Abstract
There are many things we can’t avoid in life. One thing that’s always private is practices in handling the dead. It doesn’t matter your nationality. English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, or German each carry similar but unique practices. Many tie directly into the practices and the religion of society. This difference is the perception of death plays a key role in the psyche of the people. The Northern Heathens didn’t pop up out of nowhere and they certainly didn’t fear death the same way the Anglo-Saxon English did.
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Rome's shadow rule and it's coming economic disaster.
With many cultures they weren’t any different then they the ones that attacked them at one point. Rome by 180 AD had run it's gauntlet and had started it's slow fall from grace. What became Western Rome ruled from a shadow of itself until 476 AD, Mercenary armies had become more and more prevalent as time went by. It all ended abruptly when a disgruntled German under the Roman Empires payroll wasn’t satisfied their situation. Odoacer then led his army directly to Rome and Ravenna overthrowing the Child Emperor Romulus Augustus, becoming Rome’s first barbarian king, with relatively no fight. Romulus was spared and sent to live elsewhere, essentially in exile from any position of power.
Economic and financial struggles had started to pile up. The strain on the economy to maintain their borders had become to much. This reflects in the metal purity of the silver Denarius’s minted. Coins that were once pure almost pure silver began drying sometime before 100 AD. By the 180 AD one Denarius was about 80% silver. By 476 AD any Denarius minted were 5% or less of silver. Metals like bronze and copper had become more common in the metallurgy of the Denarius. This brought the start of a new age.
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The German Iron Age
The Romans were very influential in England building many of roads still used today, defenses like Hadrian's wall, and settled places now recognizable as London, or York. They brought Catholicism to England, and areas they settled and assimilated into became predominantly catholic as result. The German Iron Age had started and lasted roughly 800 AD. You had three distinct waves of immigration from the German Barbarians in this period directly to England. The Angles Settled along the coast of North Umbria. The Saxons settled East Anglia, which has the Thames River, and the Jutes Settled in Wessex. From about 500’s to the mid 600’s this was a gradual and continuous movement. Like the brothers they left in Denmark, Frisia, and Northern Germany they raided and settled pushing many Celts, Bretons, west and northward. Those Bretons either lived to be ruled over by the Germans or resettled evolving into the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish today. Much like the Romans themselves they weren’t long for their ways and assimilated with the locals, while falling into Catholicism practiced and introduced by the Romans.
The Angle -Saxon perception of Death
The Anglo-Saxons society evolved into a feudal system following the same trend that Rome followed with Odoacer's rule, decentralization of old power seats and establishment of their own. The king ruled over the lords and they ruled over the pheasants. Very rigid and near impossible to move up in. Certainly made more difficult when the lords protecting you behaved more like warlords extorting goods out of you. Catholicism in nature is esoteric, secretive, the ones that only truly understand the text are the members of the hierarchy. Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, and Priests were among the few who were educated enough to learn to read and write. Reading and writing was otherwise reserved for kings and lords. The pheasants were just part of the system, propping them up, not knowing much better for the most part.
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”The Catholic Church early came under the influence of the Greek dichotomy of body and soul”1 This is identical in message to the Judaism belief only. In practice it’s the opposite. “Judaism as directed to man as social being and Christianity as directed to man as personal being becomes appearant”2. From what I must come to understand is Judaism sees the body on this plane of existence as a vessel. The soul is by some default sent to be judged by God and place in it’s next phase of life already. Judaism similarly to Catholicism will bury the body of devoted follower of the faith. This changes when you apply to those looked as bad influences. To prevent resurrections their body is cremated, locking them out. Catholics won’t allow for cremation; body is a big part of the “body and soul” belief. it's buried, but most likely in a disgrace manner comparable to others. The Jewish are exoteric, there's a bigger sense of community. The Catholics are esoteric, taking more to the individual instead of the community. This difference in self-reflection, punishment, how God judges is central to the same reasons the Vikings are looked as monsters of the night. The Catholic Faith esoteric behavior in natural thought implants a fear that not actively present in the Norse religion. A minor difference in approach, but an exponential effect,
The People the became known as the Norsemen
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The Barbarians that became the Vikings aren’t much different. They were those who stayed behind and stayed settle in the local regions of Northern Europe. After 200 years of relative isolation enough Yarls consolidated power eventually projecting it. The fall of Rome to Odoacer brought accelerated decentralization of the government, collapse of the trade routes, population dispersal, and schools of knowledge. Knowledge became very localized, coveted, and refocused into church’s abbey hierarchy. The more militaristic approach to the barbarian lifestyle ensured that because power was primarily wielded by army strength and strategic genius. Much of the finer arts associated with knowledge was thrown aside in favor of military prowess. All of the attempts to imitate the Romans or Romanitas devolved into feudalism reinforcing this collapse of trade. The transferred wealth from the Romans to Germanic lords resulted is the ruralization of Europe and the splitting of the Germanic tribes into two main groups. Charlemagne’s ancestors in modern day France were amongst those who traveled south and became the first custodians of the Holy Roman Empire. For those that stayed the old trade routes collapsed, and little is known because little was written down. This lost century evolved their society and brought with it what we recognize as Norse Mythology.
The Norsemen's Perception of Death and Society
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Pagan, or polytheistic they believed each god played a role, and that we were part of bigger sequence of planes of existence. We existed on Midgard and that we’re connected by the Yggdrasil. This tree of life was the basic explanation for the existence of Giants, Dark elves, and other planes like Asgard. This religion was more of an umbrella then Christianity’s persistent shadow. Because one God was worshipped doesn’t mean it followed by all. Private ceremonies were a thing, just wasn’t the normal approach for the majority of their practices. Burial Practices can exemplify this. When one was laid to rest, like the pharaohs, some of their best weapons, tools, and even animals were buried with them to pass with me to the afterlife. Because the soul is eternal and simply moves onto the next realm. “ In a large, oval grave, a woman was interred supine with a handful of objects: a box, a bucket, a knife and a possible metal staff. At her feet but inside the grave-cut, a small standing stone had been erected, and the body of a dog pressed down over it so as to ripped apart. Chunks of sheep or goats had been strewn around inside the grave, simply pieces of flesh rather than precise cuts of meat butchered for consumption.”3 This is done in a private, public manner. With one of significance, it was more of a public spectacle with a whole village coming to show their respect. After the solace of the burial, or burning was complete, drinks at the hall were passed to celebrate their life. Many seasonal ceremonies happened out in the open incorporating many people in this similar manner. There was no formal structure. The Vikings basic social structure, while identical in appearance to feudalism wasn’t so stagnant. The social structure had 3 layers, The thralls, the Karls, the Yarls, and if enough Yarls were pledged to one Yarl, a King. This system had more free flow than the feudal systems seen in England. The thralls were the slaves, the Karls were the free people, and the yarls were the landowners. Thralls could marry, earn their freedom, just couldn’t own land and had no legal rights. Karls, the common folk had some legal rights, could own land, and were free to do want they wanted to pursue. The Jarls are the warlords, major landowners in this system. The feeling I get is Exoteric. There’s a since of community where the English get stuffy, stiff with their secrecy. This outward pouring enthusiasm bleeds into their views. Death in battle was preferred to growing old having done nothing with their life. There’s enthusiasm to earn a spot in Hall of the Allfather Odin. “Intrinsic-Community outlooks are positively associated with favorable outlooks on death such as perceiving death in terms of an Afterlife-of-Reward or as Courage. Correspondingly, these same religious expressions affiliate negatively with undesirable death perspectives”4.
When ideologies collide
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For reasons not clear raiding started in 793 AD, marked by the Attacked on monastery in Lindisfarne. There're various theories put out there. From overpopulation, exile, to target of opportunity the Norse raiding was part of the economy. Being traders across the European continent they knew more then they let on. I don't remember if it was Lisbon or Seville or another town in current day Spain, but during the 9th Viking Raiders working their way south struck a trade center that held much value during an uneasy tine on the Iberian Peninsula. They took advantage of another's war and raided an center of commerce, stripping it of anything seen as valuable. The raiders then got away without having to fight a formal army.
Another economic activity that wasn’t deployed as often by the Anglo-Saxons. Raiding and making war was how Charlemagne kept control. By actively participating in war, wealth was being spent but more importantly wealth was moving. When wealth in it's many forms goes stagnant you the issues Rome fought, and the higher escalon of society now has time to bicker and fight. This simple action further warped this outward aggression in seeking praise by the gods. The Anglo-Saxons fought with the same furiousity, it had to be stirred though to get them though. The Esoteric nature of Catholicism didn’t harbor the favorable, happy view of death. Everything was private, and subdued. The Viking in the opposite built around a social idea of a good death is the way to go. The element that changed was community. A group on a mission will do more then one man leading sheep. When the Viking raids started in 793 AD and continued until roughly 1050 AD the passion behind the cause gave the Viking an edge in fighting because they didn’t fear death. They accepted it as a friend and part of the journey. By 1050 AD the Yarls had become formal kings, and Christianized. In the end the cons outweighed the pros and the raiding stopped after in 1066 in England.
Citations
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1. ECKARDT, A. ROY. “DEATH IN THE JUDAIC AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS.” Social Research 39, no. 3 (1972): 506
2. ECKARDT, A. ROY. “DEATH IN THE JUDAIC AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS.” Social Research 39, no. 3 (1972): 506
3. Price, Neil. “Nine Paces from Hel: Time and Motion in Old Norse Ritual Performance.” World Archaeology 46, no. 2 (2014): 186
4. Spilka, Bernard, Barbara Minton, Douglas Sizemore, and Larry Stout. “Death and Personal Faith: A Psychometric Investigation.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 16, no. 2 (1977): 176
