Scandinavian Influence in Norman Literature of the Eleventh Century

Summary

The purpose of this article^* is to trace the possible use of Scandinavian sources and, on a more general level, to discuss Scandinavian influences on Norman literature of the eleventh century. Such a survey will enable us to prove or disprove the now commonly accepted notion that the rupture in political and economic relations between Normandy and Scandinavia after c.1025 self-evidently meant a break in the cultural contacts between those areas. It has also been argued that the breakdown in Norman-Scandinavian relations from that time onwards reflected the attitude of the Normans; feeling and acting like Frenchmen they ignored completely their Viking background. I hope to show that although this view might hold true for political and institutional history it needs revision in so far as cultural aspects are concerned.

The first two authors whose work I shall discuss are Carnier of Rouen who wrote a Latin poem, or rather satire, against the Irishman Moriuth; and Dudo of Saint- Quentin, author of the first history of the Norman dukes. Let me begin with the poem about Moriuth.

Some time before the year 1000 the Irish poet Moriuthand his wife were captured by the Vikings and taken away separately. As prisoner, Moriuth was chained and taken by boat to a slave-market outside Ireland. During this most unpleasant trip the Vikings made him their laughing-stock. The poor poet happened to be very hirsute - but with a bald head: a physiognomy which caused the Vikings much fun. The Dani standing around him ridiculed his wolflike appearance; they urinated on his head and played other nasty tricks on him. It certainly must have been a relief for Moriuth when the Vikings delivered him at the Northumbrian town of Corbridge, where the Irishman was sold as a slave to a monastery of nuns. His hell would soon change into heaven: he told them he was a poet and thus he entertained the nuns, but not only with his self-made verses. Despite his baldness he was able to seduce more than one nun, but unfortunately he overreached himself. His advances were turned down and he was chased from the convent. From that moment, his wandering life led him from one slave-market to another in search of his lost Irish wife. In the end he found her in Vaudreuil, a place not far from Rouen, where she worked as a slave in a spinning-mill.