Orkneyinga saga

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The Orkneyinga saga tells the story of the first Norwegian Jarle on Orkney (off the northeast coast of Scotland ).

Lore

The oldest manuscript consists of 3 fragments, the largest of which (AM 325 I 4to) dates from the beginning of the 14th century and comprises 18 sheets. The other two (AM 325 IIIa 4to with two leaves and AM 325 IIIb 4to with one leaf) are older and their creation time is estimated at 1300. In the Flateyjarbók , the entire story is passed down in the form of interpolations in and additions to the two Olafssagas ( Óláfs ​​saga helga and Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar ). One of the paper manuscripts from 1615 is particularly significant. It is a copy of a translation that was made around or shortly after 1570 in Norway according to the Codex Academicus , a very old Icelandic parchment, which later reached Copenhagen incomplete, where it burned in 1728. The translation is now in Stockholm ( Stockh. Kungl. Bibl. Cod. Isl. Papper 39 fol. ). The paper manuscript from 1615 belonged to the Danish court historiographer Anders Sørensen Vedel and came to Sweden during the Great Northern War. A second copy is that which Ásgeir Jónsson had made for Árni Magnússon and is kept under AM 332 4to Arna-Magnæan's collection. The text of the Flateyjarbók was corrected in many places with these texts by Sigurður Nordal, because he found that they were older and that the Codex Academicus is the oldest surviving version. The current version of the Orkneyinga saga, which was developed in the Nordals 1913–1916 edition, does not correspond to any of the known manuscripts.

It is considered unlikely that the prehistoric introduction with the genealogical information was in the original version. This part was also added later. Among other things, the translation from 1570 shows that the original text ended with Svein Ásleifarson's death in 1171. The last chapter of the Flateyjar version ends with Jarl Jón Haraldsson († 1231) and was added later.

It is obvious that Snorri Sturluson knew the Orkneyinga saga when he wrote the Ólafs saga helga . He called his source Jarla saga or Jarlar sögur . Probably the original title was Orkneyinga jarla saga . However, it is not certain that the version that was before him is the same that has been handed down to this day. When Snorri later wrote the first third of the Heimskringla , he changed his presentation, and these changes prompted the revision of the text of the Orkneyinga saga. In addition to the introduction and the last chapters, he also changed chap. 13 - 19, which he took over from Óláfs ​​saga helga, so that the original versions are lost, since they do not appear in the other traditions either, but only in the translation. This was first proven by Sigurður Nordal in 1913. So the Orkneyinga saga is a mixed text and it is impossible to develop the original version.

The first printed edition also contained a Latin translation: Orkneyinga saga: sive Historia Orcadensium a prima Orcadum per Norvegos occupatione ad exitum seculi duodecimi; Saga hins helga Magnúsar eyja jarls, sive Vita Sancti Magni insularum comitis. Ex MSS Legati Arna – Magnæani cum versione Latina, varietate lectionum et indicibus, chronologico, reali et philologico edidit Jonas Jonæus. Copenhagen 1780. It was set up by the Icelandic philologist Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin , who had also toured Scotland around 1780.

The information in the saga is not always reliable. A Christianization of the Orkneys is ascribed to Olav Tryggvason († 1000). Excavations showed that churches already existed there in his time ( Lit .: Barrett (2000) and Morris / Emery (2003)). The place names mentioned in the saga (e.g. Papey) also bear witness to an older Christian tradition.

content

The original Orkneyja saga built on the Icelandic tradition, which was based on the skaldic poetry , especially on Árnorr jarlaskáld's Þorfinnsdrápa, later events build on what was still known in the Orkneys.

The first three chapters deal with the origins of the Orkadenjarle from a legendary King Fornjótr from the far north of Scandinavia. It is a peculiarity insofar as it does not follow the custom of medieval genealogies, which lead the ruling families back to Troy ( Lit .: P. Meulengracht Sørensen (2001)). With the military expedition of Harald Hårfagres to the Orkneys the historical time begins. After that, Harald Rögnvaldur installed Mœrajarl as the Jarl over the Orkneys, who passed the rule on to his brother Sigurður. After his death in Scotland, he designates his son Einar to be Jarl. Røgnvald falls in a battle with Harald Hårfagres' sons. There were long battles between his descendants and the successors of Harald Hårfagre for control of the Orkneys (up to Chapter 12). During this time, Olav I. Tryggvason forced Jarl Sigurd to be baptized. During the reign of Olaf the Holy , the brothers Sumarliði (Gaelic Sòmhairlidh ), Brúsi and Einar shared the rule. When, after Sumarliði's death, another son of Sigurd, Þorfinnur, claimed a third of the rule, disputes broke out in the course of which Einar was slain by a man Þorfinnur. Brúsi now wants half of the Orkneys and, when this is not granted to him, asks the Norwegian king to mediate. King Olaf, however, regards the Orkneys as the crown property of the Norwegian king, which is only given as a fief to loyal followers. Þorfinnur dies with relatives in Scotland and the king forces Brúsi under threat of death to agree to his legal opinion and takes sole rule over the Orkneys. King Magnus the Good gives Brúsi a third of the Orkneys as a fief, a third goes to Þorfinnur, and the king keeps a third for himself.

The following period is determined by the dispute between the Orkadenjarlen, some of whom are also feudal men of the Scottish king, and the Norwegian kings. There are two factors involved: The Orkadenjarle do not want to become feudal men of the Norwegian king, on the one hand because they (at least in part) are already feudal men of the Scottish king with fiefdoms in Scotland and do not want to get into a conflict of loyalty, and on the other hand because they consider the contract between King Ólaf and Brúsi to be void as concluded under immediate duress. A trip by a later Jarl Røgnvald to Byzantium is also interwoven, apparently the fame of Sigurd Jorsalfaris being the incentive. The depiction ends at the time of the conflict between King Sverre and the anti-king Sigurd Magnusson at the end of the civil war in Norway (see History of Norway ) and the lost battle of Bergen in 1194, where Sigurd and the Jarle fell from the Orkneys. Subsequently it is only reported that Jón Haraldsson became the sole Jarl over the Orkneys.

Display intent

The representation intent of the Orkneyinga saga is very difficult to determine because its original form cannot be reconstructed. But the political conditions at the time of writing give cause for corresponding suspicions: There was a tightly managed trade network between Greenland, Iceland and Orkney for furs, walrus teeth and falcons. The buildings on Orkney (monasteries, St. Magnus Cathedral ) could not have been financed with wool and dried fish alone. Such a range of goods could never have caught the interest of the Norwegian king. Hence, assumptions are made about the authorship of the original text: Bishop Bjarni Kolbeinsson. He is said to have worked on the Orcadian sources together with Páll Jónsson , bishop in Skálholt from 1195 to 1211. Páll Jónsson came to England and Orkney in 1180. He had close family ties to the Orkney families, including Jarl Haraldr Maddaðarson. However, this assumption would mean that this saga should have been written around 1180, making it one of the oldest sagas of all.

This original version has now been inserted into the Heimskringla by Snorri and redesigned with a view to its time. The long reign of Håkon Håkonsson (1217–1263), the deterioration in the climate, the end of the Greenland trade and the increasing Scottish influence on the Jarltum in Orkney would then be the boundary conditions for the transformation of the saga at the time the Codex Academicus was being written . They led to an insistence on political independence, to the literary utopia of independence from Norway and Scotland and belonging to a Nordic cultural area, and even later to the depiction of belonging to a Norwegian empire in an idealized past.

The Heimskringla describes in the saga of Harald Hårfagre how he submits all of Norway and finally the Scottish islands. The land becomes his property and he distributes it among his loyal followers, whom he appoints as Jarle. They are his followers and owe their position to him alone. Logically, Jarl Røgnvald von Møre is mentioned in Chap. 10 of the saga was introduced without a legitimizing family tree. It only says that he was the son of Eystein Glumra. The Jarle are then only royal administrators. The Orkneyinga saga, on the other hand, was preceded by a genealogy as an introductory chapter , the " Fundinn Nóregr ", which represents the Orkaden – Jarle family with a 400 year long agnatic family tree as a ruler in their own right. Such genealogies were used to legitimize power and to derive social position and rights. In chap. 3 of the Orkneyinga saga also describes a conversation between Røgnvald and his sons about the succession in the Jarlsamt, which ends with the fact that he sends his son Einar to Orkney. In the Heimskringla, the saga about Harald Hårfagre and his centralist rule, which did not allow an independent succession plan, this dialogue is of course missing. The Orkneyinga saga also emphasizes that Jarl Einar, after killing Halfdan, the son of King Harald Hårfagre, compared himself to the king by paying the 60 marks gold demanded by the king from the inhabitants of the islands from his own fortune and for it took over the hereditary estates of the farmers as property. This is also missing in the saga about Harald Hårfagre. From these differences it can be seen that it was important for the last edition of the Orkneyinga saga to emphasize the position of the Jarle on Orkney as independent of the Norwegian king.

From this it can also be seen that the theme of the saga is not the Viking Age, but the question of political control at the time of its writing. Therefore, there is no evidence of any references to the Picts at the time of the conquest. Because the confrontation with them can do nothing to legitimize the current Jarl rule.

See also

literature

  • Walter Baetke (ed.): The stories of the Orkaden, Denmark and the Jomsburg (= Thule. Old Norse poetry and prose. 19, ZDB -ID 516164-2 ). Diederichs, Jena 1924, pp. 21–392, (reprint: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft et al., Darmstadt et al. 1966).
  • James H. Barrett, Roelf P. Beukens, Don R. Brothwell : Radiocarbon dating and marine reservoir correction of Viking Age Christian Burials from Orkney. In: Antiquity. Vol. 74, No. 285, 2000, ISSN  0003-598X , pp. 537-543, doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00059895 .
  • Colleen E. Batey: Orkney Islands. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 22: Östgötalag - Palatinate and Palatinate. 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-11-017351-4 , pp. 215-217.
  • Finnbogi Guðmundsson: Orkneyinga saga. In: Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Volume 12: Mottaker - Orlogsskib. Rosenkilde og Bagger, Copenhagen 1967, Sp. 699-702.
  • Helgi Guðmundsson: Um haf innan. Vestrænir menn og íslenzk menning a miðöldum. Háskólaútgáfan, Reykjavík 1997, ISBN 9979-54-196-2 .
  • Preben Meulengracht Sørensen: The Sea, the Flame, and the Wind. The Legendary Ancestors of the Earls of Orkney. In: Preben Meulengracht Sørensen: At fortælle historien. Study in the gamle nordiske literature. = Telling history. Studies in Norse literature (= Hesperides. 16). Parnaso, Trieste 2001, ISBN 88-86474-31-8 , pp. 221-230.
  • Christopher D. Morris, Norman Emery: The chapel and enclosure on the Brough of Deerness, Orkney: survey and excavations, 1975-1977. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 116, 1986, ISSN  0081-1564 , pp. 301-374 .
  • Wilhelm FH Nicolaisen: Orkney Islands. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 22: Östgötalag - Palatinate and Palatinate. 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-11-017351-4 , pp. 214-215.
  • Wilhelm FH Nicolaisen: Imitation and Innovation in the Scandinavian Place-Names of the Northern Isles of Scotland. In: nouns. Vol. 11, 1987, ISSN  0141-6340 , pp. 75-85.
  • Maria-Claudia Tomany: Destination Viking and Orkneyinga saga. Historiography and Regional Identity Problems in Orkney. Utz, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8316-0417-3 (also: Munich, University, dissertation, 2004).
  • Stefanie Würth : Orkneyinga saga. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 22: Östgötalag - Palatinate and Palatinate. 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-11-017351-4 , pp. 210-214.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Guðmundsson: Orkneyinga saga. In: Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Volume 12. 1967, Col. 699-702, here Col. 700; Tomany: Destination Viking and Orkneyinga saga. 2007, p. 171.
  2. ↑ Guðmundsson: Orkneyinga saga. In: Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder. Volume 12. 1967, Col. 699-702, here Col. 700.
  3. Jump up ↑ Tomany: Destination Viking and Orkneyinga saga. 2007, p. 176.
  4. ↑ Batey: Orkney Islands. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 22. 2003, pp. 215-217, here p. 217.
  5. ↑ Nicolaisen: Orkney Islands. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 22. 2003, pp. 214-215, here p. 215.
  6. Jump up ↑ Tomany: Destination Viking and Orkneyinga saga. 2007, p. 180 f .; Helgi Guðmundsson: Um haf innan. 1997.
  7. ↑ Anne Holtsmark: Bjarni Kolbeinsson og hans forfatterskap. In: Edda. Vol. 37, 1937, ISSN  0013-0818 , pp. 1-17.
  8. Jump up ↑ Tomany: Destination Viking and Orkneyinga saga. 2007, p. 183.