historical lecturers and essays-第4部分
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William of Normandy is mingled with the blood of the very Harold who
fell at Hastings。 And so; by the bitter woes which followed the
Norman conquest was the whole population; Dane; Angle; and Saxon;
earl and churl; freeman and slave; crushed and welded together into
one homogeneous mass; made just and merciful towards each other by
the most wholesome of all teachings; a community of suffering; and
if they had been; as I fear they were; a lazy and a sensual people;
were taught
That life is not as idle ore;
But heated hot with burning fears;
And bathed in baths of hissing tears;
And battered with the strokes of doom
To shape and use。
But how did these wild Vikings become Christian men? It is a long
story。 So stanch a race was sure to be converted only very slowly。
Noble missionaries as Ansgar; Rembert; and Poppo; had worked for 150
years and more among the heathens of Denmark。 But the patriotism of
the Norseman always recoiled; even though in secret; from the fact
that they were German monks; backed by the authority of the German
emperor; and many a man; like Svend Fork…beard; father of the great
Canute; though he had the Kaiser himself for godfather; turned
heathen once more the moment he was free; because his baptism was
the badge of foreign conquest; and neither pope nor kaiser should
lord it over him; body or soul。 St。 Olaf; indeed; forced
Christianity on the Norse at the sword's point; often by horrid
cruelties; and perished in the attempt。 But who forced it on the
Norsemen of Scotland; England; Ireland; Neustria; Russia; and all
the Eastern Baltic? It was absorbed and in most cases; I believe;
gradually and willingly; as a gospel and good news to hearts worn
out with the storm of their own passions。 And whence came their
Christianity? Much of it; as in the case of the Danes; and still
more of the French Normans; came direct from Rome; the city which;
let them defy its influence as they would; was still the fount of
all theology; as well as of all civilisation。 But I must believe
that much of it came from that mysterious ancient Western Church;
the Church of St。 Patric; St。 Bridget; St。 Columba; which had
covered with rude cells and chapels the rocky islets of the North
Atlantic; even to Iceland itself。 Even to Iceland; for when that
island was first discovered; about A。D。 840; the Norsemen found in
an isle; on the east and west and elsewhere; Irish books and bells
and wooden crosses; and named that island Papey; the isle of the
popessome little colony of monks; who lived by fishing; and who
are said to have left the land when the Norsemen settled in it。 Let
us believe; for it is consonant with reason and experience; that the
sight of those poor monks; plundered and massacred again and again
by the 〃mailed swarms of Lochlin;〃 yet never exterminated; but
springing up again in the same place; ready for fresh massacre; a
sacred plant which God had planted; and which no rage of man could
trample outlet us believe; I say; that that sight taught at last
to the buccaneers of the old world that there was a purer manliness;
a loftier heroism; than the ferocious self…assertion of the
Berserker; even the heroism of humility; gentleness; self…restraint;
self…sacrifice; that there was a strength which was made perfect in
weakness; a glory; not of the sword but of the cross。 We will
believe that that was the lesson which the Norsemen learnt; after
many a wild and blood…stained voyage; from the monks of Iona or of
Derry; which caused the building of such churches as that which
Sightrys; king of Dublin; raised about the year 1030; not in the
Norse but in the Irish quarter of Dublin: a sacred token of amity
between the new settlers and the natives on the ground of a common
faith。 Let us believe; too; that the influence of woman was not
wanting in the good workthat the story of St。 Margaret and Malcolm
Canmore was repeated; though inversely; in the case of many a
heathen Scandinavian jarl; who; marrying the princely daughter of
some Scottish chieftain; found in her creed at last something more
precious than herself; while his brother or his cousin became; at
Dublin or Wexford or Waterford; the husband of some saffron…robed
Irish princess; 〃fair as an elf;〃 as the old saying was; some
〃maiden of the three transcendent hues;〃 of whom the old book of
Linane says:
Red as the blood which flowed from stricken deer;
White as the snow on which that blood ran down;
Black as the raven who drank up that blood;
… and possibly; as in the case of Brian Boru's mother; had given his
fair…haired sister in marriage to some Irish prince; and could not
resist the spell of their new creed; and the spell too; it may be;
of some sister of theirs who had long given up all thought of
earthly marriage to tend the undying fire of St。 Bridget among the
consecrated virgins of Kildare。
I am not drawing from mere imagination。 That such things must have
happened; and happened again and again; is certain to anyone who
knows; even superficially; the documents of that time。 And I doubt
not that; in manners as well as in religion; the Norse were
humanised and civilised by their contact with the Celts; both in
Scotland and in Ireland。 Both peoples had valour; intellect;
imagination: but the Celt had that which the burly angular Norse
character; however deep and stately; and however humorous; wanted;
namely; music of nature; tenderness; grace; rapidity; playfulness;
just the qualities; combining with the Scandinavian (and in Scotland
with the Angle) elements of character which have produced; in
Ireland and in Scotland; two schools of lyric poetry second to none
in the world。
And so they were converted to what was then a dark and awful creed;
a creed of ascetic self…torture and purgatorial fires for those who
escape the still more dreadful; because endless; doom of the rest of
the human race。 But; because it was a sad creed; it suited better;
men who had; when conscience re…awakened in them; but too good
reason to be sad; and the minsters and cloisters which sprang up
over the whole of Northern Europe; and even beyond it; along the
dreary western shores of Greenland itself; are the symbols of a
splendid repentance for their own sins and for the sins of their
forefathers。
Gudruna herself; of whom I spoke just now; one of those old Norse
heroines who helped to discover America; though a historic
personage; is a symbolic one likewise; and the pattern of a whole
class。 She too; after many journeys to Iceland; Greenland; and
Winland; goes on a pilgrimage to Rome; to get; I presume; absolution
from the Pope himself for all the sins of her strange; rich; stormy;
wayward life。
Have you not readmany of you surely haveLa Motte Fouque's
romance of 〃Sintram?〃 It embodies all that I would say。 It is the
spiritual drama of that early Middle Age; very sad; morbid if you
will; but true to fact。 The Lady Verena ought not; perhaps; to
desert her husband; and shut herself up in a cloister。 But so she
would have done in those old days。 And who shall judge her harshly
for so doing? When the brutality of the man seems past all cure;
who shall blame the woman if she glides away into some atmosphere of
peace and purity; to pray for him whom neither warnings nor caresses
will amend? It is a sad book; 〃Sintram。〃 And yet not too sad。 For
they were a sad people; those old Norse forefathers of ours。 Their
Christianity was sad; their minsters sad; there are few sadder;
though few grander; buildings than a Norman church。
And yet; perhaps; their Christianity did not make them sad。 It was
but the other and the healthier side of that sadness which they had
as heathens。 Read which you will of the old sagasheathen or half…
Christianthe Eyrbiggia; Viga Glum; Burnt Niall; Grettir the
Strong; and; above all; Snorri Sturluson's 〃Heimskringla〃 itself
and you will see at once how sad they are。 There is; in the old
sagas; none of that enjoyment of life which shines out everywhere in
Greek poetry; even through its deepest tragedies。 Not in
complacency with Nature's beauty; but in the fierce struggle with
her wrath; does the Norseman feel pleasure。 Nature to him was not;
as in Mr。 Longfellow's exquisite poem; {3} the kind old nurse; to
take him on her knee and whisper to him; ever anew; the story
without an end。 She was a weird witch…wife; mother of storm demons
and frost giants; who must be fought with steadily; warily; wearily;
over dreary heaths and snow…capped fells; and rugged nesses and
tossing sounds; and away into the boundless seaor who could live?…
…till he got hardened in the fight into ruthlessness of need and
greed。 The poor strip of flat strath; ploughed and re…ploughed
again in the short summer days; would yield no more; or wet harvests
spoiled the crops; or heavy snows starved the cattle。 And so the
Norseman launched his ships when the lands were sown in spring; and
went forth to pillage or to trade; as luck would have; to summerted;
as he himself called it; and came back; if he ever came; in autumn
to the women to help at harvest…time; with blood upon his hand。 But
had he stayed at home; blood would have been there still。 Three out
of four of them had been mixed u