Snorri and Contemporary Europe: Culture, Society, and Political Analysis

In the preceding pages, Snorri has in several respects emerged as a more "modern" historian than most of his contemporaries. This does

not necessarily mean that he was a better historian than, for example, Otto of Freising or William of Malmesbury, only that his interests were different from theirs and to some extent happen to correspond to what modern historians find most interesting. These differences can be summarized under three headings: (1) the importance of the game of politics; (2) the organization of narrative into a coherent story; and (3) explanation in secular terms. The three are closely interrelated in that the game of politics both serves to give Snorri's stories coherence and serves as a principle of explanation instead of morality or supernatural intervention, as in the European clerical tradition.

Then why do we find such a historiography in the outskirts of Europe? Though Snorri is also an exceptional figure in a Nordic context, his originality consists more in refining and systematizing tendencies that were already there in his milieu than in creating something completely novel. The clue to understanding Snorri's originality therefore lies more in comparing societies and intellectual milieus than in focusing on his personal achievement. The difference between the secular historiography of Iceland and Norway and that of feudal Europe is best explained in terms of differences in society. The political game was relatively more and the aristocratic code of honor relatively less important in the North, the aristocracy was not a closed caste of warriors, but functioned as popular leaders, and the ordinary people had far greater political influence. In short: the historians' descriptions were different largely because they described different things. However, literature, including historiography, is not necessarily a direct reflection of actual conditions. There are more or less ideological descriptions of the same reality, different aspects are emphasized, and so forth. Consequently, we need an intellectual and not only a social explanation of the differences, though the intellectual differences may in turn have their social origins. Such an explanation is particularly necessary when we compare Snorri to European clerical historiography, which was different not primarily because it described a different reality but because of the widely different purpose of its description.

As mentioned above, European clerical culture was not favorable to the development of the kind of political historiography that Snorri represents. There were tendencies in this direction in the twelfth century, with greater emphasis on natural explanation, description of individual character, and coherent narrative. But the principal way of giving meaning to history was still by moral and metaphysical interpretation. Then, from the thirteenth century the leading intellectual milieus, connected to the universities, increasingly turned away from history to more abstract and systematic subjects like natural science, law, theology, and political thought.

In European cultural history, the thirteenth century represented both the triumph of scholasticism, abstract thought, and a strictly technical, Latin language and of a secular, narrative, and often romantic literature in the vernacular, which meant a revival of the "literary public" of classical antiquity within the various European language communities (Auerbach, 1958: 177 ff.). This latter was primarily a lay culture, at least in the sense that its public mainly consisted of laymen and—not the least—women, and was primarily attached to courts and other aristocratic milieus and reflected their interests. Whereas Latin was developed into a medium of technical, abstract thought, the triumph of the vernacular generally meant emphasis on aesthetic and emotional qualities. Thus the learned or clerical and the courteous and secular cultures tended to drift apart, leaving important aspects of the humanist inheritage of classical antiquity, including historiography, in the gap between them.

This change took place in the central zone of Europe, with France as the most prominent example. In other parts of Europe, the twelfth-century traditions lingered on, notably in the extreme south, Italy, and the extreme north, Norway and above all Iceland. Scholasticism was not equally prominent at the Italian universities as at the French ones, and from the late thirteenth century a revival of humanistic studies started and reached its full maturity in the Florentine Renaissance from the early fifteenth century (Struever, 1970: 40 ff.; Skinner, 1978 I: 35 ff.). The vernacular held an exceptional importance as a vehicle of literature both in Iceland and Norway, its use being both earlier and more widespread than in most other countries at the time. Latin seems to have had a slight superiority in the rather meager literature of the twelfth century, though the earliest vernacular works date from the first half of this century. From around 1200, the vernacular is virtually the only literary language, Latin being confined to diplomas, and even there mainly to documents concerning the Church or international relations.

Medieval vernacular literature, including that of Norway and Iceland, is often narrative and is evidently far removed from the technical and abstract scholastic treatises. The sagas of kings, bishops, and great men of the past and translations of the Roman historians and the biographies of ancient heroes like Charlemagne and Dideric of Bern, cover a high percentage of extant literature. To this can be added the religious literature, of which the greatest part is narrative in form—characteristically, the parts of the Bible that were translated were the historical books of the Old Testament—and even to some extent the didactic literature, which differed markedly from that of contemporary Europe in having largely a narrative form. Apart from poetry, there are very few exceptions to this. However, neither its use of the vernacular nor its narrative form meant that this literature was without intellectual ambitions. It also

included works of learning, such as the grammatical treatises, Snorri's Edda and The King's Mirror , all written in the vernacular and in a style more resembling the narrative works than that of contemporary scholasticism. Nor is there any doubt of the intellectual ambitions of a narrative work like Heimskringla , both in Snorri's attempts to reconstruct the past, including chronology, in a reasonable way and in his explanations of political events.

In a broad sense, this vernacular culture can be regarded as a continuation of the European twelfth-century Renaissance, which was more favorable to the development of historiography. However, the choice between scholastic philosophy and the kind of historiography represented among others by Snorri is also the choice between two different ways of regarding the world. From a purely intellectual point of view the principles of explanation in European clerical historiography may be as satisfactory as those of Snorri and contemporary proponents of "rational" history, presenting a philosophical framework that makes the apparently chaotic events of this world intelligible and even morally acceptable. But they are likely to appeal mainly to the intellectual, who regards the events from a certain distance. To the practical man of action they offer few clues for analyzing the situation and planning his maneuvers, and they may even create serious problems to a participant who believes in the justice of his cause and finds that God favors the unjust.

Galbert de Bruges's Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon , for the most part written during the dramatic events in Flanders in 1127-1128, may serve as an example of this. Galbert was a cleric and his overall view is clearly religious. Count Charles is described as a hero and a martyr and his murderers as evil men acting on the Devil's instigation (intr., chaps. 1, 3, 12-15). Galbert tries to detect God's finger behind the chaotic events following the murder (e.g., chaps. 11, 25, 26, 57, 84, 116, 119), and he is evidently troubled when God sometimes seems to favor the wrong party.^[6] Apart from this, however, his book is not only an unusually vivid account of an eyewitness, but also contains quite good analyses of the political aspects of the conflict and of the actors' motives. The medieval Italian chroniclers, like the Florentines Giovanni Villani and Dino Compagni, share Galbert's and the clerical authors' belief in God's providence and attempt to give a moral interpretation of the events. But they are closer to the events and correspondingly more concerned with their secular and political aspects than the traditional clerical historians. Italian historiography became gradually "secularized" during the fourteenth century, not in the sense that historians ceased to believe in God and the supernatural, but in the sense that this belief did not interfere very much with their interpretation of historical events. Thus, historians turned away from seeking God's finger in his-

tory to analyzing its purely human aspect in order to understand and teach others how a politician should behave.

This change corresponds to what Nancy Struever calls the change from logic to rhetoric in the early Italian Renaissance. This meant a change in emphasis from thought in itself to thought as it is expressed in language, and from eternal truth to ideas and opinions of practical, ethical, and political importance. In ethics the virtues should be visible, and it is more important to appear than to be. There is a close connection between form and content; it is of no avail to know the truth if one is unable to present it in such a form that other people may be convinced. Such a culture meant new opportunities for historiography. It is no longer an objection that human action cannot be explained from a priori principles. To understand human action is important from a practical point of view, and it is the duty of the historian to make the apparently chaotic events of the past explicable and relevant to his contemporaries. Consequently, the historian tries to analyze the reasons for and consequences of human actions and present them according to an inner logic of challenge and response (Struever, 1970). To use Aristotle's reasoning on history, the solution to the objection that history merely narrates human events in a haphazard way, is to make history more like literature of fiction: events must be selected and linked together in a coherent story. From a strictly logical and philosophical point of view both the coherence of such a story and its correspondence with reality may be doubted, as it lacks the binding force of the basic principles of Aristotelian logic. From a more practical point of view, however, it may be quite satisfactory, as this is more or less the kind of coherence we expect in daily life when acting together with other men.

To students of European literature of the period, the Icelandic saga literature does not appear particularly rhetorical. Its style is fairly terse and simple, in contrast to the learned or flourishing style of other Old Norse works under stronger influence from Latin literature, and it is notable for its exact and matter-of-fact descriptions of the external world.^[7] In a more fundamental sense, however, this culture shares some important qualities with the rhetorical culture of the Italian renaissance. There is no doubt of the importance Snorri and his milieu attach to oratory, both in emphasizing eloquence in the characterization and in Snorri's elaborate speeches, which are often clues to his interpretations of events. The secular outlook and the focus on short-term interests rather than eternal values are also common. Finally, Snorri's way of organizing his material into one, coherent story, of which the saga of St. Óláfr is an excellent example, has its parallel in the Italian Renaissance in the development from the rather chaotic assembling of events in the

order they occured in Giovanni Villani's chronicle from the first half of the fourteenth century to the structured narrative of Leonardo Bruni in the early fifteenth century (Phillips, 1986: 48 ff.).

The difference between the two kinds of culture is thus a question of existential, rather than purely intellectual interests. We should expect to find the kind of historiography represented by Snorri and the Italian Renaissance historians in milieus with a close connection between practical politics and intellectual activity and in which government and politics presented serious intellectual and practical problems.

In the central zone of Europe, the contrast between the scholastic and the aristocratic culture corresponds to the one between the highly educated elite of the universities, which to a considerable extent dominated the higher posts within the Church, and the lay aristocracy, whose main training was for war and who had relatively little scholarly education. Admittedly, neither the "ivory-tower" character of medieval clerical culture nor the stability of feudal society should be exaggerated. The Church, including its representatives in the intellectual milieus, was deeply involved in society, being a great landowner and holding extensive judicial and governmental powers. Nevertheless, the scholars at the universities in the central zone of Europe were more of a professional class of intellectuals than any other group of people in the Middle Ages. And even if the individual members of this culture did not lead a life isolated from the events of this world—after all, the aim of most university students was to get an administrative position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy—there is the paradox that the success of the Church in this world largely depended on it not becoming too directly involved in political affairs. Its raison d'être was its gospel of salvation in the next life and of eternal principles of right and wrong. Thus, despite its servants' deep involvement in this world, the kind of intellectual life it was most likely to promote was the one associated with abstract and general principles.

Though the similarity between medieval Italy on the one hand and Iceland and Norway on the other should not be exaggerated, both regions differed on some important points from these conditions. In Italy the laity was better educated than in the rest of Europe, a high percentage of the students at the universities were laymen, and the most important subjects taught there were the ones that could be used in practical life, such as medicine and law (Cobban, 1975: 48 ff., 163 ff., 221 f.). Neither the general level of education nor the educational institutions of Iceland and Norway can be compared to the Italian ones. But there was a long tradition for members of the Icelandic aristocracy to receive education of a similar kind as that of the clergy. Until the twelfth century, the Icelandic chieftains, who controlled the churches of the coun-

try, often became priests themselves. At least from the thirteenth century, the Norwegian aristocracy, which was then an administrative more than a warrior class, also seems to be fairly well educated (Bagge, 1984: 10 f.; 1987b : 222 ff.). As for the clergy, that of Iceland was clearly more subordinated to the lay chieftains than the clergy of most other countries. Though this was not the case in Norway, there was hardly the same possibility of creating a specifically clerical elite culture in such a small country as in the central zone of Europe. In any case, the scholastic culture is markedly less represented in Norway than in Denmark and Sweden. Though for slightly different reasons, the conditions for a unitary, humanistic-rhetorical culture seemed better in Italy on the one hand and Norway and Iceland on the other than in the central zone of Europe.

Thus, in both these regions the intellectual elite and a literary public largely consisted of practical men of action. Whereas in the Italian cities, the social background to these milieus was societies with more economic specialization and a more complex political organization than anywhere else in Europe, Snorri's Icelandic society may be considered fairly primitive and backward. In both societies, however, oratory and political maneuvering held an exceptional importance. One's position in society was more dependent on personal performance than in the more stable and stratified societies of feudal Europe, and the most important aspect of this performance was the ability to gain adherents and outwit one's opponents. By contrast, the members of the European feudal aristocracy regarded themselves as belonging to a closed caste with great needs for separating themselves from the rest of society. Aristocratic historiography performed this function by extolling the code of honor and the specifically aristocratic martial virtues. Though a game of politics of a similar kind as in the North no doubt existed, it was relatively less important and there were less ideological or intellectual reasons for describing it.

On the one hand, Snorri's Icelandic society shared some important characteristics with the more complex and advanced societies of the Italian cities. On the other, it is also possible to point to parallels with rather simple traditional societies, in which there is no very rigid social hierarchy and where it is necessary to make a personal achievement to gain adherents. In such societies, eloquence often has great importance (Sahlins, 1963: 290; Qviller, 1981: 119). This kind of milieu was more likely to produce a humanistic and rhetorical culture than the European clerical milieus. To the men who formed the elites of such societies, short-term aims were more important than eternal truth. To convince was more important than to prove. The main interest of the leaders of society and of the "literary public" in general was in human events and

political activity, and it might even be the explicit purpose of literature to teach men how to behave in society. There are traces of this purpose in Snorri.

From a purely social point of view, Snorri's society is probably better compared to this kind of traditional society than to the Italian cities. From an intellectual point of view, however, it had access to a similar kind of culture as the latter, the traditions of the rich and varied humanistic culture of twelfth century Europe. Admittedly, I have been rather reluctant on the preceding pages to point to direct influence from European literature, as there are considerable differences in taste and style, and references to the classics and ancient history are rare among the secular saga writers. However, the intellectual training of the schools, the shift from oral to written culture, and the numerous works translated from Latin and French to Old Norse are clear evidence of European influence. The exact importance of this influence still largely remains to be examined. But the emphasis on writing is evidently a result of foreign influence, and foreign models may well have been an important factor in the development of large, continuous narratives in prose, in composition, the use of speeches, and so forth. The achievement of Snorri and other authors of this milieu may be explained through this combination. The external stimulus made them narrate and analyze past and present political events, whereas the special political conditions of their society inspired them to a kind of historiography that may partly be understood as a continuation of tendencies already present in that of twelfth-century Europe and partly as something completely novel. In short: the combination of the emphasis on rhetoric and narrative in a rather simple traditional society and the tradition of a humanistic culture, going back to antiquity and revived during the twelfth-century Renaissance, may have been extremely fruitful.

We thus return to the social explanation to the originality of Snorri and other Nordic historians. Not only is Snorri's particular way of describing society the result of the particular character of the Icelandic society with which he was familiar and which to some extent is the object of his description. This society also served to create a culture and a literary public that could stimulate the kind of historiography represented by Snorri. Though we cannot state that such a social and cultural milieu must inevitably produce a work of history like Snorri's Heimskringla , there is no doubt that it was more likely to stimulate this kind of achievement than either the scholastic or the aristocratic milieus of feudal Europe. Historiography in the North had the prestige and importance that was necessary to attract an extraordinary talent like Snorri, who would most probably have turned to other subjects if he had lived in contemporary feudal Europe.