800-500 BCE. In this cemetery are many
of the skeletons encased in a ship-shaped wooden structure in the ground, but
there is no indication above ground. Similar tombs are known from the same
time only on Gotland, but there they are in stone vessels and stone coffins, and
on the eastern Baltic coast are also some ship graves.”

The Scythians were an ethno linguistic group of ancient Iranian nomadic tribal
cultures living in Scythia, the region encompassing the Pontic-Caspian steppe
(in Eastern Europe) and parts of Central Asia throughout the Classical Anti-
quity. Much of the surviving information about the Scythians comes from the
Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BCE) in his Histories and Ovid in his poem
of exile, Epistulae ex Ponto, and archaeologically from the exquisite goldwork
found in Scythian burial mounds in Ukraine and Southern Russia. Two of the
largest Scythian tribal confederations were the Sarmatians of Western Scythia
and the Amyrgians of Eastern Scythia. In a broader sense, the name ‘Scythian’
has also been used to refer to various peoples seen as similar to the Scythians,
or who lived anywhere in the area known as Scythia.

186 Tore Gannholm

Jean Markale, The Celts:
“It has, in fact, been proven that there were major physical upheavals in Nort-
hern Europe towards the end of the Bronze Age, which resulted in whole scale
migrations of peoples. The Celts left their early homeland in the Harz Mounta-
ins to spread throughout Northern and Western Germany, along the Baltic and
North Sea coasts. Before long they had established trade relations with their
neighbours around the Elbe and in the British Isles, particularly Ireland, which
would tend to suggest that there was a first Celtic migration of Gaels into Ire-
land while the mass of the Britons remained faithful to their former territories.
Geographical and geological evidence show that in the middle Bronze Age,
around 1200 BCE, the water level of lakes and marches fell, indicating that a
warm, dry period had followed a cold, wet period. This climate change may
well have sparked off the shrinking of the Turco-Siberian Sea, which has now
been reduced to the bounds of the Caspian and Aral Seas. All the buildings
which can be roughly assigned to this period are at some distance from the
former shore lines, near some source of water. The great forests of Central and
western Europe became less dense. And the peatbogs of Northern Germany
and Sweden, as the Swedish geologist Sernander has observed, contain eviden-
ce of a stratum of dry land corresponding to this era.
This would appear to have been the time when the civilization of the Scandi-
navian Straits was at its height; when the Dorians arrived in Greece and when
the Urnfield civilization flourished in Western and Cental Europe together with
the British Battle-Axe civilization.
At the end of the Bronze Age, after the first Hallstatt period, i.e. around 530
BCE, the lake villages were hastily abandoned by their occupants. Western Eu-
rope became suddenly cold and wet again. The Scandinavian bogs indicate that
new formations of peat followed a period of comparative drought. The North
Sea and Baltic coastlines became areas of inundated marshland. Archaeological
evidence indicate vast southward migrations of people escaping the flooded
regions. The first and most important migration of Britons to Great Britain
can be dated from this period and these movements were echoed in the strange
Welsh traditions that followed at a much later date.”
“However, not all the Celts living by the Baltic and North Sea made for Britain.
Others journeyed to the Rhineland and from there to what later became Gaul,
either assimilating or driving back before them the proto-Celtic indigenious
peoples of the Bronze and Megalitic civilizations.
This mass migration obviously created considerable disturbances, echoes of
which can be seen in legends concerning Atlantis, passed on by Plato.”

The Varangians 187

Note 2
According to Professor Erik Nylén, Fv 1952 p 225:
“Curiously, Gotland is quite alone in the Nordic region with the art boom,
which might have caused one of the first big boosts to Gotland as a trading
post in the Baltic Sea region. Several of those ornamental details described here
are found in Stradonice but occur to some extent also elsewhere in the Celtic
area.”

Professor Sune Lindqvist, Sveriges handel under forntiden, p. 58:

“But the geographical location made the Gothic influence in the beginning
strongest felt on Gotland which was located in the middle of the Vistula mouth
(compare how Tacitus and Jordanes describe Gotland). This island, which is
probably counting her sons in large numbers among emigrants, had ever sin-
ce the Neolithic a highly distinctive culture, due to its on one hand isolated
situation and on the other due to its inviting location links to very different
directions. The Bronze Age culture was rich. Its oldest Iron Age culture, which
should be considered to have been simultaneous with the 6th Bronze Age peri-
od, is richer than in any other part of Sweden. Even the Celtic and the begin-
ning future culture is distinguished represented. With the sudden flare-up of
Gothic influences, Gotland now took a real foreground position. It is apparent-
ly the first full-age appearance of the Gotlandic commercial aristocracy, who
then gathered in their hands the threads of vast trading networks throughout
the remainder of non-Christian times and even during the first centuries of the
Middle Ages, to be broken first by the Atterdag campaign (1361) and by the
German Hanseatic League’s (founded 1358) cut-throat competition.“

Note 3
According to Professor Adolf Noreen, Fv 1920 p 31:
“The people that Pliny called gutones, and Tacitus gotones, lived according to
these authors, which also is confirmed by archaeological finds, in their time at
the Vistula mouth. They had according to Jordanes migrated from ‘the island‘
Scandiai’, which according to archaeological evidence must have taken place
some century BCE”.
“They are in the sources closely linked to Gotland, whose inhabitants still today
bear the one against Pliny’s name direct defendant name Gutar. This is also
referred to by Ptolomaios as the name of one in southern Skandia accom-
modated tribe Goutai. The Goths called themselves Guthiuda, i.e. ‘the people

188 Tore Gannholm

from the Gut’, which latter word is the same as German Guss, pour out. I’m
inclined, as Lindroth, to regard this as the original name of the current Guteån,
which flows through Gotland’s oldest main district. This is the same river that
has named Gutland, which is then extended to describe the entire island. The
main mass of the Vistula Goths drew around 150-200 CE down to the Black
Sea and were called since the mid-200s usually Goths, lat. Got(h)i.”
There is archaeological evidence for Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the eas-
tern coasts of the Baltic Sea already in the Bronze Age as well as in Roman
Imperial times.

Jordanes writes:
“And at the farthest bound of its western expanse it has another island named
THULE, of which the Mantuan bard makes mention: And Farthest THULE
shall serve thee.”
“The same mighty sea has also in its arctic region, that is in the north, a great
island named Scandza, from which my tale (by God’s grace) shall take its be-
ginning. For the race whose origin you ask to know burst forth like a swarm of
bees from the midst of this island and came into the land of Europe.”
“Let us now return to the site of the island of Scandza, which we left above.
Claudius Ptolemaeus, an excellent describer of the world, has made mention of
it in the second book of his work, saying:
‘There is a great island situated in the surge of the northern Ocean, Scandza
by name, in the shape of a juniper leaf with bulging sides that taper down to a
point at a long end.’ This island lies in front of the river Vistula, which rises in
the Sarmatian mountains and flows through its triple mouth into the northern
Ocean in sight of Scandza, separating Germania and Scythia.”

According to Professor K.B. Wiklund, Fv 1933 p 108:

“The literature shows clearly enough that during the first centuries CE until
approximately year 700 in one or more regions in the Gulf of Finland, well
most of the south-western Finland, there was a population with an ancient
Nordic, not Gothic language, which stood in long and very intimate contact
with their Finnish neighbors.”

The Varangians 189

Note 4
According to Professor Johan Callmer, Verbindungen zwischen Ostskandina-
vien, Finnland und dem Balticum vor der Wikingerzeit und das Rus’-Problem
1986:
“We now examine what indications, concerning the relations within the Cen-
tral Baltic area, the archeology of the early Iron Age to the Viking Age offer
us. Since the Stone Age and Bronze Age contacts between the eastern and
western coasts of the Baltic Sea are documented. All through history there are
two areas in the Baltic Sea region that emerge with an unparalleled wealth of
relevant material. As a result of special studies, by B. Nerman, on Gotland and
Gotlandic Baltic material, Gotland is often regarded as the main mediator of
the factual contacts between Scandinavia and the Baltics (Nerman 1929). Parti-
cularly well documented are the connections between Gotland and the eastern
Baltic during the time of the Roman Empire. To some extent, these contacts
can be regarded not only as an exchange relationship with the eastern Baltic
area, but also as marriage connections. The buck elk decorated caps which
occur during the older Roman Imperial period on Gotland, can be interpreted
in this direction (BLUMBERGS 1982). Even in its earliest stage, they must on
Gotland be viewed as a socially integrated loan from Memel, and in all pro-
bability, they have the same function on Gotland as a sign of married woman
as in the eastern Baltic. There is no lack of more direct evidence of marriage
ties, such as a grave where a woman is buried in complete Semgallischer cos-
tume (BLUMBERGS 1979). We can therefore conclude that the connections
between Gotland and the eastern Baltic were during the early Iron Age well
integrated as concerns the social system. However, it is obviously difficult to
prove a longer continuity of these connections.
For the later Roman Iron Age there are continuous contacts between the is-
lands of Öland and Gotland and Southwestern Finnland. These contacts are
shown not only by found objects, which provide an clear picture of the charac-
ter of the compounds indicated, but also by certain characteristics of the burial
customs, in-depth social contacts. In particular, the graves of Soukiainen, Leta-
la, Finland need to be considered (Kivikoski 1954).”

According to Professor Johan Callmer, From West to East. The penetration of

Scandinavians into Eastern Europe ca. 500-900, 1997:
”INTER-REGIONAL CONTACTS IN THE BALTIC REGION UP TO
THE 700s Cultural change in the Baltic region has, from early times at le-
ast from the Neolithic Period on, involved the transfer of cultural impulses
190 Tore Gannholm
over considerable distances and also over water. All major islands with fertile
soils were reached in the late Stone Age and it is obvious that social contact
and transport facilities for individuals and groups were already well developed
(WYSZOMIRSKA 1984). This pattern of contact involving the use of large
seagoing vessels was further developed in later periods. Two different cultural
systems emerge:
one on the western and another on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. On Got-
land both systems are in evidence, but the western connection is particularly
strong. Beyond this cultural dichotomy which remains constant, the archaeo-
logical material indicates cultural exchange and probably smallscale migrations.
E.g., there are periods of close cultural parallels on the western and eastern side
of the Baltic Sea in the Bronze Age. The Roman Iron Age is marked by incre-
ased exchange between Scandinavia and the Continent and between Finland
and the East Baltic, Vistula and Neman regions. Cultural exchange between the
West and the East also increased.
Gotland was linked to groups in what is now Latvia and in the lower Neman
region (BLUMBERGS 1979). South-Western Finland appears to have been
included in this network of socially integrated forms of exchange including
intermarriage, the exchange of gifts and possibly also migration. There is evi-
dence for both western and eastern contacts already in the Neolithic Period on
the Åland islands, midway between the Swedish and the Finnish mainland. At
the beginning of the first millennium CE we note increasing cultural exchange
and other contacts between Eastern Middle Sweden, South-Western Finland
and Estonia (CALLMER 1986), though it appears that these contacts did not
reach the more remote, eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and the lands
beyond. The East-West contacts were not as important as those of the eastern
regions with the South.
With regard to these patterns of exchange mainly of prestige goods – and the
transfer of ideas, the Migration Period marks a new phase more closely linked
to later developments. The possibility of acquiring prestige goods through ex-
change and of using these to consolidate their political position was of impor-
tance to local elites. The big islands of the Baltic Sea region maintained their
cultural links across the sea, e.g. Öland and Bornholm with the coasts of Prus-
sia and Lithuania (FONNES- BECH-SANDBERG 1992). Gotland also kept
its earlier contacts with the East. The pattern of material culture on Gotland
changes in this period: a distinct local pattern evolves and other cultural forms
disappear. This process reaches its peak in the rejection of all foreign design,
especially in feminine articles of material culture: nothing with non-Gotlandic

The Varangians 191

design is accepted. There is a similar tendency on the masculine side but less
complete. Numerous anthropological parallels suggest that such a process is
to be interpreted as the result of increased cultural interaction. This interac-
tion included South-Western Scandinavia as well as the East Baltic lands, pre-
sent-day Lithuania and Latvia.”

An early reference to Amber was Pytheas (330 BC) whose work ‘On the Ocean’
which is lost, but was referenced by Pliny. According to The Natural History
by Pliny the Elder:
“Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germania, inhabit the shores of an
estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance
of six thousand stadia; that, at one day’s sail from this territory, is the Isle of
Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring,
it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants
use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones.”

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History. CHAP.11.— AMBER: “THE MANY
FALSEHOODS THAT HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT IT.
From Carnuntum in Pannonia, to the coasts of Germania from which the am-
ber is brought, is a distance of about six hundred miles, a fact which has been
only very recently ascertained; and there is still living a member of the equestri-
an order, who was sent thither by Julianus, the manager of the gladiatorial ex-
hibitions for the emperor Nero, to procure a supply of this article. Traversing
the coasts of that country and visiting the various markets there, he brought
back amber, in such vast quantities, as to admit of the nets, which are used for
protecting the podium against the wild beasts, being studded with amber.”

Tacitus Germania:
“Beyond the Lygians dwell the Gothones, under the rule of a King; and thence
held in subjection somewhat stricter than the other Germanic nations, yet not
so strict as to extinguish all their liberty. Immediately adjoining are the Rugians
and Lemovians upon the coast of the ocean, and of these several nations the
characteristics are a round shield, a short sword and kingly government.
Next occur the communities of the Suiones, situated in the ocean itself; and
besides their strength in men and arms, very powerful at sea. The form of their
vessels varies thus far from ours, that they have prows at each end, so as to be
always ready to row to shore without turning, nor are they moved by sails, nor
on their sides have benches of oars placed, but the rowers ply here and there in

192 Tore Gannholm

all parts of the ship alike, as in some rivers is done, and change their oars from
place to place, just as they shift their course hither or thither. To wealth also,
amongst them, great veneration is paid, and thence a single ruler governs them,
without all restriction of power, and exacting unlimited obedience. Neither
here, as amongst other nations of Germania, are arms used indifferently by all,
but shut up and warded under the care of a particular keeper, who in truth too
is always a slave: since from all sudden invasions and attacks from their foes, the
ocean protects them: besides that armed bands, when they are not employed,
grow easily debauched and tumultuous. The truth is, it suits not the interest of
an arbitrary Prince, to trust the care and power of arms either with a nobleman
or with a freeman, or indeed with any man above the condition of a slave.

According to Professor John Nihlén, Gotländska gårdar och byar under äldre
järnåldern, p 62:
“The depiction of the Germanic society, Tacitus had the opportunity to study
among the northerners on the continent or to them related people, contains
many observations, which in an interesting way can be related to the farm
and village remains on Gotland. Such a comparison has its special value, also
because the Gotlanders on Gotland at this time in many respects stood the
continental Germanic peoples close, especially the Goths at the Vistula. It is in
important respects, even as large a consensus that with greater certainty than
before we can dare to draw conclusions from both the literary sources and
archaeological-topographical material.
It is clear from the preceding description of the building types of the ‘Kämp-
gravar’, how well Tacitus’ observation is true in terms of the varieties of dwel-
ling groupings in general. The Germanics had no cities and they did not like
any conglomerate settlements. The ‘Kämpgrav’ districts’ sparse, spacious for-
mation illustrates this admirably. “
p 63 “Those who want an illustration of Tacitus’ description of Germanic vil-
lages need only consider some Gotlandic ‘Kämpgrav’ villages.
p 64 “On each farm were, according to Tacitus, several, for different purposes,
buildings. Except for dwelling house for the master and his family, were huts
for the serfs and storehouses. That Gotlandic Iron Age farms consisted of se-
veral buildings is evident, 2-3 foundations appear generally to highlight a farm.”
p 66 “The Germanic peoples society’s social structure, as it meets us in Tacitus,
lets it unite with the building types, which in the previous is depicted for the
‘Kämpgrav’ district. Familia, it is the household, the family, a farm’s inhabitants
(Lojsta). Vicus, the village, is the relocated households joint organization. It is

The Varangians 193

the family or relatives’ attempt to further civic education in the creation of a
district (Eskelhem, Källunge). So far social formation had come to us during
the Roman Iron Age.”
p 141 “The art of shipbuilding during the transition between the Bronze and
Iron Age was highly developed in Gotland which seems clear from Gotland’s
characteristic stone ships.”
p 142 “That the carpenter art and square timber has been with us already in
the Bronze Age and existed during the Iron Age must be considered inevitable.
It was the iron and knowledge of its treatment, that led to the creation of the
carpenter axe. The ‘Kämpgravar’ were built during a time when the Gotlanders
had just learned about the art of iron manufacture and the industry had its first
flowering.”
“The time to which we want to place the beginning of ‘Kämpgravar’, falls
during a time when the Celts dominated much of Europe. Celtic peoples li-
ved in the southern part of present day Germania, in Switzerland, France and
England (Helvetians, Gallics, British).Their from the classical culture heavily
influenced civilization exercised a great influence on the rest of Europe. One
can clearly trace it all the way up in the Nordic countries, not least to Gotland.
The appearance of skeletal graves, which break against previous and subsequ-
ent periods of cremations, are likely to count as a Celtic influence. But there are
also certain circumstances, which indicate that the lines during the same time
were kept open with the Scythians on the Black Sea.”
p158 “The vague image of the older Iron Age religion we are able to get from
e.g. Tacitus’ Germania (Chapter 9) allows us to be well-adjusted in this environ-
ment. ‘Groves and spinneys they sanctify’ and they consider it not compatible
with the greatness of the heavenly beings to confine gods within walls or to
depict them in a figure with human features.”
p 159 “The Stavgard pond and groves have also been a common place of
worship for this district, for a public area (civitas). The presence of grove
(-lund) in the name of the nearby Bandelunda Bay gives further support to the
assumption of an existing place of worship here.
The Nerthus cult will also in this context be kept in mind. Tacitus tells how
this goddess, Mother Earth, is traveling around among the nations. She has her
carriage on an island, which the priests kept under guard in a profane spinney.
From here she makes her travels in the carriage drawn by cows.”
p 160 “As the waggon is a famous religious attribute on Gotland, it allows easily
to imagine that it was used in the cult which is tied to Stavgard in Burs. The
major road construction (two sturdy stone rows of filling in between) which

194 Tore Gannholm

extends from the area of the settlement down to the famous Brya (pond) could
therefore have been a cult road for the procession or the waggon, which cros-
sed the land to the rural place of sacrifice. That the Brya was one for the village
common place of worship is suggested partly by the fact that similar double
‘Vasts’ (stonerows) from various places could be traced to the place. In this
way are probably many of the enigmatic double ‘Vasts’ to be interpreted on
Gotland (Solängarna in Sproge, Botvalda in Stånga, etc.) and probably also in
Östergötland. A similar role may even possibly be given some of the ‘Vallga-
torna’ on Öland.”
p 221 “The iron production on Gotland is simultaneous with the ‘Kämpgravar’
and it has been said, that probably a direct correlation exists between the first
domestic iron axes and the large buildings, with its advanced timber structures.
The ‘Kämpgravar’ have occurred around 150 BCE. It is just at the time the
Gotlanders, as recent studies have shown, began producing their own iron. The
slag finds made on Gotland links also almost without exception to the early
Iron Age settlements on Öland, where the so-called ‘sinner’ ships already by
Ahlqvist were interpreted as remnants of ancient smith-workshops”.

Tacitus writes further about the Germanics: “The people are divided into tribes
and clans, governed by kings or rather chiefs. Moreover, their constitution is
primitive democratic, because the chiefs take only the power that their courage
and powers of persuasion owe them. They live a life in constant conflict.
Their popular assemblies consist of Things in which men present themselves
armed. When a boy grows up they take him to the Thing and provide him with
weapons by the chief or his nearest kinsman, and thereafter he belongs to the
men’s circuit.
As a young man he serves at the chief ’s court and follows his lord in war. While
the chief is fighting for victory, the body-guard is fighting for the chief ’s honor.
And their own glory decrees that they do not survive their chief. Their sense of
justice is determined entirely by their warlike temperament.
Manslaughter and insults are revenged with blood if not atoned with a wergild,
which is paid in cattle.
Due to the strong unity of the family it is distributed among all the kinsmen
to the killed, as well as the offensive. As long as the feud is going on the men
who consider themselves blood relatives of the fallen have an implacable foe
in each of the offensive.
The women are healthy and strong and clean to their customs. Levity, which
is purchased at the expense of chastity, places the girl outside the community.

The Varangians 195

The women also enjoy a high reputation, that they even are considered as a
kind of higher being, whose word is always of great importance and sometimes
interpreted as premonitory sign. Occasionally, they become a kind of oracle,
who through their advice and predictions are leading tribal politics.“
Tacitus lists the Eastern peoples, going from south to north and mention Lugi-
ans, Goths and Rugi out on the coast. Then he turns to the west and mentions
Lemovier, after which he goes straight into the Baltic Sea and mentions Suio-
num. From there he goes due east to the mainland, and mentions the Aestyan
nations.
“After this comes out in the ocean ‘Suionum Hinc Civitates’ public areas, which
are powerful not only by men and weapons but also by fleets. The ships buil-
ding is so distinctive, not only front but also stern form one to land suitable
stem. They do not carry sails and they do not fasten oars in a row along the
shipping tables. Oars are affixed loose, as used on many rivers, and removable
as the situation demands.”
These boats fits well to the Gotlandic stone ships. In addition, the description
fits exactly with a picture stone found in Sanda church. If, after this description,
someone claims that Suionum means Svear they should probably get a new
look at the map.

According to Professor Erik Nylén, Bildstenar p 22, “Boats of this type, built
with tables and frames are found in archaeological finds from the same time.
Most familiar is the large rowing ship from Nydams bog in southern Jutland.
Pilots in both fore and aft ministered rapid reversal of these the first real sea-
going ships operating in the Baltic Sea.”

Tacitus:
“Here is also richness high in reputation, which leads to autocracy without any
restriction, with an unconditional right to obedience. Also, the
carrying of weapons, as with other Germanics, is not everyone’s right, but the
weapons are kept confined under guard, which is conducted by a slave. Any
unforeseen attack by an enemy is prevented by the ocean, and it also makes idle
crowds of armed readily obliged to self-indulgence.”
Tacitus also mentions the country’s good cereal harvests. In its description
of the food and drink Tacitus writes that the beer was made from barley and
wheat.

In his thesis ‘Bidrag till Bornholms befolkningshistoria under järnåldern’

196 Tore Gannholm

(Contribution to Bornholm’s population history during the Iron Age) has Fil.
lic. Knut Stjerna shown that, in most of the island’s burial grounds, graves from
300 and forward completely ceases, while the remaining number falls strongly.
He has shown that these conditions can only be explained by assuming a large
emigration. A large proportion of the population has broken up and followed
that in northern Germany resident, formerly from Bornholm emigrated part
of the Burgundians in their migration to the south.
If we transfer this reasoning on Gotland, we find that according to Professor
Nerman it reveals a decline in the number of grave finds in the 200s, and it is
perhaps even stronger in the 300s. This reduction allows the assumption that
quite considerable numbers have emigrated from Gotland during the 200s and
300s. This coincides very well with the Goths moving to the south and the
Marcomannic wars. The Gotlanders seem to have had good contact with the
Goths when they were in the Vistula estuary.

Note 5
The word Varangian was used by Greeks, Arabs and Kievan Rus’ for the mer-
chants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders).
It was a common word for Gotlandic merchants when trading adventures were
undertaken from the Baltic Sea on the Russian rivers. They closed a business
contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning
of the word was for the Gotlanders who later acted as mercenary soldiers to
the rulers of Garðaríki (Kiev) and Miklagarðr (Constantinople).
It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through
promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an associa-
tion, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good
faith and to share the resulting profits.
In 988 Emperor Basil II formed a Varangian guard with Gotlandic mercenaries.
The etymology of the name al-Rus’/Rhos needs clarification. Many scholars
have wrongly maintained that the word Rus’ must be identical with the Finnish
word Ruotsi and Estonian Rootsi.
Sven Ekbo (1981) convincingly connects the word to Old Norse ro∂r meaning
‘expedition of rowing ships’.
On the Russina rivers in the 700s and 800s there were rowing Gotlandic mer-
chants which they accordingly called al-Rus’.
In Finland and Estonia there were in the 1100s rowing Svear who conquered
their land, and therefore were called Ruotsi and Rootsi.

The Varangians 197

Note 6
Bra Böckers Lexikon 1985:
“The Gothic language, one of the East Germanic languages, is like other such
now extinct. The Goths’ wanderings spread their language. It was a living lang-
uage until about 600 in Italy and until the 900s in Spain. Longest it lived on
among some Goths in the Crimea (until the 1700s).
The oldest Germanic language monument is Bishop Wulfila’s Gothic Bible
translation from the 300s. The alphabet used in it has probably been created by
Wulfila, which was based on the Greek, supplemented with evidence from the
Latin and the runic alphabet. Wulfila’s Bible, which is the oldest known monu-
ment of Germanic languages (in addition to some runic inscriptions), shows
a very archaic form and sound doctrine, which stands close to old Germanic.
Among others, remain there living the otherwise completely lost use of dualis
for verbs and pronouns. There are also Gothic runic inscriptions.”

“Like the Vandals in Africa the Ostrogoths kept their Arian church, which pre-
vented the assimilation of the Catholic population.”
“Wulfila, about 310-383, Visigotic missionary, bishop probably 341. He trans-
lated the Bible into Gothic, creating also a Gothic script. Some of his transla-
tions are included in the Silver Bible, which is located in Uppsala.”

According to Professor Elias Wessén, Fv 1969 p 27:

“There are thus several language barriers across the Nordic language area, and
the Gothic line thus always agrees with the eastern parts of Scandinavia, mainly
Gutnish on Gotland.”
“If the Gotlanders on Gotland and the Goths in the Vistula area originally
were the same people they would still in the first centuries CE have spoken
substantially the same language, a language in its later development in Southern
Europe emerging as Gothic. It is likely that the mother language of the Gothic
and forn Gutnish has not differed too much from the contemporary primitive
Norse. In any case, the similarities with Gothic is nowhere in the Nordic region
as close as in forn Gutnish.“

According to Nationalencyklopedin p 574:

“The modern Gotlandic dialects are derived from forn Gutnish, the Viking
Age and Middle Age language of Gotland. Forn Gutnish exhibit such devia-
tions from Old Swedish (and Old Danish) as it is usually regarded as an inde-
pendent Nordic language. The forn Gutnish language is represented in quite
198 Tore Gannholm
a significant number of runic inscriptions from the 900s and 1000s until the
1500s, in a medieval manuscript of Guta Lagh (with Guta Saga) and in another
couple of manuscripts.”

Note 7
In the Canterbury Tales, which is England’s most famous contribution to world
literature in the 1300s, written by Geoffrey Chaucer about 1387 we find the
following stanzas:
There was a SAILOR, living far out west;
For all I know, he was of Dartmouth town.
He sadly rode a carthorse, in a gown,
Of thick woolen cloth that reached unto the knee.
A dagger hanging on a cord had he
About his neck, under his arm, and down.
The hot summer had burned his face all brown;
And certainly he was a person fine.
Very often he took a draught of wine,
Of Bordeaux vintage, while the trader slept.
Nice conscience was a thing he never kept.
And if he fought and got the upper hand,
By water he sent them home to every land
But as for craft, to calculate his tides,
His currents and the dangerous watersides
His harbours, and his moon, his pilotage,
There was none such from Hull to far Carthage.
Hardy and wise in all things undertaken,
By many tempests had his beard been shaken.
He knew well all the havens, how they were,
From Gotland to the Cape of Finisterre,
And every creek in Brittany and Spain;
His vessel had been called the Madeleine

Note 8
The role of the Guild organizations.
The medieval guild organizations were originally conceived as a necessary pro-
tection agency in a primitive society, which had no police and prosecutors. Ori-

The Varangians 199

ginally the dynasty was the only protection against acts of violence, as it exerci-
sed blood revenge, and other legal actions. A stranger was in such a constructed
society without rights and without protection, because he had no affiliation
with a group that could take up the battle with the attacker. In the sworn frater-
nity they found a replacement for the family. That is why blood revenge is so
salient in the oldest statutes.
The Canute Guild, however, had not only a judicial function. There was also
an association for mutual economic and social assistance. When one of the
brothers lost his ships, the other brothers were obliged to intervene and if any
brother was sold into slavery in foreign lands the brothers’ obligation was to
redeem him. The guild was also a religious fraternity with St. Canute as patron.
The worship of St. Canute took an important place in the brothers’ existence.
In the church they assembled to private devotion often in front of a special
St. Canute altar, and by the large guild festivities they were always gathered to
common mass. At a brother’s death they were also obliged to follow him to the
grave and read mass for him.
Canute IV, later known as Canute the Holy or Canute the Saint (Danish: Knud
IV den Hellige or Sankt Knud c.1042 - July 10, 1086) was King of Denmark
from 1080 until 1086. Canute was an ambitious king who sought to strengthen
the Danish monarchy, devotedly supported the Roman Catholic Church, and
had designs on the English throne. Slain by rebels in 1086, he was the first
Dane to be canonized. He was recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as
patron saint of Denmark in 1101, under the name of San Canuto.

Note 9
The Cistercians’ monastery farms in Gotland.
Excerpts from Barbro Idoffs article in ”Gotländska studier 2” p. 39:
“Roma monastery is located in the most fertile part of Gotland. The Cistercien-
sian monasteries were rural monasteries, which were engaged in farming on a
large scale and owned large land areas. So did the Roma monastery, that owned
many farms on Gotland and also large areas in Estonia where the monks mis-
sionized. One of the monastery farms on Gotland was Möllbos in Halla parish
a few km SW of the monastery. The inclusion in the land book from 1653 says
“Closter farmstead in Sione firkin, Halle parish.” Möllbos is the only monastic
estate which still retains a medieval stone house.
You can follow the history of Möllbos farm back to late 1500s. In general,
Gotlandic farms are lacking almost entirely medieval documents, but when it

200 Tore Gannholm

comes to Möllbos we know that the farm was a convent and homestead that
belonged to Roma monastery during the Middle Ages. At the secularization all
the monastery’s papers were destroyed, which otherwise would have clarified
many obscure points concerning when and how this and other monastic estates
would have come in the monastery’s possession.
Guta Lagh puts obstacles in the way for a too generous giving away and dis-
posal of farms. As for Möllbos the farm may have been land reclamation, an
outlying farm to the monastery.
The medieval stone house is located about 50 m from the existing farmhouse.
A river flows past the farm, where since medieval times has been a water mill,
which is probably the farm’s name. The house bears traces of having been se-
verely demolished and with available material built up again, perhaps to serve
purposes other than the original. It has as long as one now can remember, been
used as a warehouse and is commonly known as the Monk Hall at Möllbos. It is
built of limestone with 110 cm thick walls and sharp corner chains in finely car-
ved limestone ashlar. Parts of the original light opening, which is visible in the
wall, has smooth oblique chamfered coverage. The house is almost square and
consists of ground floor, floor between floor and lofts, which are separated by
wooden roofs, resting on strong beams, and covered with shingles. In order to
determine the approximate construction period the plaster had to be knocked
off, so that the oldest elements of the building was found and freed. This work
was done after the directive of the antiquarian.
The house is without ornaments, which otherwise is a great help in dating.
The best help, however, gave the cutting technique which after the plaster was
cleared away was clearly visible in the oldest buildingelements. Stonecutting
technology development is following a clear line, as all over Europe, which
means that you most certainly can date the house in Möllbos to the first half of
the 1200s. Also mortar suggest the same with relatively thin joints and stones
of varying sizes in fairly regular shifts. The art historical position of the monk
house is quite clear. The powerful, precision cut corner chains and the solid
wall suggest Cistercian influence, as well as the care, accuracy and the perfect
execution of the original architectural details. Even house type suggests Cis-
tercian origin. The monk house is unique for this type of building on Gotland.
Such a house was not part of the medieval merchant farmer’s normal buildings.
To manage the farm closest to the monastery they had, except the monks
themselves, so-called ‘familiares’ or farm workers, who were attached to the
monastery, but lived outside the monastery walls. The other farms were mana-
ged by the so-called ‘colony’ or ‘munkelandbor’, who leased the land and paid

The Varangians 201

an annual rent to the monastery. This was paid normally in kind, products of
rye, barley, oats, hay, and butter.
It remains uncertain how these Gotlandic farms ended up in the monastery’s
possession. On the Swedish mainland, it was common to donate farms and
land to the monasteries for ones soul’s salvation or to be buried in the monaste-
ry cemetery. In Estonia where Roma monastery at the most had 14 large farms,
we think we know how they were acquired:
“We have been told that Guthnalia’s (Roma monastery) monks acquired the
Estonian property by:
a) donation by the Danish Duke Canute who was made Duke of Reval (Tal-
linn) in 1219
b) own purchases
c) gift from King Erik Ploughpenny, who would have purchased the properties
and donated to the monks.”

On Gotland, however, the Guta Lagh forbade to give the farms to the monas-
tery. There it is regulated about monks land possessions as follows:
Ҥ1 If a man gives himself childless to the monastery, he disposes himself over
his land, and he may not sell or divide the land while he is alive. If he dies, then
stays one third in the monastery, but two thirds go back to the relatives. If he
has children, then they decide over their share of the property.
§ 2 If a worldly man would give land to the monastery or the church, than he
gives a tenth of his landed property, and no more, except in the event that the
relatives agree.
It was common in medieval times that donations were made to churches and
monasteries. That these statutes had been added was obviously warranted.
They were, however only valid for land. About money we know nothing.
Guta Lagh, it is true, was written down at the beginning of the 1200s, when
Roma monastery probably just had been completed, and any subsequent addi-
tions of significance was probably never made. One must of course assume
that even Roma monastery received donations. Only the strict inheritance rules
in Guta Lagh, however, could have been enough to slow down a too freely
giving away of lands. The Gotlandic farms were very family tied. There were
strict rules of succession far out on the family branches, and they maintained
their rights.
In addition, Guta Lagh had detailed regulations on land purchases. It was not
allowed to sell land, unless you were in trouble and was obliged to sell. And
then you had to sell to the nearest relative or “If the (nearest) relative was not

202 Tore Gannholm

able to purchase the land from the one who needed to sell, it is more distant
relatives with the same trial that is said above. But the land cannot be purchased
outside the family.” (Guta Lagh 28:3)
How could it be possible that twelve entire farms belonged to the monastery?
Maybe they could all be new land clearings? If we stick to likely reasons we
wonder where the monks in this case preferably would have put their farms.
Well, at the rivers and lakes in order to get access to water power to the mills
and fisheries which were their main source of food along with vegetables. It
is known that the Cistercian monks were diligent workers. They built houses,
cultivated land, dried the waterlogged meadows and bogs, and laid out roads
and built mills. It would also have been quite easy for monks to acquire the
swamps, waterlogged land adjacent to the open moors, because such land was
not owned by farmers. It was common and was not worth anything.
Gotland had in the Middle Ages plenty of bogs and its topography was thus
quite different from today. The earliest maps we have access to here, are preci-
sely the tax orientation maps from the beginning of the 1700s. They nowadays
drained marshes are marked on these maps and one can see that Gotland had
large bogs, which probably were even larger during the early Middle Ages. If
you follow the level lines on a modern map, this can be confirmed. The mars-
hes had open water and were more like lakes. All monastery farms lie in a belt
across the middle of Gotland with Roma monastery in the center and most
farms concentrated around the monastery. The most interesting is that all are
located next to a swamp or a river with one exception, Magnuse in Gothem.
Around Stormyr was Möllbos, Lilla Björke, Änggårda and Stenstu. Between
Stormyr and Roma bog, it was probably open water at Högbro. The monastery
farmland was stretching along the Roma bog down even to Högbro. Kulstäde
and Uppenbys lay on either side of a bog, the land directly bordering the marsh.
Kulstäde requires a more thorough research. The name appears in Guta Saga as
the place where Botair of Akebäck built the first Christian church on Gotland.
The Gutna Althingi let burn it down and the place where the church had been
therefore got the name Kulstäde, i.e. the coal place. This would have occurred
prior to the 1000s, long before the Cistercians came to Gotland. When and why
the ground was going to the convent is uncertain. Could perhaps the area have
gone to the monastery already at its foundation, because it had the same legal
status as the monastery area in Roma? The current farm Kulstäde is built in the
1700s and there are no medieval track, but there are foundations in a couple
of meadows nearby, e.g. in the socalled Byänget, which has traces of several
foundations and also has a spring.

The Varangians 203

Three farms were called Munkebo, which puts them in direct relation to the
monastery to the name, as well as Munksarve. They lay also all near water,
Munkebo at Roma bog, one at Gothemsån and one at a small marsh with
no name between Lina bog and Norrlanda kyrkmyr. Munksarve was close to
Hejde swamp and Lina at the edge of Lina bog. Perhaps the monks at Roma
monastery mostly bought the land, which they cultivated and erected buildings
on. Of the two possibilities that the monastery had to acquire farms, namely,
through gifts and purchases and cultivation, the latter is the most feasible alter-
native. Why else would the farms be consistently located and adjacent to mars-
hes, as well as concentrated around the monastery? This suggests a deliberate
planning that fitted exactly the monks ‘intentions’.

Note 10
According to Professor Herman Schück, Gotland och biskoparna i Linköping
(Gotland and the bishops in Linköping), GA 1961 p 45:
“The four-century-old relationship between Linköping and Gotland was no
idyll. It was concluded with certain reservations from the Gotlandic side, and
had later the nature of the Church’s efforts to break down these. The relation
was characterized by mutual distrust and accusations. Gotland and Visby’s in-
dividuality was too strong and could not suffer the profound influence of Lin-
köping Cathedral that other parts of the diocese would. The impulses from the
Swedish mainland was also less significant than those from the Baltic Sea south
and east shores and from more distant regions. Gotland stood at the end of the
Middle Ages strangely untouched by the powerful spiritual and organizational
development, which in past centuries had otherwise meant for those country
parts which were subject to Linköping.
What did Gotland mean to Linköping? Very many annoyances and little in-
come, but also undeniable advantages. With its extensive links and its more
continental civilization could Gotland and Visby provide input, as the other
Swedish dioceses were without. And on several occasions it appeared to be a
strength for the Linköping bishop that his diocese went outside the Swedish
king’s effective power range. For neither party can, however, the connection be
considered to have been of decisive nature for their individuality and destiny.“

204 Tore Gannholm

The Gotlandic history by year
6000 BCE. The first known people on Gotland after the withdrawal of the ice.

3200 BCE. Oldest historical monuments, the astronomical calendars, also

known as grinding grooves.

1000 BCE to 500 BCE. Gotlandic bronze finds suggest that Gotland was at
the height of her ability within the artistic bronze smith-work, and had close
connections in different directions, particularly east and southeast. In addition
to over 350 stone ships on Gotland there are Gotlandic stone ship formation
tombs on the west coast of the Gulf of Riga in Courland as well as in the Väs-
tervik area in Sweden. Gotlandic ships reached the Russian rivers two thousand
years before the Viking Age. The Daugava link is considered to be the main tra-
de route between Gotland and the East. In the Volga region we have from the
late Bronze Age and early Iron Age the old Achmulova grave field, where there
are more than 1000 graves of Gotlandic type dating back to 800-500 BCE.
The Gotlanders were, from what we can read from the archaeological mate-
rial, present with their Merchant Emporiums in Courland and further down
towards the Vistula area when the Gothic federation was formed. Probably the
Gotlanders played a significant role in the formation of the Gothic federation,
hence we have the same name for Gotlanders and Goths, Gutar and Gutans,
Guthiuda.

1000 BCE to 1300 CE. The Gotlanders dominate trade in the Baltic Sea region
and appear at times to have monopoly on it. Gotland is centre for the Baltic
Sea region culture.

The 200s BCE. Against the geologists previous assumptions, we have seen
some instances of bog ore. In addition, we now also know of several Gotlandic
furnaces for iron production from the centuries immediately preceding zero.
Here they used the East Celtic ‘shaft furnace’ type which is known mainly from
Poland. From habitat surveys there is iron slag that indicate that forging has
occurred. There are also occasional slag finds in graves from the early Iron Age.

50 BCE. Gotland is quite alone in the Nordic region with an artistic boom of
La Tène influenced objects. The contact with the Celts is here apparent.

The Varangians 205

98 CE. The Roman author Tacitus wrote about the powerful people on the
island in the Baltic Sea ‘Suionum Civitate’. The Gotlanders have at that time
commercial contacts with the Romans and are well known by them. Among
other things, our oldest picture stones derive from that time and are carved
with Roman tools. Even the basilicas (kämpgravar) are Roman influenced. The
Gotlanders probably also controlled the northern end of the Amber Road.

300s. CE The Gothic missionary Wulfula translates the Bible into Gothic
(Gotlandic) while creating a Gothic script.

500s CE. According to Guta Saga and the Beowulf epos the Gotlanders fight
battles against many kings, especially the Suiarikis cunungr (Svear) who at that
time had immigrated to the Lake Mälar valley. But the Gotlanders retain, as
Guta Saga tells us, always the victory and their right. The ewe is the Gotlandic
national symbol.

550s. Avair Strabain concludes a trade agreement with the Suiarikis cunungr,
which is beneficial to both sides. Gotland is a much older country than that of
the Svear and seems from that time to have been a merchant republic. Beowulf,
who probably lived at that time may have been the same person as Avair. Ac-
cording to Guta Saga the Gutna Althingi existed already then and would thus
be one of the oldest known Althings in the world.

600s. The Gotlanders have again trading colonies in the Baltic Sea for example
in Grobina and Truso. The Gotlandic merchants are called al-Rus’ and Varan-
gians.

838. The first documented visit by a delegation of Gotlandic merchants, Rhos,

Varangians, to Miklagarðr (Constantinople). It is documented by three written
sources and also a coin has been found in the Spillings’ treasure with Emperor
Theophilos’ name (†842).

857 The Gotlandic weight and monetary value mark is in 857 mentioned in
England, where it was introduced by the Danes. In the 1000s it reached Ger-
many, where the first proof is from the year 1045 from the important com-
mercial city Cologne. It forced out the one until now supreme reigning Roman
pound. Then it spread rapidly throughout Western Europe, among others also
to Friesland. The Gotlandic öre, dating probably from the Roman Empire, and

206 Tore Gannholm

the mark, became the Gotlandic gift to the continent, are together with many
other factors eloquent testimony of the Gotlandic Varangian’s trading activities
during a whole millennium.

860. June 18, at sunset, a fleet of about 200 Rus’ (Gotlandic) vessels sailed into
the Bosporus and started pillaging the suburbs of Constantinople (Old Norse:
Miklagarðr, Old East Slavic: Tsarigrad). The attackers were setting homes on
fire, drowning and stabbing the residents.

866. The Gotlandic Varangian Ingr’s daughter Eudokia Ingerina becomes part
of the Imperial family and Empress consort of the Byzantine Empire.

867. The most authoritative source on the first official Christianization of the
Rhos is an encyclical letter from the Patriarch Photius, datable to early 867.
Refering to the Rhos-Byzantine War of 860-861 Photius informs the Oriental
patriarchs and bishops that, after the Bulgars turned to Christ in 864, the Rhos
followed suit so zealously that he found it prudent to send to their land a bis-
hop.

882. The Varangians seized Kiev, Garðaríki and appointed as ruler Oleg. Under
Varangian rule, the city became capital of the Kievan Rus’ (Garðaríki).

897. Visby is according to Strelow founded

800s-900s. Gotland has the largest collection of coins from the Islamic Calip-
hate. The majority of them minted in Bagdad, indicating a high trading activity
with the Islamic Caliphate over the Russian rivers. For example, writes Adam
of Bremen in his history that Birka, which flourished between late 700-975,
was a Gotlandic town located in the middle of the Svea area.

911. In the year 911 a document was signed between the Byzantine Emperor
Leo VI and the Gotlandic Varangians: Karl, Ingjald, Farulf, Vermund, Hrollaf,
Gunnar, Harold, Kami, Frithleif, Hroarr, Angantyr, Throand, Leithulf, Fast,
and Steinvith.
One of the aims of the treaty was to maintain and proclaim the amity which
for many years had joined Christians (i.e, Greeks) and Rhos (Gotlanders). This
statement very well explains the peaceful relations between the two countries
that began in 861 or shortly thereafter.

The Varangians 207

The 900s-1100s. The Gotlanders seem completely to master the trade in the
Baltic Sea. The richness is reflected for instance in massive church building.

988. Emperor Basil II forms an elite Gotlandic Varangian guard in Miklagarðr.

Kievan Rus’ officially converts to christianity.

990.Olaf Tryggvason is ravaging the coasts of Gotland.

1000. Erik Jarl on the rampage in the Baltic Sea. Stavar the great from Stavgard
in Burs is defeated at Sandesrum in Grötlingbo.

1007. Olaf Haraldsson (later Christianized and called Olaf the Holy) haunts
Gotland and spends the winter of 1007-1008 on the island. Bulverket in Ting-
städe lake originates from that time.

1030. Olaf Haraldson, now convinced Pope Christian, visits Gotland on route
from Novgorod to Stiklestad where he meets his fate. It is probably this jour-
ney that alludes to in the Guta Saga.

1140s. The Gotlanders start their own coin production. The Gotlandic coins
obviously had a good reputation and are found throughout the Nordic area.
Coins with Pax porta.

1159. Lübeck is founded.

1161. The Artlenburg treaty between Henry the Lion, and Liknatte from
Stenkyrka. The Gotlanders, after bloody battles, may continue to trade in Ger-
many (Saxony) as before. Now the Germans were allowed access to the Got-
landic coast and allowed to settle in Visby.

1164. The Gotlanders make a deal with the Bishop in Linköping to use his
services on their own conditions and Sancta Maria de Guthnalia, the Cistercian
monastery in Roma is founded.

1250s. Gotlandic merchants help the Swedish ruler Birger Jarl to build a new
marketplace that will be named Stockholm.
1288. Civil war between the now German-dominated Visby and the Gotlandic
Merchant Republic where Visby breaks away and forms its own city republic.

208 Tore Gannholm

1313. The Swedish King Birger makes an invasion attempt on Gotland but is
captured on Röcklinge backar.

1348. The Black Death. In the middle of the 1300s the then known world
was hit by a terrible plague. From Asia came a plague disease with ships and
caravans to the Mediterranean. From there it spread over Europe and visited
country after country. To Gotland came the Black Death or ‘Digerdöden’ as
it was known in Scandinavia in 1348. According to Strelow over 8000 people
died in Visby.

1358. The Hanseatic league is formed. The power in the Baltic Sea moves from
Gotland to the newly founded German Hanseatic League with seat in Lübeck.
Visby preferred not to join the Hanse and is accordingly not a Hanseatic city.
The German Hanse flourishes in the 1400s.
The Gotlandic free trade is replaced by Hanseatic monopolistic trade.

1361. Valdemar Atterdag invades Gotland. He spares Visby and confirms its
trading rights in Denmark but plunders wildly on southern Gotland.

1391. Pirates establish themselves on Gotland and the 1400s is a troubled time.

1398. The Teutonic knights conquered Gotland and stay for ten years.

1407. The Teutonic knights sell Gotland to Denmark for 9000 English golden
nobles.

1437. Erik of Pomerania takes up residence on Visborg castle bringing his

mistress, the beautiful Cecilia. From here he carries on piracy for near twelve
years. Visborg castle was at that time the strongest fortress in the Baltic Sea.

1517. The Danish Admiral Severin Norby obtains Gotland as loan against a
pledge from Christian II.

1524. The new Swedish king Gustav Vasa sends a joint Swedish-Lübeckian de-
tachment commanded by Berndt van Mehlen and begins to besiege Visby, but
did not manage to take either the city or castle.

1525. The Lübeckians are undertaking a lightning attack on Visby with public

The Varangians 209

plunder. Much of the city was devastated and burned.

1526. Severin Norby transmits Visborg castle to the King of Denmark and
Gotland becomes a Danish tributary state. Despite this control, the Gotlan-
ders largely rule themselves until 1618, when the Gotlandic Merchant Republic
through an illegal Danish decree formally is abolished.

1527. Hans Brask, the last Catholic bishop in Linköping, inspects Gotland. He
drives out the Lutherans from St. Hans church, but they regained it after the
bishop’s departure.

1530 to 1645. Gotland is a tributary state under the Danish king, and is no long-
er a political bone of content and a storm centre in the North.

1566. One in the roadstead anchored Danish-Lübeckian fleet is surprised by a

furious storm. The ships are hurled against the beach and crushed. Thousands
of people lose their lives.

1572. The Dean of Visby Maurice Kristensen Glad is appointed Gotland’s first
superintendent. He thus became the first diocese shepherd on Gotland and
had the difficult task of bringing order in the island’s ecclesiastical conditions.

1645. By a compromise in Brömsebro, the Swedes had Gotland on the neck.

Since then, the Swedish Government considers Gotland and the Gotlanders as
a burden. During the occupation 1645-1676, which it regarded as temporary,
they treated the Gotlanders as bad as the colony of New Sweden. Gotland was
apparently only intended as medium for exchange at future peace negotiations.

1652. The Swedish hereditary prince Karl Gustav obtains Gotland as a fiefdom.

1654. When Kristina hands over the Government to Karl Gustav, she among
other things obtains Gotland in maintenance. She lived mostly in Rome and le-
ased the island to a tradesman in Stockholm, Jacob Momma, against an annual
sum of 84 000 riksdaler.
1676. The Danish fleet under Admiral Niels Juel with 40 vessels and 500 men
landed on April 28 1676 at Sågholmen in Sanda. The Danish fleet was greeted
as liberators.

210 Tore Gannholm

1679. After the Swedish annexation, attempts were made to make us Gotlan-
ders good Swedes, but we did not understand the Swedish mentality and would
not let us be Swedionized.

1806. Because it was difficult to control Gotland from Stockholm and the is-
land was merely a nuisance, the Swedish government twice tried to get rid of
Gotland. The first time was in 1806 when the Swedish government donated the
island to the Knights of Malta, but they declined.

1808. The Swedes had so clearly shown that they wanted to get rid of Gotland
that the Russians understood that it was free to invade the island. Because of
the distance they could not keep Gotland for more than three weeks.

The 1830s. The Swedish Parliament approved the Gotlandic desire to return to
be a free-trade area, but king Carl XIV Johan stopped those plans.

1878. The first railway on Gotland is inaugurated.

1932. The second time the Swedes wanted to divest themselves of Gotland
was at the beginning of the 1930s. The prevailing perception in some Swedish
circles was that Gotland was such a burden that it was better to ‘deport’ all Got-
landers to Sweden and give Gotland to the power that wanted it. There was,
however, an outcry on Gotland and the plans must be shelved.

The Varangians 211