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UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH
The Library
!RD DA 880.06 D5
D i e t r i c h son , L o r e n t z H e n r i k Begelcke, 1334- i ment a Oread ica
————l
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2013
http://archive.org/details/monumentaorcadicOOdiet
MONVMENTA ORCADICA
THE NORSEMEN IN THE ORKNEYS
AND THE MONUMENTS THEY HAVE LEFT
WITH A SURVEY OF THE CELTIC PRE- NORWEGIAN) AND SCOTTISH (POST-NOR- WEGIAN) MONUMENTS ON THE ISLANDS
BY
L. DIETRICHSON
WITH ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND SOME CHAP- TERS ON ST. MAGNUS' CATHEDRAL, KIRKWALL
BY JOHAN MEYER, ARCHITECT
WITH 152 ILLUSTRATIONS
WILLIAMS & NORGATE
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN LONDON, W.C.
THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF GUEI PH
• \,K DivifttOfl ♦
ERRATA.
Page 20 Line 14 fig. 129 in stead fig. 127. Page 45 Line 9 oldest in stead mightiest.
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction 1—4
I. The Orkneys and their Relation to Norway.
(pp. 1-3) The importance of the Orkneys as a point
of support to the Norwegian rule in the
West 1
Norwegian historical places in the north
of Scotland 1
Pentland Firth 1
The name Orkney 1
The topography of the Islands.
Mainland, its names 2
Its area, parishes, bays, lakes, promontories
and mountains 2
Towns of Mainland 2
The northern group of islands 2
The southern group 2
Small islands 2
Ecclesiastical division 2
Representation in Parliament 2
Scenery 2
Animal life 2
Inhabitants 2
Celtic connections 2
Language 2
Place-names 2, 3
II. The Orkneys in Literature, (pp. 3 & 4)
The Orkneys in Roman literature .... 3 Norwegian sources of the history of the
Orkneys 3
Norwegian studies of Orkney 3
Scotch studies of Orkney 3
Plan of present work 4
Page BOOK I.
Remains found by the Norwegians on their arrival in the Orkneys
5-11 I. Pre-historic Remains.
(Before 600 A. D.)
(pp. 5-8)
The Picts 5
Species of Monuments 5
a. Sepulchral chambers (Picts' houses) 5 & 6
Graves or dwellings? 5
The « Picts' houses* collective burial
places 5
Their number 6
Their types 6
The Caithness type:
The Unstan grave-mound 6
The Isbister grave-mound 6
The Burray grave-mound 6
The small mound on the Holm of Papa
Westray 6
The Bookan mound 6
The Orkney type:
The large mound on the Holm of Papa
Westray 6
The « Picts' house» on Wideford Hill . 6
The Quanterness mound 6
The Quoiness mound 6
Maes ho w:
Its name 6
History and legend 6
b. Stone circles and solitary standing- stones 6&7
Dolmens, menhirs and cromlechs ... 6
The Standing-stones of Stennis .... 6
Y 1 Contents.
Page Pa*e
<t MU, .hvllW! 6 Beehive-houses, dry walls, the conver-
The Ring of Biennis 8 genoe of the jambs, the splaying of
me Watch-atone '! tlu' windows, round towers • • • • • ">
Odin's Btone .... 6 Top-stones and arches, apses, the num-
The Ring of Brogmr! '. 6 ber of apertures, lower choir, rood-
Circles st Veetrafjold and at Bookan . 6 loft, dedication 10
Various megtJithie monuments .... 6 1. Ruins of Celtic churches in preser-
The Slab of Via 6 ration.
The Holy Kirk 6 1. The church on the Brough of
The menhir on BhapinBay 7 Deerness 10
The Black Btone of Odin 7 2. Halcro Chapel 10
Btones on Sandaj 7 3. St. Tredwell's Chapel 10
The menhirs on Eday and South Ro- 4. The chapel on the Head of Hol-
naldaay 7 land . 10
Their purpose 7 5. Beehive-houses on the Brough of
Mode of procuring 7 Birsay 10
Age 7 6. The church on Copinsay .... 11
The Norsemen and the stone circles . 7 2. Celtic churches that have disap-
,-. Borg$ (brochs) 7&8 peared.
The name 7 Their situation 11
Their number 7
The Broch of Burray 7
The Broch Of Oxdro 8 BOOK II.
The Broch of Newark 8 Norwegian Monuments (872—
The Broch of Coligarth 8 1468) 13—74
The Broch of Burrian 8
The Broch of Scapa 8 I. Norwegian Monuments under Celtic
The Broch of Deerness 8 Influence (872— about 1200)
The Broch of Birsay 8 (pp. 13—44)
a. Norwegian tumuli from the heathen
II. Monuments of the Christian Celts. Viking time (872-1014) .... 13-15
/ v. * ffnn o-7o a r> \ 1- Barrows, foundations of houses, and
(about 600—872 A. D.) „ ..„ ' „ • , .„
fortifications on Sanday 13
(pp. 8-11) Scutwick 13
a. Peti and Papa: — The Divarfie Stone Toftsness 13
of Hoy 8&9 Coligarth, Augmund's Mound, the
The Picts in Orkney 8 Myrtis mounds, St. Peter's at New-
The Romans in Orkney 8 ark, St. Magdalen's, Chapel of Ar-
The Anglo-Saxons in Orkney 9 stas 13
The Irish Scots 9 2. The bloody tuacks on Westray. . . 14
The Christianising of the Orkneys . 9 Tranaby, Pierowall, Highlandman's
The Papes 9 Hammer 14
The Viking expeditions 9 3. Ivar's Knowe, on Sanday 14
Picts and Papes 9 4. Sigurd's How on Ekkjalsbakke (in
The Dwarfie Stone of Hoy 9 the north of Scotland) 14
b. Celtic churcha 10 & 11 5. Halfdan's How on Sanday(?) .... 14
The Norwegians and the Papes' chur- 6. Thorfinn's How on Hoxa 15
ehes 10 7. Barrows at Howardsty 15
Prefatory remark -- How are the Cel- b. Norwegian Monuments from the 11th
tic churches in Orkney to be distin- century 16—20
guiahed from the Norwegian? .... 10 1. The banqueting-hall at Sandwick . . 16
The difficulties of distinguishing ... 10 2. The Norwegian earls' palace at Bir-
Points Of support for the distinction 10 say 17
Contents.
VII
Page
3. The town at Kirkevaag 18
4. St. Olaf's Church at Kirkevaag. . . 18
5. Christ's Church in Birsay 19
6. St. Peter's Church on the Brough of
Birsay 19
7. The later church at Deerness ... 20 c. Norwegian Monuments from the 12th
century 21 — 44
a. The time of St. Magnus. . . 21—23
1. The Thing-stead on Hrossey . . 21
2. The church at Orphir 21
3. The earl's seat at Orphir .... 22
4. The castle on Daminsey 23
b. The time of Earl Ragnvald . 23—32
5. St. Magnus' Church on Egilsey . 23
6. Swendro Chapel at Vestnes ... 28
7. The church on Westray 29
8. The Runic inscriptions and car-
vings in Maeshow 29
9. The earl's seat at Knarrarstad . 31
c. The buildings of the great men of Orkney 32—34
10. Longskeal on Gairsay 32
11. The castle on Wire (Cobbie Row) 33
12. St. Peter's Church on Wire . . 33
13. St. Catherine's Chapel at Linton 34
d. The vanished monastery in the Ork- neys 34—43
14. The chapel on Hellisey .... 34
15. The ruined monastery at Strom-
ness 35
16. The Cistercian monastery on
Eynhallow and its church . . 36
e. Scattered monuments on the Ork- neys 43 & 44
17. Buildings on Papa Westray, and
Mainland 43
The kirk of How 44
The church at Yeskenaby ... 44
The castle of Snusgar 44
The Church of the Holy Cross
on Westray 44
II. Norwegian Monuments under Anglo- Norman and Gothic Influence (1137—1468) (pp. 45—74)
a. St. Magnus' Cathedral at Kirkwall 45 —71. 1. General survey.
Page
St. Magnus' Cathedral 45
Conditions of the period 45
The cathedral in the Saga 46
2. Detailed description of St. Magnus' Cathedral, and the history of its ar- chitecture (by Architect Johan Meyer). Chap. 1. The architecture of the
cathedral 47
The interior of the cathedral . . 47 The exterior of the cathedral . 55 Chap. 2. The architectural history
of St. Magnus' Cathedral 57
Chap. 3. Comparison of St. Magnus' Cathedral with contemporaneous buildings in Scotland and Norway 66 b. Other buildings of the same period 71 —74.
1. The bishop's palace at Kirkwall . . 71
The Angus line 71
Death of Haakon IV in the bishop's
palace 71
The remains of the palace 71
The parts of the palace that have
disappeared 72
2. Margaret's Hope 73
3. The Norwegian earl's palace at Kirk-
wall 73
The Stratherne line 73
The Sinclair line 73
The vanished palace 73
4. Notland Castle 74
BOOK III.
Monuments from the Scottish Pe- riod (after 1468) 75-77
1. Robert Stuart's earl's palace at Birsay 75
2. Patrick Stuart's earl's palace at Kirkwall 75
3. Building styles in town and country . 76
Building styles at Kirkwall 76
House in Main Street 76
The Town Hall 76
Tankerness House 76
Maxwell House 76
The bishop's palace at Breckness ... 77
Cottages 77
Cottage at Brogar 77
Cottage at Upper Quays 77
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The names in brackets are those of monuments that do not belong to Orkney, but are included for the sake of comparison.
Fig. Page
PI. I.
Map of the Orkneys. From P. A. Munch. Facing the title-page.
PI. II 7
1. Kirkwall from the Ayre. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. Ill 9
2. Dundas Street, Stromness. From a photograph.
PI. IV 13
3. Orkney peasants from Evje near Eynhallow Church. From a photograph.
PI. V. Picts' houses 25
4. At Unstan. Plan. From J. Anderson's « Scotland in Pagan Times*.
5. At Bookan. Ground-plan. From ditto.
6. On the Holm of Papa Westray. Ground-plan. From ditto.
7. On Wideford Hill. Ground-plan and 2 sections from Montelius' «Der Orient u. Europa*.
8. At Quanterness. Ground-plan. From Anderson, 1. c.
9. At Quoiness. Ground-plan. From ditto.
PI. VI. Maeshow 29
10. Ground-plan. From Montelius, 1. c.
11. Section. From ditto.
12. Perspective view of interior. From P. A. Munch's «Samlede Afhandlinger*.
PL VII. Standing -stones 33
13. The Ring of Stennis. From Barry.
PI. VIII 35
14 a & b. The Rings of Stennis and Brogar; present appearance. From Anderson, I.e.
15. Haavardsteigen, with the Rings and Maeshow. From Low (1774).
PI. IX 37
16. The Ring of Brogar. From Barry.
PI. X. Brocks 39
17a & b. (The Broch of Mousa, Shetland; a, perspective view; b, section without the inner wall.
From Worsaae.) 18a & b. (The same; a, ground-plan; b, section with the inner wall. From Anderson.)
19. Broch of Burray. Ground-plan. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
20. The same. Perspective view of the interior. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
\
Illustrations.
Page
Hi 47
n. xi *'
•Jl. Tho Pwarfio Stono of Hoy. From I photograph.
PI Xll. Celtic Churches 53
Tho Church on tho Brooh of Deerneea. (1 round-plan. From Dryden. 23a&»>. Tho sumo ; a, general plan; b, perspective view. From Dryden.
31 fredwell'i Chapel; elevation. From Dryden.
25. Tlio same; ground-plan. From Dryden.
PI Xlll. Kirkwall 73
26. Ground-plan. From an official publication.
PI XIV 75
J7. Viow looking north. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
n. XV 75
■ Viow looking south. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
IM XVI. Later Churches, in which walls of Norwegian churches of the 11th century
77 occur "
29. St Olaf's Church at Kirkwall. Ground-plan, from Dryden.
30. Details of the same. From Dryden.
U. Window in Christ's Church, Birsay. Original Drawing by J.Meyer.
PL XVII. Norwegian Churches from the latter half of the 11th century 79
32. St. Peter's Church on the Broch of Birsay. Ground-plan, from Dryden.
33. Tho aame; Beetion through the nave and choir. From Dryden.
34. The same; west and east elevations. From Dryden.
35. The same; longitudinal section. From Dryden.
36. The later church at Deerness, seen from the south-west. From Low (1774).
37. The aame, seen from the north-west. From Low.
38. The same, seen from the east. From Low.
PL XVIII. Norwegian churches from the first half of the 12th century 89
39. The church at Ophir; ground-plan. From Dryden.
40. Longitudinal section of the same. From Dryden.
41. Transverse section of the same. From Dryden.
42. The same; window in the apse. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
43. The church and banqueting-hall at Orphir; plan of situation. Original drawing by
J. Meyer.
44. (Cottage at Kveste in Saetersdal, Norway. Ground-plan. From Nicolaysen's «Kunst &
Haandverk».)
PI. XIX 95
45. See PL XX.
16. St. Magnus* Church on Egilsey. 1. Details of the south side. Original drawing by
J. Meyer.
PI. XX 97
45. St. Magnus' Church on Egilsey. 2. Plan. From Dryden.
47. The same ; longitndinal section looking south. From Dryden.
48. The same; longitudinal section looking north. From Dryden.
49. The same; elevation of north exterior. From Dryden.
50. The same; transverse section looking east and west, and east end. From Dryden.
51. The same; interior of nave, looking east. From Dryden.
52. The same; perspective view of the outside, taken from the south-east. From Dryden.
PL XXI 107
r>3. Bwendro Chapel; south elevation. From Dryden. 54. The same ; ground-plan. From Dryden.
Tho same; east end. From Dryden. 56. The church on Westray; longitudinal section looking south. From Dryden.
Illustrations. XI
Fig. Page
57. The same; ground-plan. From Dryden.
58. The same; transverse section through the choir. From Dryden.
59. The same; perspective view, taken from the south-east. From Dryden.
PI. XXII 113
60a & b. Norwegian Inscriptions in Maeshow. a. Runic Inscriptions Nos. 16 & 20. b. Cryp- tograms. From P. A. Munch.
61. Drawing of a lion. From P. A. Munch.
PI. XXIII. Norivegian Churches from the latter half of the 12th century .... 123
62. St. Peter's Church on "Wire; ground-plan. From Dryden.
63. The same; north and south elevations. From Dryden.
64. See PI. XXIV.
65. St. Catherine's Chapel at Linton; ground-plan. From Dryden.
66. See PI. XXV.
67. Perspective view of the buildings on Eynhallow (I), from the south. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XXIV 123
64. St. Peter's Church on "Wire; west front. From a photograph.
PI. XXV 129
66. The church and cloister buildings on Eynhallow (II). Ground-plan and details. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XXVI • 131
68. The church and cloister buildings on Eynhallow (III). Perspective view from the north. From Dryden.
69. 1—5. The same. 1. Section through the staircase room, looking west. 2. Transverse section looking east. 3. Transverse section through the choir, looking east. 4. Elevation of the west front. 5. Elevation of the east end. From Dryden.
70. (Ground-plan of monastery on Hovedoen, Norway. From the publications of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments.)
PI. XXVII. St. Magnus' Cathedral 141
71. 1. Ground-plan. From the «Builder>.
PI. XXVIII 143
72. 2. Perspective view of the interior, from the west. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XXIX 145
73. 3. North wall of the choir; elevation of interior. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XXX 145
74. 4. Exterior of the cathedral; a. the north side from the north-west. From the « Builder*.
b. South side from the south-east. From MacGibbon & Ross.
PI. XXXI 147
75. 5. Transverse section through the nave. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XXXII 149
76. 6. The earliest windows in the choir. From Dryden.
PI. XXXIII 149
77. 7. The wall of the north aisle of the choir; perspective view. Original drawing by
J. Meyer.
PI. XXXIV 149
78. 8. Piers of the central tower. From Dryden.
PI. XXXV 149
79. 9. Triforium opening, looking towards the transepts. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
80. See PI. XLII
PI. XXXVI 149
81a. 10. Wall-surface with arcades in the south aisle. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XXXVII 149
81b. 11. Sections of mouldings from the south aisle and the oldest part of the vaulting. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
v 1 1 Illustrations.
Page
PI WW1I1. 8L Magma/ Cathedral, cotit 149
H Circular pillars in tin* south-east of the nave. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI XXXIX • 149
IS. Wall-surfaee with areades in the north aisle. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI XI 151
84. 14. IVrspeetive view of the south aisle. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
l'l. XLI . 151
15. IVrspeetive view of the north transept and the central tower. Original drawing by .1. Meyer.
PL X1.1I 151
80. 16. Capitals from the transept.
The -able of the north wall of the transept. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
l'l. XLIII 151
87. 17. Details of the clerestory at the end of the north transept. Original drawing by
J. Meyer.
l'l. XI. IV 151
88. 18. Clerestory-passage in the end wall of the north transept. Original drawing by
J. Meyer.
l'l. XLV 151
89. 19. North doorway of nave. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
l'l. XLVI 151
90. 20. Bay of the vaulting in the oldest part of the choir. Original drawing by J. Meyer
PL XLVH 153
91. 21. Doorway in the south transept. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. XLVIII 153
!•_>. 22. Perspective view of the interior of the choir. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
l'l. XLIX 153
93 a. 23. Details of the east wall of the choir. From Dryden.
PI. L 153
93 b. 24. Details of the choir. From Dryden.
PI. LI 153
94. 25. Details of the arcades on the south side of the choir. From a photograph.
PI. LII 155
95. 26. Exterior of the east wall of the choir. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PI. LIII. . : 155
96. 27. Exterior of the south wall of the choir. From a photograph.
PL LIV 155
97. 28. Perspective view of the exterior of the south side of the choir. Original drawing
by J. Meyer.
PL LV 157
98. 29. West front. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LVI 157
99. 30. Left west doorway. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
100. See PI. LVII.
101. Right west doorway. Original drawing by J. Meyer 157
l'l. LVII 159
100. 31. Centre west doorway. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
l'l. LVIII
102. 32. Plan of triforium. From MacGibbon & Ross.
103. tion through the transept. From MacGibbon and Ross 161
l'l. LIX
104. 83. Longitudinal section through the cathedral, looking north. From MacGibbon &
Boss.
Illustrations. XIII
Fig. Page
PI. LIX. St. Magnus' Cathedral, cont.
105. North elevation of the exterior of the cathedral. From MacGibbon & Ross ... 163 PL LX 165
106. 34. Perspective view of the south aisle of the choir. From MacGibbon & Ross.
PL LXI 167
107. 35. West doorways, from within. From MacGibbon and Ross.
PL LXII 169
108. 36. (Comparison of North of England and Scotch churches of the 11th and 12th
centuries with northern French and Norwegian of the same period. Original
drawing by J. Meyer).
PL LXIII 171
109. 37. Left west doorway. From a photograph.
110a. Centre west doorway. From a photograph 171
PL LXIV 171
110b. 38. Part of the centre west doorway. From a photograph.
111. Part of the right west doorway. From a photograph.
PL LXV. Bishop's Palace at Kirkwall 173
112. 1. Ground-plan. From Dryden.
113—116. See PI. LXVI-LXIX.
117. (Stenviksholm Palace in Norway. Ground-plan, from «Norge i det 19de Aar- hundrede»).
118. Palace and surroundings. From Low.
PL LXVI 175
113. 2. Interior. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LXVII 177
114. 3. West exterior. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LXVIII 179
115. 4. Round tower. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LXIX 179
116. 5. East exterior, with St. Magnus' Cathedral in the background. From Barry.
PL LXX. Notland Castle 181
119. 1. From a photograph.
PL LXXI 181
120. 2. Ground-plan of the basement floor, with the court-yard. From MacGibbon
& Ross.
121. Plan of the upper floors. From MacGibbon & Ross.
122. Section looking east. From MacGibbon & Ross.
PL LXXII
123 & 124. 3. Upper termination of the newel. From MacGibbon & Ross.
PL LXXIII. Robert Stuart's Earl's Palace at Birsay 185
125. 1. Ground-plans. From MacGibbon & Ross.
126. View from the north-west. From MacGibbon & Ross.
127. General view of Birsay, about 1774. From Low.
PL LXXIV 187
128. 2. Earl's palace with the old tower, from the east. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
129. Court-yard with the old tower, from the south. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LXXV. Patrick Shiart's Earl's Palace at Kirkwall 189
130. 1. Plan of the basement floor. From MacGibbon & Ross.
131. Plan of first floor. From MacGibbon & Ross.
132. Section through hall, and elevation of south wing. From MacGibbon & Ross.
133. Elevation of west facade. From MacGibbon & Ross.
\ 1 Y Illustrations.
Fi*. Page
PI I. XXVI. Patrick Stuart's Karl's I\ilacc at Kirkwall, cont 189
134. 1 Main entrance. From MaoGibbon A Koss.
Hm ohapeL Prom MaoQibbon A Koss.
PI i.xxvii 191
I3t'>. ;!. Fireplace in the west wall of the banqueting-haU. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL I.XXV11I 191
137. Oriel windows in the south-west corner of the north wing. From a photograph.
PL I.XX1X. Building* in Kir/arall 193
1. OKI house In Main Street; section. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
•ion through the wing, with side elevation. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
140. Plan of the throe floors. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LXXX 193
141. 2. Outside view of the same building. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL LXXXI 193
142. 3. The old Town Hall. Drawn from a photograph by J. Meyer.
PL LXXX1I 193
143. 4. Tankerneea Bouse; plan. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
144. Tankerness House; perspective view. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
145. The Bishop's Palace at Breckness; plan. From MacGibbon & Ross.
PI. LXXXI II. Peasant* Houses 193
14li. 1. Louvre-eottage at Upper Quays; longitudinal section.
147. Ditto; plan.
148. Ditto; cross section. Original drawings by J. Meyer.
PL LXXXIV 193
149. Ditto; perspective view. Original drawing by J. Meyer.
PL I.XXXV 195
150. Farm at St. Mary's, Mainland. Plans, drawn by J. Meyer.
151. Ditto; drying-room for corn. Drawn by J. Meyer.
PL LXXXVI 195
152. View of same, drawn by J. Meyer.
Abridgment of the Norwegian Text.
The following abridgment passes with great brevity over those parts of the original ver- sion in which the author's views coincide with those of previous writers, and are therefore of less interest to British readers; whereas it concentrates its descriptive forces upon those points in which the author's views differ from those of earlier writers, and in addition gives the des- cription of St. Magnus' Cathedral in extenso.
INTRODUCTION.
I. The Orkneys and Their Relation to Norway.
The author prefaces his account with a demonstration of the importance that the Orkneys possessed for Norway in the Middle Ages, as a strong- hold for that kingdom's conquests in the British Isles. The Earls of Orkney, who were subject to Norway, could always place large fleets and many men at the disposal of their ruler, for forays to the Hebrides, Man, and the coasts of Ireland, as also to the mainland of Scotland, until the cessation of the viking expeditions and the introduction of Christianity, when the warlike spirit of the Scandinavian nation turned against itself, and exhausted its proud force in sanguinary internal conflicts.
After having mentioned the Norwegian Atjoklar as being identical with the Athole of the present day, the author carries us, by the railway from Inverness to Thurso, to a number of places in the north of Scotland, that play a part in the Norwegian Sagas, viz. Dingwall, the Norwegian Tingvold; Moray Firth, the Breidafjordr of the Sagas; the river Oykel, the Norwegian Ekkjal; Helmsdale, the Hjalmundalr of the Sagas; across the valley of Calder, the Kalfadalr of the Norsemen, to Wick and Thurso — the Thrasvik and Thorsa of the Saga — , with the latter's port, Scrabster, the Skarabolstadir of the Saga. Having then given an account of the currents and rousts of the Pentland Firth, he lets us land at Scapa, the Skalpeid of the Sagas, continuing our journey thence to the capital of the Orkneys, Kirkwall. Orcades, the Latin name of the islands, is derived from the Gaelic «orc», Pliny's «Delphinus orca», which occurs in large numbers in these waters. Whether this «orc» is in any way connected with the Latin «porcus», by the usual Gaelic rejection of «p» as an initial sound, is a question that the author leaves undecided.
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 1
The Orkneys and Their Relation to Norway.
The author distinguishes topographically between the principal island, Main- land (Old Noree, Ifeginland, the great land), a northern group of islands, and
uthern group. With regard to the literary name of Mainland, Pomona, the author inclines, with Hairy, to refer it to the two British words, «pou» and tmon», parva patria, rather than to Solinus' phrase, «pomona copiosa», which is used oonoerning Thule.
The author next passes in review the parishes of Mainland, its bays, lakes, promontories ami mountains, its towns, Kirkwall and Stromness, and the villages of Finnstown and Bins. The islands of the northern and southern groups are then enumerated and described, in the course of which he remarks that Sha- pinsay can hardly be called «the Hjalpandisey of the Saga» (Jos. Anderson), as tin- Saga never mentions that island, whereas Hjalpandisey is certainly rightly conjectured by P. A. Munch, by the aid of Peder Claussen's «Gjalpandisoi». Con- cerning the Holm of Papa Westray, which is not mentioned by P. A. Munch, the author remarks that it must be the island called by Fordun Papa Tertia, a name by which, says Munch, it is difficult to say what island is designated. H adds that besides Papa Westray and Papa Stronsay, there is no third Papa oi- Papey now to be found among the Orkneys. This, the author thinks, however, cannot properly be said when the island is really called the «Holm of Papa Westray >.
After enumerating 56 large and small islands and holms, of which, accor- ding to Wallace, 28 are inhabited, mention is further made of 27 small, unin- habited holms and rocks, making a total of 83. In the enumeration of these last, a mistake has occurred, namely that No. 63 is given as a (non-existing) Holm of Egilsey, instead of which Ruskholm, near Faray, should be substituted. After having given an account of the ecclesiastical division of the islands, and their representation in the British Parliament, the author goes on to consider the scenery of the islands, which he thinks akin to that on the south-west coast of Norway, and their" fauna, in which he recognises a number of the bird-species that frequent the shores of Norway. He then passes on to a men- tion of the population of the islands, and its clinging to the memories of the time when the islands were Norwegian, and accounts, mainly according to P. A. Munch, for its transition from Norwegian to Scotch.
After mentioning the numerous alliances entered into in the Middle Ages between Norwegians and Celts, which gives to the Saga of the Islands a pe- culiar colour that differs from the Norwegian, the author proceeds to treat of the language of the Islands, which, although entirely English, has preserved a number of idiomatic differences that recall the Norwegian time. The names of places, in particular, especially those of the islands, are thoroughly Norwegian; and on Sanday, the island lying nearest to Norway, the dialect appears to have retained Norwegian words to a still greater extent than on the other islands.
The Orkneys in Literature. 3
He especially points out the fact that in the names of farms, the ending «bster» or «bister» (Scrabster, Brebister, etc.), which about 50 years ago seems to have been written «buster», is evidently the same ending that so frequently occurs in the Norwegian names of farms — «bust», e. g. Myklebust, etc. = «bolstadir», and thus Swambister = Sveinbolstadir, Hobbister = Haugbol- stadir, etc.
II. The Orkneys in Literature.
Roman authors are the first to mention the Orkneys. Pomponius Mela (circ. 50 A. D.), Pliny, Suetonius, Tacitus, Juvenal, Ptolemy (circ. 150 A. D.), Solinus (circ. 300 A. D.), Eutropius (circ. 350), the Itineraries of Antoninus, Claudian (circ. 400), Orosius, Jordanes (circ. 550), and Isidorus (circ. 650), are quoted.
The Norwegian sources of the history of the Orkneys are then passed in review, especially the Orkneyinga Saga in its various parts, that were not united into one until later. It is supposed to have been written in Iceland from ac- counts given by inhabitants of the Orkneys (Finnur Jonsson), for the most part before 1230. The history of St. Magnus appears to go back to a Latin bio- graphy of the saint, written by a certain Rodbert (1135 & 1136). The Flatobok, which gives the commencement of the Orkney Saga in a very expanded form, was written much later, between 1387 and 1395. The Iceland Annals have con- tributed certain parts concerning the time after the conclusion of the Orkney- inga Saga. Of later Norwegian Orkney studies are mentioned Peder Claussen's topographical notes with the list of bishops, printed in 1632, and Torfaeus, who wrote his «Orcades» about 1700. A hundred and fifty years later, P. A. Munch wrote his geographical notes, among other things, of the Scotch and Irish place- names occurring in the Sagas.
On the other hand, the ancient monuments of the islands, both of the Celtic time and the Norwegian Middle Ages, have formed the subject of highly meri- torious investigations on the part of Scottish authors and men of science — in earlier times, Jo. Ben (1529), Wallace (1693), Low (1774), and Barry (1805); in our own day, Wilson, George Petrie, Sir Henry Dry den, Joseph Anderson, and others. The last-named two have also done thorough work in the investigation of the Norwegian relics.
As, however, these works are more or less inaccessible to Norwegian readers, and moreover appear inclined, in certain points, to efface the dividing-
4 The Orkneys in Literature.
linos between Celtic and Norwegian, the author has not considered it super- fluous to disease the Norwegian remains on the Islands from a Norwegian point of view, presenting the results of an expedition to the Islands, under- taken in the year 1900, in which he had the good fortune to be accompanied by an eminent Norwegian architect, Hi: Johan Meyer. In order to give a con- nected account of the history of the relics of the Orkneys, he has also attempted a brief description of their Celtic (pre-Norwegian) and their Scotch (post-Nor- lan) remains.
BOOK I.
REMAINS FOUND BY THE NORWEGIANS ON THEIR ARRIVAL AT THE ORKNEYS.
The Pre-historic and Celtic-Christian Remains.
I. Pre-historic Remains.
(Before 600 A. D.)
Thousands of years before the Roman author, Solinus, wrote of the Orkneys as « uninhabited*, they were inhabited by a people who left behind them mighty monuments, that met the eyes of the Norwegians on their arrival. This people probably belonged to the Gaelic branch of the Celtic race; at any rate, the Islands, on the arrival of the Norwegians, were inhabited by a people, who were called Picts, the painted, the tatooed (picti). The pre-historic monuments that they left behind them were sepulchral chambers, stone circles and standing stones, and brochs.
a. Sepulchral chambers (« Picts' houses*).
The resemblance between the dwellings of the living and the sepulchral buildings in which the dead were supposed to continue their earthly life, has led to the adoption of the misleading name of «Picts' houses* for the sepulchral chambers that are found in large numbers on the Orkneys, and are of the same kind as those which spread from Asia, during the Neolithic Age, over Southern and Western Europe. The articles found in the graves also belong to the Neolithic Age. The graves are collective, and are supposed to amount
,, Remains Found by the Norwegians on their Arrival at the Orkneys.
to about -21XX) (?) in number. They are of two types — (a) the Caithness type, in which several chambers of equal size lie side by side, separated by stone slabs; and (b) the Orkney type, in which there is an arrangement of small chambers about a large central room. To the Caithness type belong the «Picts' houses> at I'nstan. Isbister, Burray, the small «Picts' house» on the Holm of Papa WVstray, ami the *Picts' house* at Bookan. To the Orkney type belong the large Piets' house* on the Holm of Papa Westray, the «Picts' houses* on Wideford Hill. Quanterness, and Quoiness, and lastly, the remarkable Maeshow, which, as regards both its size and the excellence of its work, far surpasses all the others. The meaning of the first part of this name is uncertain. Munch, «for want of anything better*, suggests a corruption of the Old Norwegian • Meitir», a sea-king, thus «the sea-king's mound». It seems, however, as if the name must be of more recent origin, as the Norwegians are known to have called the mound Orka Mound. The author believes that like the Mass Tower in the bishop's palace at Kirkwall, it is derived from the word «manse», as the mound stands on the Stennis Manse land. The mound clearly marks the zenith of the architecture of the Picts on the Islands. The «How-boy», which the super- stition of the people believed to be the occupant of the mound, is evidently of Norwegian origin, answering to the Norwegian «Haugebonde» (Haug-buir).
b. Stone Circles and Solitary Standing Stones.
There is a distinction between dolmen (stone table), the isolated tomb with a stone slab upon the upright stones, «menhir», the single monolith, and «crom- lech», the circle of stones. There are two such stone circles in the Orkneys, near the loch of Stennis on Mainland — the Ring of Stennis to the east of the loch, of which only two stones are left standing; and the Ring of Brogar on a tongue of land in the loch, consisting of twelve stones. Both circles are surrounded by a trench. In the vicinity of the Ring of Stennis stands a menhir, which appears to have been taken out of the circle. It stands close to the head of the bridge, and is called the Watch-stone. A menhir that stood near, but is now gone, was called Odin's Stone. There was a hole in it, and when a man and a woman joined hands through this hole at the New Year with an invocation to Odin, the promise was just as binding as the ceremony performed by a priest. There was a condition attached to the above ceremony, namely, that the betrothed couple should pay a visit to the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon, i. e. the Ring of Brogar and the Ring of Stennis.
There are traces of similar stone circles at Vestrafjold and at Bookan. At Lingafjold, Mainland, there are remains of a dolmen like the one within the Ring of Stennis, called «the Slab of Via», and in its vicinity several remains of
Remains Found by the Norwegians on their Arrival at the Orkneys. 7
overthrown dolmens, which the people call «the Holy Kirk». Isolated upright stones, probably removed from cromlechs and used by the Norsemen as memo- rial stones, are standing on Shapinsay, Sanday, Eday and South Ronaldsay. On Shapinsay there is a « black stone of Odin», which seems to be the remains of a dolmen.
Just as dolmens were once assumed to be Druidic altars, cromlechs were long considered to be the enclosure round places of sacrifice. It is probably more correct to suppose, with Joseph Anderson, that they were memorial stones denoting a burial-place.
At Vestrafjold are to be seen the quarries from which the standing stones of Mainland were taken. We obtain some indication of the manner of their blasting in India, where the Khasis still erect dolmens for their dead. They blast the stone out of the mountain by hewing hollows in great blocks of stone, then lighting a fire, and finally throwing cold water upon the heated stone, which is thus cleft. Levers of wood, and ropes, serve for the transportation and placing of these great blocks. Anderson refers the stone circles to the Bronze Age. The Norsemen have evidently used them as defences, and unfor- tunately also as building-material.
c. Brochs.
«Pictish towers », Brochs or Broughs, since they are sometimes called bor- oughs, distinctly show that the name has the same origin as the English «bor- ough» and the Italian «borgo», while the idea they present is more or less allied to the Norwegian «borg». They are now chiefly known only as ground- plans. In the notes to Wallace's «Description of Orkney», they are called, interestingly enough, «kemp houses* in opposition to the «Picts' houses* in- habited by the mythical dwarfs. There are said to be more than 350 of these Pictish circular towers, their distribution being given in the Norwegian text.
Only one of all these brochs has been wholly preserved, namely the tower on Mousa in the Shetlands, the Moseyarborg of the Saga. The Broch of Bur- ray was unknown to P. A. Munch, who says with regard to the name Bor- garey: «The name of the island shows that the settlers must have found or built a borg there; but there is no mention anywhere of remains of any such tower ». The tower is built quite close to the water, its only entrance being on that side, so that it could be entered directly from the ships, while there was no foothold for an attack directed against the entrance. When entire, the borg has evidently had an appearance similar to that of the Moseyarborg, a trun- cated cone, of which the outer side curved upwards. The broch at Burray consisted of two concentric, circular walls of immense thickness and solidity.
3 The Monuments of the Christian Celts.
Within the inner of those walls, there is a circular court about 12 metres in diameter. The space between the two concentric walls, which are connected by radial walls, is divided into very small chambers, about 1.42 metre in diameter, alternately round and square, entered from the inner court-yard. The ceiling of these chambers has formed the floor of the next storey, and so on upwards. The inner court-yard has been open to the sky. Steps and openings for light have turned towards the court.
The Broch of Oxdro on Birsay, Newark on Sanday, Coligarth on the same island, Burrian on North Ronaldsay, and the Broch of Scapa on Mainland, are all on a similar pattern. The name «broch» is also employed for a few holms fortified by Nature or art (Deerness and Birsay). Their purpose is sufficiently distinct, and their age, concerning which opinions have differed greatly, from that of their having come into existence during an interglacial period, to their being of Norse origin, is most accurately determined by the fact that Roman graves and antiquities from about the time of Christ's birth have been found above the rubbish from ruined brochs, thus making them belong to the early Iron Age. This does not, however, preclude the possibility that many of them may be much older, their resemblance to the nuraghe of Sardinia appearing to indicate this. The Norsemen have often employed them as fortresses, and their destruction appears to be due to their also having been used as building- material.
II. The Monuments of the Christian Celts.
(circ. 600—872 A. D.)
a. Peti and Papae — «The Dwarf ie Stone of Hoy».
Tradition has handed down the names of several Pictish kings of Orkney from the time preceding the Roman invasion of the British Isles, e. g. one Belus, whose name appears in an inscription in Christ's Church on Birsay. He is said to have lived in the time of Christ, while Torfaeus identifies him with the
ndary King Bele (see Frithjof's Saga). A king Gaius (Ganus) is said to have adorned the triumphal entry of Claudius into Rome, and a King Gunnas (circ. 500) to have been cotemporary with King Artus. These must all be relegated to the realm of un authenticated traditions. On the other hand, Julius Agricola's expedition to the islands, 78 A. D. (Tacitus), is historical. On Shapinsay the
The Monuments of the Christian Celts. 9
place-name Grucula, or Agricola, is still to be found. Simultaneously with the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons, Nennius mentions that in 449 two Saxon chiefs laid waste the Orkneys; and he adds that the Picts lived there at that time, the same people that governed the islands even in his time, that is to say at the time of their conquest by the Norsemen (872). The Dalriad Scots, who had immigrated from Ireland, seem, in conjunction with Irish missionaries, to have brought Christianity to the Orkneys about the year 600. At the same time that St. Columba commends his disciple Cormac to the North Pictish king, Bruide MacMeilcon (584), when Cormac wanted to baptise the inhabitants of the Islands, the Ulster Annals of 580 mention another expedition of a warlike character to the Islands, relating that the Dalriad Scots' king, iEdan, the son of Gabran, went on a warlike expedition to the Islands. The author surmises that this warlike expedition, according to the customs of the times, was intended to ensure by forcible means a favorable result to the mission. After remaining for about 100 years under the dominion of the Dalriads, the islands were reconquered in 682 by the North Picts, in whose possession they remained until the arrival of the Norsemen. They are Christianised Picts and missionary Scots that are found again in the names Peti and Papae.
Papae, papes (Culdees, or Keledei), are mentioned by Dicuil in 825. He says that they were scattered over Iceland, the Faroe Isles, and Shetland, and relates that 30 years previously, i. e. 795, they left Iceland for fear of the Vikings. The year 795 corresponds as nearly as possible with the first years of the Norwe- gian ravages on the mainland of Britain. The plundering of Lindisfarne took place in 793. Gradually the Norsemen settled down. About the year 850, Olaf Hvide founded the Norwegian kingdom in Ireland, with Dublin as its capital. The reason why Dicuil does not mention Orkney among the islands invested by the Papes, must be that they there occupied a far more secure position than on the other islands. Thomas Tulloch's genealogical Diploma of 1443 even di- vides the people of Orkney into two «nations», Peti and Papa?. The presence of the Papes in Orkney is evidenced by numerous place-names (Papey, Papule, Papedale), the relics found, and church-dedications. The so-called «Dwarfie Stone of Hoy», which, Jo. Ben (1529) relates, was built by a giant and his wife, is possibly a Pape construction consisting of two chambers hewn in an isolated rock, with a column of rock between them, and an opening in the roof for the escape of the smoke. The legend is certainly of Norwegian origin; but the author hesitates between the assumptions of a Pape construction, and of a pre- historic rock sepulchre.
MONVMENTA ORCADICA
10 The Monuments of the Christian Celts.
b. Celtic Ecclesiastical Buildings.
When the Norwegian Ase-worshippers conquered the Islands in 872, the Papas' chimin's lay unused for a century and a half, until the Norsemen them- mbraoed Christianity. The question then arises:
How tire the Celtic churches in Orkney to be distinguished front the Norwegian?
The author believes that the following distinguishing features hold good: (1) the erection of so-called beehive-houses with parapets, round the churches, indicates Celtic origin; (2) the walls of the Celtic churches on the Islands are dry-built, those of the Norwegian churches cemented; (3) window and door jambs converging upwards testify at any rate to Celtic influence; (4) the win- dow-openings being narrowest on the exterior of the wall is a peculiarity of Celtic churches, or of churches exposed to Celtic influence; (5) circular towers appear so late in Ireland, that the circular towers in the Orkneys must date from Norwegian times; (6) true round arches must be from Norwegian times; (7) likewise semicircular apses; (8) the Celtic churches in Orkney generally have only two apertures — a door in the west wall, and a window in the east; (9) the Celtic churches on the Islands are in the form of a parallelogram, while a lower and narrower chancel indicates Norwegian origin ; (10) the presence of a rood-loft shows the building to be from Norwegian times; (11) dedications to Culdee saints indicate Celtic churches, to Norwegian saints Norwegian churches. More detailed arguments will be found in the Norwegian work.
Judging from these distinguishing features, we have
1. Ruins of Celtic Churches in Preservation.
( 1 ) The church on the Broch of Deerness, with a collection of beehive-houses. Until quite recently, pilgrimages were made to this church. (2) Halcro Chapel, on South Ronaldsay, a now almost entirely obliterated parallelogram. (3) St. Tred- well's Chapel on Papa Westray was dedicated to the Celtic St. Triduana (St.Tred- well, St. Trullen, Norw. Trollhaena), a virgin from Achaia, who accompanied St. Re- gulus to the North in the fourth century. She healed diseases of the eye. There are considerable remains of the chapel still standing. (4) The chapel on the Head of Hol- land, Mainland, now almost entirely destroyed. (5) The present author believes he has seen beehive-houses on the Broch of Birsay, around the ruins of the Norwegian church, no doubt the remains of a Celtic church, dedicated to St. Columba (see fig. 129). Wallace says — and the present author's observation leads him to the same
The Monuments of the Christian Celts. H
result — that pilgrimages were made to the church on the Broch of Birsay, presumably because the original church, like that on the Broch of Deerness, was an old Celtic sanctuary. The church-bell found buried in a coffin in the churchyard at Saverough, may also indicate the existence in the neighbourhood of a Celtic church. (6) The church on Copinsay. According to information given by Mr. James Cursiter, there are remains of a Celtic church with beehive- houses on Copinsay.
2. Celtic Churches that Have Disappeared.
These may be supposed to have existed at places with compound names containing the word Papa, or where later churches are dedicated to Celtic saints. In this latter manner, the present author proves the existence of eight Celtic Churches. To these must probably be added an old church on Egilsey, which has been succeeded by the present St. Magnus' Church, and the church that has caused the first Norwegian settlers to give its name to the coast town of Kirkevaag.
BOOK II. NORWEGIAN MONUMENTS.
(872—1468)
I. Norwegian Monuments under Celtic Influence.
(872-circ. 1200)
a. Norwegian Tumuli from the Heathen Viking- Time.
(872-1014)
1. Barrows, Foundations of Houses, and Fortifications on Sanday. The Norwe- gian burial-mounds differ from the Celtic in being made of earth (barrows), whereas the latter are composed of stones (cairns), over which a thin layer of earth is thrown. Norwegian graves, enclosing both unbnrned bodies and urns containing ashes, and with numerous weapons and ornaments from the late Iron Age of Norway, are found on many of the islands; but Sanday in parti- cular, even during part of the Celtic time, was a stronghold of the Norwegian Vikings. Scutwick was the nearest haven on the islands to Norway, and Tofts- ness has once formed a populous settlement, shut off by a stone rampart which seems to recall the Norwegian pre-historic fortifications, e. g. the barricade right across Kongsholmen in Selbu Lake. The author supposes the residence of the first Norwegian earls to have been here, erected over an earlier Celtic town. This seems to be confirmed by the place-name Coligarth, which Wallace, in 1693, calls Cuningsgar, the Norwegian «Kongsgaard». There are several fortifications and burial-mounds, e. g. Augmund's Mound and the Myrtis Mounds. Some small cemented chapels (inside measurement 4x3 metres) must also be Norwegian. They are called St. Peter's Church in Newark, St. Magdalen's Chapel in Over- bister, and the Chapel of Arstas (?).
j 4 Norwegian Monuments.
a The Bloody Tuacks. As early as 1698, Wallace mentions the finding in a Brave at Tranabv a Bkeleton with a sword in one hand and a «Danish axe» in the other. The objects discovered appeared when the wind had blown the sand away from them. Several subsequent discoveries of Scandinavian anti- quities arc mentioned under altogether similar circumstances, such as, for instance, at PierowaU in 1849, and at Highlandman's Hammer. Popular tradition calls these places the bloody tuacks*, in memory of the bloody, but forgotten battles of olden time.
::. lvars Knowe on Sanday. The Norwegian chieftains conquered by Harald Haarfager, sought in the Orkneys for a place whence they could harass the new kingdom at home. Harald therefore invaded the Orkneys, and subdued them, as also the Shetlands, the Hebrides and Man. He was accompanied on his sedition by Ragnvald, Earl of More, who had his brother Sigurd and his son Ivar with him. Ivar fell in this expedition, and it appears as if the oldest named Norwegian monument in Orkney is the barrow on Sanday which still bears his name — Ivar's Knowe. This too, seems to be an evidence that Sanday was the first place in which the Norwegians settled. Whereas P. A. Munch assigns the date 870 to the expedition, the present author is more inclined to place the expedition and Ivar's Knowe in the autumn of the year of the battle of Hafrsfjord, 872.
4. Sigurd's Grave-mound on Ekkjalsbakke in the North of Scotland. This grave of an Orkney Earl on the Scottish mainland, is associated with the name of the first Earl of Orkney. Kagnvald, Earl of More, received the isles of Shet- land and Orkney from King Harald as an earldom, but, with the king's con- sent, made over the earldom to his brother Sigurd. Sigurd entered into an alliance with Thorstein the Red, the Norwegian king of Dublin, and together with him invaded the north of Scotland. He met with his death on one of these expeditions in 875, and was buried in a barrow on Ekkjalsbakke near the mouth of the river Oykel, which formed the southern boundary of Sutherland and generally of the Norwegian rule in Scotland. Joseph Anderson has succeeded in identifying the place in which Sigurd was buried. There is a place near the Oykel bearing the name of Cyder Hall, and by tracing back this name in ancient charters, he has found that the place was called Siddera in 1640, Sythe- raw in 1275, and Siwardhoch in 1224, Siwardhoch evidently being Sigurd's hau^. The present author is not aware whether any subsequent investigations of this matter have been made.
5. Halfdan's How on Sanday(?). Sigurd's son and successor, Guttorm, died childless in 876, and the Earl of More now sent his son, Hallad, to the Islands; but he soon returned to Norway. The Earl of More then sent his third son, Peat-
Norwegian Monuments. jg
Einar — so called because he taught the inhabitants of the treeless islands to burn peat — over to Orkney ; and from him is descended the whole line of the powerful Earls of Orkney, while from his half-brother Rollaug was descended the mighty race of the Sidu Halls in Iceland, and from his other half-brother, Ganger-Rolf, the dukes of Normandy, afterwards kings of England. When Harald Haarfager's son, Halfdan Halegg, had burnt Ragnvald, Earl of More, in his house, he went over to the Islands to drive out Peat-Einar; but Einar overcame him in a battle at North Ronaldsay, and cut a blood-eagle on his back, i. e. sacrificed him to Odin by drawing out his lungs and heart through his back between the ribs. Munch thinks that the sacrifice took place on San- day, and that he has found Halfdan's grave at Tresness in the cairn now called Wassa. The present author thinks, however, that this assumption is unfounded, as Snorre expressly says that Einar «killed Halfdan in Rinansey» (North Ronald- say), whereas Tresness lies on the south-east point of Sanday, farthest from Rinansey; and the cairn is just the Celtic form of grave. Harald Haarfager imposed a fine upon the inhabitants of the Islands for the murder of his son; but as the peasants found this too heavy, Peat-Einar paid it himself on condi- tion that the peasants gave up to him their odal rights, i. e. their right of pos- session of the land they cultivated.
6. Thorfinn's How on Hoxa (Haugseid, South Ronaldsay). Peat-Einar's three sons, Arnkell, Erlcnd, and Thorfinn Hausakljuv, inherited the earldom at their father's death. The first two fell in one of the battles fought by their exiled feudal lord, Erik Blodokse, in England (circ. 950). Thorfinn (933—963) married Grelaug, a daughter of the Scottish maormor Dungad, and obtained with her the earldom of Caithness. He was buried in a mound at Haugseid, which has certainly received its name from the numerous barrows and Celtic graves found there. Among these there is one particularly large one, which some have wished to identify as Thorfinn Hausakljuv's burial-mound ; and Low actually relates in his Tour of 1774, that at that time there was still a tradition upon the island that «the son of a Norwegian king» was buried in the How of Hoxa. The large mound has proved to contain the remains of a Pictish tower, and examples are to be found of sepulchral chambers being arranged by the Norsemen in these old ruins, the Romans having also done the same. In any case it is not unreasonable to suppose that the mound at Haugseid may really have covered the earthly remains of Thorfinn Hausakljuv.
7. The Barrows on Howardsty (at Stennis on Mainland). Thorfinn 's son Arnfinn married the daughter of Erik Blodokse, the fiendish Ragnhild, who killed him in order to marry his brother, Earl Haavard the Aarscete, whose surname indicates happy seasons. These were not of long duration, however. Ragnhild fell in love with her husband's nephew, Einar Klining, and persuaded
|a Norwegian Monuments.
him to fall upon his unele. This attack, which ended in Earl Haavard's death took plaoe near the stone oirolea at Stennis, where a number of Norwegian harrows oommemmorate the battle. In the largest of these was found an urn containing ashes (in the Museum in Edinburgh), possibly those of Earl Haavard himself. The plaoe still hears the name of Howardsty, evidently the Norwegian Haavardfiteigen. The universal contempt shown to the murderer obliged Ragn- hild to see the impossibility of putting him in possession of the earldom. She lost all desire to wed him, and put him out of the way by the aid of his cousin, Binar Hardkjarft, to whom she promised marriage and earldoms. He fared no better than the first Einar, however; for when he had killed him, the wily princess had once more changed her mind, and believing that the Orkney sants would only have one of Thorfinn's sons for their earl, she turned to the third of them, Ljot, whom she married. Ljot now had to fight both against the disappointed Einar Hardkjarft, and against his brother Skule, who claimed a share of the earldom. Ljot defeated and killed them both, but fell himself soon after in a battle with the Scots who had joined Skule. At the same time Ragnhild also disappears from the Saga. The fifth of Thorfinn's sons, Lodve, now took the earldom and married the Irish princess Edna. At his death, about 980, he left the earldom to his son, Sigurd Digre (d. 1014). He became greater than any of the former earls, as, besides the Orkneys, he also subdued Caithness, Sutherland, Eoss, Moray, Argyle, and the Hebrides, Man, and certain parts of Ireland. He obtained men and ships for his conquests by giving back to the Orkney peasants the freehold of which Peat-Einar had deprived them. His mother, who was versed in the magic art, wove for him the famous banner that brought victory, the «Raven Banner*, which recalls Odin's raven. He mar- ried a daughter of the Scottish king, Malcolm. Olaf Tryggvason forced him in a treacherous manner to adopt Christianity, and his Christianity was what might have been expected. He fell fighting on the side of the heathen Norsemen in the great battle between Irish Christianity and Scandinavian heathendom, known by the name of <Brian's battle*, the battle of Clontarf, near Dublin, on Good Friday, the 23rd April, 1014. Heathen customs and ways of thinking long con- tinued in the nominally Christianised Orkneys.
b. Norwegian Monuments from the 11th Century.
1. The Banqueting-Hall at Sandvik is no longer in existence, but the Ork- neyinga Saga gives an important indication of its appearance. Sigurd Digre's sons, Sumarlide (d. 1015), Einar Vrangmund, and Bruse, inherited the earldom after him, while their half-brother, the son of the Scottish king's daughter, Thorfinn, who was still a child, had received Sutherland and Caithness as a
Norwegian Monuments. yi
fief from his maternal grandfather. He was brought up by Thorkel at Sandvik, and Thorkel was active in trying to obtain for him a share of the earldom of the Isles. A final arrangement with Earl Einar was come to, and the agree- ment was to be celebrated by two feasts, one given by each of the parties to it. The first feast was held in the autumn of 1020 at Thorkel's at Sandvik. «The banqueting-hall», says the Saga, «was a large hall, with a door at each end . . . . There were fires on the floor »; and the bench, or seat of honour, is also mentioned. Little though this is, it yet distinctly shows that the hall was of the very same character as banqueting-halls of the same period in Norway. Just at this very time, St. Olaf was building a hall in Nidaros, with a door at each end; and the arrangement with fires on the floor presupposes a hearth in the middle of the floor, and an opening in the unceiled timber roof. There has probably been, as in Norway, an entry and a small chamber, at any rate at one end of the hall. The dwellers in Orkney have thus carried with them the model of their halls from their native country, although it is uncertain whether, on these treeless islands, they did not rather build with stone than with wood. It was in this hall that Thorkel killed Earl Einar, when he saw that the latter meditated treachery towards him and his foster-son.
2. The Norwegian Earls' Palace at Birgsaa. The young Earl Thorfinn, who was now to share the power with Bruse, attempted to appropriate as much of the dominion as possible, and to dislodge his peaceable half-brother. They then went to King Olaf the Holy, who mediated between them, but also took the opportunity of asserting Norway's power over the Islands. Bruse left his ten- year-old son, Ragnvald, in Norway as King Olaf's foster-son, and Ragnvald was at the king's side when he fell at Stiklestad, after which he followed Harald Haardraade to Gardarike. After Bruse's death in 1031, Thorfinn ruled alone over the Islands, until in 1035 he had to share the power with Ragnvald Bruseson, who had returned home. This he could easily do, as in the mean time he had become lord over as many as eleven earldoms, besides the Hebri- des, Man, and part of Ireland. As the son of King Malcolm's daughter, he was related to King Macbeth, and was moreover married into the powerful Norwe- gian Gidske family, having married Finn Arneson's daughter, Ingebjorg, called « Earl's mother ». The relations between the two earls, however, soon developed into open enmity, and Ragnvald was defeated at Randabjorg in Caithness in 1045. He pondered, however, on revenge, and succeeded one dark night in getting everything ready to burn Earl Thorfinn in his palace on Hrossey (Main- land); but although the house was burnt down, the Earl himself and his wife escaped, and rowed over to Caithness. Since the Saga says that Thorfinn's earl's seat was at Birgsaa, it must have been there that the attack took place. In the large earl's palace erected at Birgsaa in the 16th century by Robert Stuart, there is really a portion that seems to belong to a much older build-
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 3
ig Norwegian Monuments.
ing the north-east oorner tower (see Bg. 125). It is probable that this is really the remains oi the earlier Norwegian carl's palace; but on the other hand, it is more than doubtful whether it can be taken back to Thorfinn's time, as the Saga says that Thorfinn's house «took fire* and was «burnt down»; and more- over, as the Karl took a plank out of one of the house-walls in order to make his wav out of the building, it seems as if the old earl's palace must have been built of wood. The fact that in the old stone tower there is a fire-place, whereas at that time fire-places could hardly have been known in the North, also leads one to believe that the tower is from a somewhat later time.
:i. The Town at Kirkevaag (Kirkwall). Earl Ragnvald placed his residence upon the neck of land that separates Kirkevaag Inlet on the North from Bcapa Bay in the south — an excellent choice, which laid the foundation of the present Kirkwall. In this undertaking also, Norwegian tradition asserted itself, for the ground-plan of the town shows to this very day that it was planned exactly like the Norwegian towns, Tunsberg, Nidaros, Oslo, Bjorgvin and Sta- vanger, namely, with a lower street running along the harbour, with quays on one side and warehouses on the other, and an upper street, parallel with the first, with dwelling-houses. Between these two main streets there ran connect- ing streets, called in Norway «almenning». As in the Norwegian towns, we find moreover also in Kirkwall the ruler's palace and the cathedral side by side at one end of the town, although now, it is true, St. Magnus' Cathedral and the earl's palace are in the very middle of the town.
4. St. Olafs Church in Kirkwall. Ragnvald Bruseson's filial relations to Olaf the Holy make it probable that the church named in the later Middle Ages St Olafs Church, which must have been the parish church of the town before the erection of St. Magnus' Cathedral, was built by Earl Ragnvald. In Bridge Street there is a private house (fig. 29), which outwardly is in no way distinguished from the rest of the houses in the street, except that its frontage is not in the same line as that of the other houses. This oblique position indicates that the house is older than the others; and the doorway, with a semicircular arch (fig. 30) of the 16th century, an ambry, and a piscina with late Gothic Tudor arches and pinnacles, show that we are in a church, although the interior is now divided into three rooms and two storeys. The numerous graves, tombstones and skeletons found round about the house also prove that the building has been a church; and that the church is the remains of St. Olafs Church is evident from the fact that the brook formerly running close by the house, and the bridge crossing it, bore the names respectively of Ola's Well and St. Ola's Bridge. The present Bridge Street must also take name from this bridge. The old bed of St. Olafs Brook is still indicated by the obliquely-running street, which still bears the name of «the burn», and
Norwegian Monuments. 19
where there is still a spring of water. The now so-called Poorhouse Close be- hind the church was moreover formerly called St. Ola's Churchyard. The orna- ment is Late Gothic, and thus does not belong to Ragnvald's original building, which was burnt in 1502. The church still lay in ruins in 1529, but seems to have been rebuilt by Bishop Reid, 1540-1558.
5. Christ's Church in Birgsaa. Ragnvald Bruseson, who was living in the belief that Thorfinn had been burnt in his house, was soon to discover his mistake; for in 1045 Thorfinn attacked and killed him during a stay on Papa Stronsay. Thorfinn was now sole ruler; but the peaceful conditions that super- vened, and his fear that King Magnus would avenge his foster-brother, seem to have aroused his slumbering conscience. We hear at this time that the primate of the Norwegian church, Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen, received an emissary from the Orkneys, requesting him to send teachers to the Islands. This emissary appears to have been Earl Thorfinn himself, who, in 1050, went on a pilgrimage to Rome together with his kinsman, Macbeth. There he re- ceived Pope Leo IX's permission to found a separate bishopric for the Orkneys, whose first bishops were Thorolf and Rodulf. The line of Orkney bishops is generally reckoned from William I, under whom the see was removed to Kirk- wall (1112 — 1168). The new bishopric's episcopal church, Christ's Church in Birgsaa, must thus have been erected by Thorfinn (1050—1064). Only faint traces of the mediaeval church are to be found in the parish church erected in the 18th century, the latter being a simple parallelogram, the southern wall of which is of mediaeval origin. In this wall is set a pointed window, under the sill of which, in bold capital letters of the 13th or 14th century, may be read «S. BELLUS», in red sandstone. It must be this Bellus who has given occasion to the tradition about a King Belus of the Orkneys. The church has possibly had a lower and narrower chancel, of which the foundations appear to show remains.
6. St. Peter's Church on the Brough of Birsay. If Christ's Church gives little information regarding the character of the churches of the 11th century, this is all the more clearly shown by St. Peter's Church. The conquest of England by the Normans in 1066 brought about several changes in building- forms, the Anglo-Saxon rectangular termination to the choir, in particular, being exchanged for the semicircular apse that belonged to the churches of Nor- mandy and the Continent. But the island inhabitants clung so fast to tradi- tion, that after a hundred years' struggle for existence, it once more disap- peared from the English churches. We now find a semicircular Romanesque apsidal design such as this in the church whose ruins still rise a few yards from the ground out on the Brough of Birsay. A Celtic church, dedicated to St. Columba, originally stood here (see above). Barry states that the church
■20 Norwegian Monuments.
of which these are the ruins was dedicated to St. Peter. It consists of a nave, with b lower and narrower chancel and semicircular apse. It is thus probably from the time L066 HOC). A stone bench has run round the walls of the nave, of the tame kind as the wooden bench in the Norwegian timber churches. At the cast end of the nave, towards the chancel, there are two chapels in the north and south, red angular outside, but semicircular, or rather more than semicircular, inside. A similar feature occurs in Norwegian stone churches, e. g. Yernes and Thingvold. In the southern chapel there is a step of a spiral staircase. The two chapels have probably formed the base of two towers that have risen one on each side between the nave and the chancel, as in Stavan- ger Cathedral (oirc. 1127). The spiral stair in the south tower will have led up to a rood-loft in front of the choir, whence there has been access to the tower over the other chapel, in which there is no trace of a stair. In the drawing in Low's Tour (fig. 129), the north tower is distinctly visible, and was thus still standing in 1774. A similar design is found in the later church of Deerness, and, as regards the means of access to the towers, in St. Mary's Church in Bergen. There is a window in the chancel, and an ambry; and in later times a reredos was raised right across the apse, which of course had a seinieireular vault. The roof was of timber. The church was probably erected in the time of Thorf inn's sons, Paul I and Erlend, probably by the latter. In 1098, the two earls were carried to Norway by Magnus Barfod, and there they both died in a remarkably short time. Until the death of King Magnus in 1103, the islands were governed by Norwegian authorities under the presi- dency of the king's son, Sigurd (Jorsalfar).
7. The Later Church of Deerness. Out on the Broch of Deerness, there stood, almost up to the year 1832, an extremely interesting church, of which the design so exactly resembles the one described above, that it seems as if they must have belonged to about the same time. Low describes it as follows: «The east end consists of a vault which crosses the breadth of the inside, and at each side of this is erected a small steeple. Thro' the vault or quire one enters the steeple on his right hand, and by a turnpike stair goes to a small apartment or vestry built between the steeples. From this last apartment he enters the second tower, which, or both probably, have had bells; these are now gone, said to have been carried away by Cromwell's soldiers*. The posi- tion of the gable window shows that the church must have had an open timber roof. Its resemblance in the plan of its towers to that of St. Peter's is striking. i It was built of very hard lime», says Low, presumably meaning rubble walls like those in so many Norwegian churches.
Norwegian Monuments. 21
c. Norwegian Monuments from the 12th Century. a. St. Magnus' Time.
1. The Thing-stead on Hrossey. The Islands' Thing-stead was formerly generally supposed to have been the stone circles at Stennis, and Worsaae believes that no such name as Thingvold, a name that is preserved both in the north of Scotland and in Shetland — is to be found in Orkney. In reality, however, the Thing-stead must be sought for at the farm of Thingwoll in Ren- dale. The earls Paul and Erlend had each left a son, who took the earldom, after them, Haakon Paalson and Magnus the Holy. As their men found a difficulty in agreeing, they were preparing for battle at the Thing-stead on Hrossey (Orkneyinga Saga, Chap. XXXVI). Chapter XCVIII gives further parti- culars, saying that Svein Asleifson went to Rennadal, where his father's brother, Helge, lived at the Thing-stead.
2. The Church of Orfjara. In order to effect a reconciliation between the two earls, it was agreed that they should meet at Egilsey in Easter week, 1115. At this meeting, Earl Haakon fell treacherously upon his pious cousin and killed him on the 16th April, 1115. This date, which is given by the Saga, is not, it is true, in Easter-week (the week after Easter Day), but seems to be put in arbitrarily in order to assign to the holy Magnus the same day of death as Christ, Good Friday in the year 1116 having fallen upon the 16th April, In the same way the date of King Brian's death at the battle of Clontarf is given as Good Friday, the 23rd April, 1014; and the solar eclipse at Stiklestad seems to be incorrectly referred to the 29th July, in order to give to St. Olaf's death a resemblance to that of Christ. The body of Magnus was buried, at his mother's desire, in Christ's Church in Birsay. Haakon Paalson seems to have been seized with remorse, and went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, probably between 1116 and 1118, and died as a beloved ruler in 1122 or 1123. He lived at Orfjara, where mention is made a few years subsequently (1135) of a splendid church. Its ruins show it to have been a round church with a square chancel, barrel-vaulted, and terminating in an apse. As there are but few (5) round churches in the British Isles, and all belong to the decades about Earl Haakon's time (1101—1185), and as moreover all these churches seem to be imitations of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and bear such names as St. Sepulchre, the Temple, etc., and are thus connected with the visits of the Crusaders to Jerusalem, it may safely be assumed that the Orfjara Church was built in expiation of the murder of St. Magnus by Earl Haakon, between 1118 and 1122. The dome mentioned by later authors was probably a conical roof. Only the east end of the circular nave, and the chancel, are now standing.
.ij Norwegian Monuments.
S. 11m Kail's Palace at Orfjara. Earl Haakon left two sons who inherited the earldom. Harold Sletmaale, the son of a concubine, and Paul Umaale, a legitimate son. While staying at Orfjara, Harald's mother, Helga, and her Bister Frakark, tried to poison Karl Paul by means of a poisoned cloak; but by mistake Harald wrapped himself in the cloak, and fell a victim to his mother's Btrategem (1127). The two women and the Norwegian adventurer acting in concert with them, Sigurd Slembe, were now obliged to leave the Islands; and Paul resided at Orfjara as sole earl. The Saga gives us information as to the appearance of the Karl's Palace, for one thing mentioning the chamber in which the two women sat and sewed the poisoned cloak, and further saying (Chap. LX): cThere were large buildings there; they stood on the slope of the hill, and
there was a hill behind the houses There was a large drinking-hall at
orfjara: the door was near the east gable on the southern wall, and opposite the door stood a splendid church, and there was a way down to the church from the hall. On entering the hall, a large stone slab was to be seen to the left, and within there were ale-vessels many and large; but opposite the entrance there was a closet* In the course of the story we learn that this closet had a window furnished with parchment instead of glass. These few hints show that the hall was built exactly like the Norwegian halls. It was in this hall that Svein Asleifson, «the last of the Vikings», entered on a career of great impor- tance to the Islands, by the murder of Svein Briostreip in 1135.
The next heir after St. Magnus was Kale Kolson — better known by the name of Earl Ragnvald — whose mother Gunhild was a sister of St. Magnus, and lived at Agder in Norway as the wife of the wealthy farmer Kol. This young man, as early as 1116, had made the acquaintance in Grimsby of a certain Gilchrist, whom he succeeded in raising to the Norwegian throne as a sup- posed son of Magnus Barfod. Sigurd Jorsalfar gave to Kale Kolson the earldom of the Orkneys, which, however, he had to conquer for himself. For this pur- pose Kale entered into an alliance with Frakark to drive out Paul, who refused to make any agreement with Kale; but Paul defeated Frakark's fleet at Tann- skarunes in the summer of 1135, and then, while Kale was on shore, took pos- session of his ships which lay off Shetland, so that Kale had to return to Norway without having effected his object. In the battle at Tannskarunes, Paul had received efficient help from the peasant Olaf Eolfson. In revenge for this, Krakark had Olaf Rolfson burnt in his house. When his son Svein (sur- named Asleifson after his mother) heard of this, he went on Christmas Eve, 1136, i" Karl Paul at Orfjara. It was of course his intention to seek the Earl's assistance; but during the feast he quarrelled with one of his host's nearest men, Byein Briostreip, and had to flee as an enemy of the Earl. This decided tin- fate both of the Earl and of the Islands.
Norwegian Monuments. 23
4. The Castle at Daminsey was the place to which Svein fled. This castle, which is called «a large castle», has now entirely disappeared. Possibly it was originally a Pictish tower. Svein went thence to his kinsman, Bishop William at Egilsey.
b. Earl Ragnv aid's Time.
5. St. Magnus' Church on Egilsey, the most interesting of the ruins of country churches in the Orkneys, is placed by Wilson, P. A. Munch, and others, among the ancient Celtic churches that existed before the arrival of the Norsemen, erected by Irish papes. Munch also thinks that the island derived its name from the fact that this church was the oldest in the Islands, the name Egilso not having come from the man's name Egil, but from the Irish (of Latin deri- vation) «ecclais», church. This ingenious hypothesis, however, is not new. As early as 1529, Jo. Ben calls the island Egilschay, «quasi dicas ecclesiae insula- rum, the kirk-isle». Buchanan writes «Eglisa». Jos. Anderson gives the date of the church as about 1000; Dryden hesitates between Celtic and Norwegian origin. The present author tries to show that it can hardly be earlier than 1135, and was probably built by Bishop William during the years 1135 to 1138. The church, which, with the exception of the missing roof, is in a good state of preservation, is without aisles, has a lower and narrower chancel at the east end, terminating rectangularly, and a tall circular tower at the west end. This circular tower is bonded with the nave, and must therefore have been built at the same time, although the stones are smaller than those in the body of the church, a circumstance which is easily explained by the fact that the circular form is more easily constructed of small stones. The tower seems to have been of four storeys, and has no entrance from without, but two from the nave, one on the ground floor, and one that must have led from a gallery that probably ran all round the nave below the open timber roof, and corresponded with a door in the east end of the nave, that opened into the choir-loft. There were two round-headed windows in the nave, opposite one another in the north and south walls. It is doubtful whether the numerous holes in the walls are to be explained as holes where beams have rested, or holes to shoot through; there are perhaps both. The chancel is covered with a barrel vault, and opens in its entire breadth on to the nave. Above the vault is a loft, with a window at the east end. A comparison with the distinguishing features that the present author has given above as characteristic of Celtic and Norwegian times, will show that the church can only belong to the latter, but hardly, as Jos. Ander- son makes out, to the time about 1000; for who, in the time of the heathen Sigurd Digre, could have built a church, let alone such an advanced church as this, upon the Islands? The present author also thinks that Dryden's possible
•j j Norwegian Monuments.
Bumptian of the date as about 1100 is a little too early. He does not deny that there has been an earlier Celtic ehureh upon the same spot; for St. Magnus is said to have gone into the church before his death; but it cannot be the same church.
The author now comes to the circumstance that obliges us, when we have once had to acknowledge the Norwegian origin of the church, to fix the date of its erection at a time shortly after 1135. This circumstance is that the church is dedicated to St. .Magnus. It is true this dedication is only founded upon indent tradition; but it appears self-evident that there must be a church on the spot where the saint died, and that this church must be dedicated to the martyr whose blood has given to the island all its historic importance. No doubt, for instance, is entertained as to the correctness of the dedication. Now if the church were a Celtic church, one could imagine it re-dedicated to this rwegian saint after having been dedicated to a Celtic saint; but if it belongs to Norwegian times, as its whole style proves, it is impossible to explain the erection of so large a church on this little out-of-the-way island, before it had acquired a great ecclesiastical importance as the place of St. Magnus' death. It must then be more recent than the worship of St. Magnus on the island — 1135. In 1137 St Magnus' Cathedral was founded, and as there is a close connection between Egilsey and the bishop who was the builder of the cathedral, some influence of the cathedral's Anglo-Norman style would have been sure to appear in Egilsey Church, if it had been built later. The present author is therefore tempted to believe that the church must have been erected during the years 1135—1138. Is there, we may then ask, in the history of the Isles at that period, anything that can support such an assumption? The author points to the events that followed immediately upon Ragnvald's unsuccessful attempt at conquest. His father Kol promised to accompany him to the Islands the follow- ing spring, when he was going to make a fresh attempt. «But», said he at a meeting with Ragnvald's warriors before their departure, «you ought to vow, if you are victorious, to build a magnificent stone minster in Kirkevaag, gran- der than any other in these lands, and dedicate it to your kinsman, the holy Magnus, providing it with money so that it can be built in a worthy manner, and that his remains and the bishop's see can be removed thither.» And Ragn- vald made the vow.
This exhortation to raise a church to St. Magnus is very extraordinary, as even as late as the autumn of 1135, the canonisation of the holy earl, far from being definitely settled, on the contrary seemed to meet with the most serious impediments. On the Islands his murderer's son, Paul II, ruled, and in refusing, as he did, to recognise the miracles and signs that were said to take place at Magnus' grave in Christ's Church in Birgsaa, he was only acting in accordance with the opinion of the bishop of the Islands, William I. This old man, in his position as Norwegian bishop as opposed to Bishop Rodulf,
Norwegian Monuments. 25
the bishop consecrated by York, looked to his friend the Earl for support; while it is likely that the worshippers of St. Magnus turned for aid to the arch- bishopric of York and Bishop Rodulf, and to the Scottish court, where St. Magnus had stayed for a long time and had his friends. Bishop William, therefore, like Earl Paul, was obliged to refuse absolutely to acknowledge the sanctity of Magnus. Notwithstanding all this, we suddenly see this same Bishop Wil- liam, no later than the 13th December, 1135, solemnly declaring Magnus to be a saint, and placing his shrine above the altar in Christ's Church in Birgsaa; and shortly after, in the spring of 1136, Ragnvald makes a vow to build the St. Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkevaag.
This was in truth a change as remarkable as it was sudden. It seems as though there must be some connection between these two events.
What has happened in the mean time? And can any connection be ima- gined between Ragnvald's vow and the changed attitude of the bishop? It almost seems so.
During the summer — 1135 — in which Ragnvald had made his unsuccess- ful expedition, Bishop William had paid a visit to Norway. On his homeward journey in the autumn of the same year, he met with contrary winds off the Shetlands. One of his men asked him then whether he would believe in the sanctity of Magnus, if, by his aid, he was able to say mass at Birgsaa the follow- ing Sunday. The bishop answered Yes, the wind changed after a prayer to St. Magnus, and the bishop got home at the right time. There was no sign, however, of his doing anything to vindicate the sanctity of St. Magnus, until he was attacked with a sudden blindness, and only after groping his way to St. Magnus' grave, and praying him to heal him, once more received his sight. This miracle decided the matter, and from that time he was as zealous an adherent of St. Magnus as he had formerly been of Earl Paul; and shortly after, as we have said, on the 13th December, 1135, the enshrining took place.
It was a matter of course that Earl Paul, who, as we know, soon after celebrated Christmas at Orfjara, saw this with wonder and displeasure.
Some time after, a man came to the bishop, and said that he had had a vision. For several nights running, the holy Magnus had appeared to him, and enjoined him, with threats of severe punishment, to declare to the bishop the will of the saint, namely, that his body should be removed to Kirkevaag. The bishop naturally obeyed the command of the saint, and the shrine, and with it the bishop's see, was removed to Kirkevaag, where the shrine was set up, temporarily it is true, upon the altar in St. Olaf's Church.
In the spring of 1136 — thus not long after — Ragnvald promises to build Magnus a church at Kirkevaag.
What is at the bottom of all this? What are we to read between the lines, and how are we to translate this legendary language into historical language ? The bishop had evidently in Norway met either Earl Ragnvald's friend, King
MONVMENTA ORCADIGA 4
Norwegian Monuments.
Barald GBlle, or Ragnvald himself, or his wise father, Kol, or more probably all three. The king's marked partisanship of Ragnvald, to whom he in a man- ner owed his crown, must have soon convinced the clever bishop that Earl Paul's ease was hopelessly lost, if the king interested himself in Ragn- vald: and he saw that his own interests and those of the church bade him attach himself to Ragnvald's cause. Kol and Ragnvald, on their side, must certainly have done everything that could be done to gain the Bishop's power- ful support in their new undertaking, which they planned for the following summer; perhaps the Bishop was even secretly summoned to Norway after Ragnvald's defeat, by the king and Kol, in order that they might make him understand the situation and give his support to Ragnvald's plans. Kol's encouraging words to his despondent son might indicate that he had arranged more than he spoke of to him — perhaps after secret agreement with the bishop.
In this connection it is worthy of notice that the first Magnus Saga was written by Rodbert twenty winters after the death of Magnus (1135—36) at the wry time when preparations were being made for the latter's canonisation. Rodbert's comments probably themselves had a considerable share in the furnishing of grounds for the change of opinion that at that time took place within the Orkney church.
But strong reasons had to be found for the Bishop's change of face, and thus it was that on the voyage home the wind-miracle testifies to the sanctity of Magnus; but still the faithful Bishop cannot bring himself to believe in any- thing that is diametrically opposed to the wish and opinion of the Earl. Then the blindness occurs — feigned of course — , and lastly its cure at the grave of Magnus. The bishop cannot longer withstand so clear an evidence of Mag- nus' sanctity; he understands that it is the saint's will that his sister's son, Ragnvald, shall support both the Church and the Isles. Then, without con- sulting Earl Paul, the saint's canonisation takes place, and this has no sooner happened than St. Magnus reveals his wish that his body shall be removed from Birgsaa to Kirkevaag. Why was the removal of the episcopal see from Birgsaa, which was a consequence of the removal of the shrine, so desirable? Birgsaa was the Earl's residence, and it could not be very pleasant for the Bishop, under the altered circumstances, to live under the very nose of the Earl, who of course, as long as he was in power, must be kept in ignorance of what might go on between the bishop and Earl Ragnvald, when the latter came to the Islands. But Kirkevaag had also been an Earl's residence, and Paul might at any time take up his abode there, in order to keep an eye upon the bishop. For the moment, however, there was no fit place to receive the saint's shrine, until a new bishop's see had been made, and a church worthy of the saint built upon the spot where he died, the natural place for his shrine and his worship — Egilsey. It seems then to be self-evident that the Bishop's
Norwegian Monuments. 27
first act after having acknowledged Magnus as holy, must be to build him a church upon Egilsey, which moreover had the advantage of lying far from all the Earl's residences, and where it was noticed that the grass grew in super- natural luxuriance on the spot where Magnus had been murdered. What could now be more natural, when there was, and must be, open enmity between the Earl and the Bishop — «What shall I do with a bishop who acts in this way?» exclaimed Earl Paul in January, 1136 (Orkneyinga Saga, chap. LXI) — than that the Bishop should replace the old, probably exceedingly delapidated Celtic chapel on the death-place of the saint, the chapel in which St. Magnus had prayed, with a new church worthy of the new saint — a bishop's church for St. Magnus, in which Bishop William could rule undisturbed by any earl, whether Paul or Ragnvald. The bishopric would thereby also acquire its true sanctity, for it could hardly have been pleasant to William, who liked to be called «the first bishop of the Islands*, to reside in a see that had been established by a layman (Earl Thorfinn), and where at any rate two former bishops, whose right to the dignity was now no longer recognised, Thorolf and his successor Rodulf — the one it is true, consecrated by the former superintendent of Norway, the archbishop of Bremen, the other by the Primate of England, the archbishop of York — must have resided with the Earl. This was the reason of the saint's last revelation, commanding the removal of his shrine. If we now re- collect that the Bishop came home in the autumn of 1135; that he immediately began to set in train his new plans; that an original St. Magnus' Church on Egilsey cannot possibly be earlier than 1135; and that Ragnvald's vow about a St. Magnus' Cathedral at Kirkwall was not made until the spring of 1136, far from the Islands, in Norway, perhaps even without the bishop's knowledge; that the result of Ragnvald's expedition must, until late in the summer, have seemed uncertain to the Bishop; and that the building of St. Magnus' Cathedral can scarcely have been begun in earnest before 1137; we then have three years in which the Bishop may have had good reason for erecting, and actually may have erected the new St. Magnus' Church on Egilsey, which he owed to the death-place of the saint. Even if the Bishop had been won over by Kol with a promise of a splendid, new bishop's church at Kirkevaag — which is not impossible — he may have had good reasons for concealing his relations with Ragnvald and Kol by erecting, notwithstanding this promise, a church upon the spot where the new saint had died, as long as Ragnvald's victory was not an accomplished fact. If Paul were the victor, the Bishop would assuredly not reside at Kirkevaag any more than at Birgsaa, with the enmity that prevailed between him and Earl Paul.
This assumption that the Bishop built St. Magnus' Church on Egilsey during the years 1135 — 1138, which, even with the circumstances now put forward, seems very reasonable, is very strongly borne out by the fact — of which the Orkneyinga Saga informs us — that during these very three years, from
m Norwegian Monuments.
Christmas 1186, to 1188, the Bishop, although he had his residence at Birgsaa stayed frequently, if not constantly, at Egilsey — then, but at no other time; and this has led to the supposition that Egilsey was really the bishop's resi- denoe in the Islands. This fact, however, is explained naturally enough by inning that the Bishop stayed often, perhaps continually, on the island du- ring these very years, In order to superintend his church-building, and also perhaps plan out a bishop's house. The first time we find Bishop William on Egilsey is at Christmas in 1135, when Svein Asleifson flees to him after the murder of Svein Briostreip at Orfjara. The friendship between Earl Paul and the Bishop must then have been a thing of the past, since Svein takes refuge from Paul with the Bishop. Further, it is evidently on Egilsey that Earl Ragnvald'e emissaries seek the Bishop in the summer of 1136, when Ragnvald was staying at Westray; for since it is said that after the meeting with him they went to Hrossey, it cannot have been at Birgsaa they met, for Birgsaa is on Hrossey. We find the bishop the third time on Egilsey shortly after, in the same summer of 1136, when Sigurd from Vestnes sends his men to Egilsey to inform the bishop of Earl Paul's mysterious disappearance; and lastly we find him there for the fourth time in 1138, when Bishop John of Athole visits him there (Orkney inga Saga, chaps. LX, LXVII, LXX, LXXI). During these years we do not find him anywhere else; but afterwards we never find him upon the island again, for by that time St. Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkwall was buil- ding, and the Bishop had moved thither.
The present author therefore ventures to assume that the Bishop's frequent and lengthy stays on Egilsey during the years 1136^-1138 were occasioned by his superintendence of the building of St. Magnus' Girthed rak which in the first instance afforded him a good excuse for leaving Birgsaa. Thus the time of the erection of the church would be determined, namely, from December, 1135, to 1138.
6. Swendro Chapel at Vestnes (Rowsay). Mention has been made of Earl Paul's mysterious disappearance, and an account will now be given of it. The year 1136 was the year of the great change in the history of the Islands, and Svein Asleifson's bold attack on Earl Paul is the axis upon which it turns. Bishop William had sent Svein from Egilsey in safety to the Hebrides; but in the spring Svein returned home, and paid a visit to Earl Maddadh at Athole in the north of Scotland. The Earl was married to Margaretha, the sister of Earl Paul, and they had a three-year-old son, Harald, for whom they were trying to obtain the earldom of the Islands. Svein then visited Earl Ottar at Thorsaa in Caithness, where Erlend, the son of the poisoned Harald Sletmaale, was being brought up. He too was aspiring to the dignity of earl; and Svein, who considered that his life was in danger from Paul, certainly made agree- ments on the second of these two visits, and possibly also on the first, their
Norwegian Monuments. 29
aim being to procure the earldom for one or both of the pretenders at Paul's expense. It is certain that not long after, he steered in to the shore at Vestnes on Rowsay, where he learned that Earl Paul was staying with his kinsman Sigurd at Vestnes. While the Earl was otter-hunting with a few men on the shore, Svein attacked him, killed his men, and carried him off. He now dis- appears entirely; but the probability is that he was carried to Athole, and there killed. On the shore at Vestnes, though not near the talus on which the Earl was hunting, there still stand the ruins of a chapel, which seems by its name, Swendro Chapel, to indicate that it was erected in memory of this event. The chapel is an elongated parallelogram, and presents various points of re- semblance to the church on Egilsey — the same gables rising in steps, the same pitch of roof, the same openings in the gables, which imply an open roof, and the same material as the Egilsey church. The ruins of a small, strong, rectangular building in a corner of the churchyard, seem to be those of a bell-tower, and recall a similar building in the corner of the churchyard of St. Nicholas' Church at Gran in Norway. One could imagine that the buil- ders who built Egilsey church had gone straight thence across the sound to Rowsay, and there built Swendro Chapel.
7. The Church on Westray. In this way, Earl Ragnvald unexpectedly found himself the lord of the Islands, when he landed on Westray in the spring of 1136. He had mass read for him in the church at Hofn (Pierowall), of which considerable remains are still to be seen. It has, however, been lengthened at the west end, although only the foundations of this remain. The addition must have been made after the Islands came into the possession of Scotland, for tradition, even as late as the 19th century, called the older part of the church «the Danes' work». The chancel is still partially roofed with a barrel vault, which rests upon the wall a little behind the imposts. The church is mentioned in the account-books of the papal nuncios in 1327 and 1328.
8. The Runic Inscriptions and Carvings in Maeshow. Ragnvald had scarcely become sole ruler of the Islands, and, true to his promise, begun to build St. Magnus' Cathedral, when Earl Maddadh of Athole, in 1139, claimed a share of the earldom for his six-year-old son, Harald Maddadhson. Ragnvald found himself under the necessity of sharing the earldom with the child, and may almost be regarded as Harald's foster-father. In 1150, when Harald had grown to manhood, the two earls went on a voyage to Norway, where they were the guests of King Inge Krokryg in Bergen, to whose party they belonged. While there, Ragnvald arranged a crusade in conjunction with the Norwegian chieftain, Erling Skakke; and two years later, Erling came over to the Orkneys with his crusaders to take up the Orkney contingent, among them being Bishop William himself. The crusaders remained on Hrossey during the winter of
9Q Norwegian Monuments.
1152—1153, and committed a number of barbarous acts mentioned in the Saga, and in addition one that the Saga does not mention, and which has only be- come known in our own day, evidences having been found when excavating the above-mentioned Maeshow in 1861, that they had broken into this mound and covered its walls with Runic inscriptions. Most of these are scribbled phrases of no significance; but they now and then alternate with elucidatory
and interesting inscriptions. They are as follows: No. 1. « it is a Viking,
who came far out here.» 2. *Eyolv Kolbeinson carved these runes high.*
3. « bre (broke open?) this mound.* 4. «Vemund carved .» 5. The
Runic alphabet. 6. «Orke's son said in the runes that he carved.* 7. «— will say — .» 8. «Ingebjorg, the fair wife; many a wife has stooped to come in here (although she was) very proud.» And below in cryptography, «Erling>. 9. «Thorny — Helge carved r(unes).» 10. «Thorer Fornir»; and below a horse with eight legs (Sleipner?). 11. «Ufram Sigurdson carved these runes.* Round this are six crosses, and a smaller one in the middle. 12. «Ottar Filla carved these runes.* 13 & 14. (13) «he (who seeks for treasure here?) does not re- member that things were carried away for three nights; the treasure was car- ried away rather than (before) (14) the Jorsalfarers broke open this mound.» 15. «Arnfidr Matr carved these runes.* 16. «With the axe that Gauk Tranil- son of Sonderlandet owned.» 17. «Hermund Haardokse — carved runes.» 18. « These runes did that man carve who is the most skilful carver of runes west of the sea.» 19 & 20. «This mound was raised before Lodbrok's; his sons, they were clever; there were scarcely any other such men as they were. The Jorsal- farers broke the Orkahaug — Earl's. It was long ago that much treasure was hidden here. Carved Simon Sig — Sigrid — happy is he who can find the great treasure — carried things out of this mound.* 21. «Arnfidr Steinson carved these runes; » below them are some defective runes. 22. In cryptography, «Tryg carved these runes.» 23. «Ingegerd is the fairest of women.» 24—33 are illegible and can hardly all be inscriptions. In «Tre orknoiske Runeindskrifter* (Three Orkney Runic Inscriptions), Magnus Olsen has interpreted the crypto- grams in an exceedingly clever way, and has shown that Nos. 22, 18 & 16 are all written by one man, Trygr by name, possibly Trygr Tranilson. Nos. 18 and 16 then form a verse:
(18) fressar runar (16) me<3 f>seirri oksi, raeist sa maflr er atti Gaukr
er rynstr er Trandils sonr
fyrir vestan haf fyrir sunnan land
More detailed remarks and explanations will be found in the Norwegian text. On the south-eastern corner-post in the mound, there is a carefully exe- cuted drawing of a highly conventionalised lion, whose form, like that of the runes, shows it to be from the 12th century.
Norwegian Monuments. 21
9. The Earl's Palace at Knarrarstad. While Earl Ragnvald and Bishop William were absent on their crusade from 1153 to 1155, the Norwegian king, Eystein, compelled Earl Harald to take the earldom in fief from him instead of from his brother, Inge Krokryg. Immediately after this, Erlend, the son of the poisoned Harald Sletmaale, claimed a part of the earldom. As Erlend was aided by Svein Asleifson, Harald was forced to comply, but tried to retrieve his fortunes by handing over to Erlend the absent Earl Ragnvald's share instead of his own. Erlend, who had gone over to Norway to obtain King Eystein's approval of the division, returned with the answer that the King had no objec- tion to the division, only that Erlend was to have Harald's share and not Ragnvald's. In this way Harald would have had to give up the entire command of the Islands; and as at the same time, King Malcolm had presented Erlend with Caithness, which belonged to Harald, the latter would have been altoge- ther landless. He therefore refused to agree to this, whereupon Earl Erlend and Svein Asleifson surprised him so suddenly in the bay at Knarrarstad on Skalpeid, that Harald and his men had to run with all possible speed from their ships, and take shelter in the castle near the farm. An agreement was come to, whereby Harald was to retain only half of Caithness. Shortly after, in 1155, Earl Ragnvald returned from his crusade, and found to his surprise both himself and his co-regent without foothold on the Islands. Although Erlend and Svein, by an agreement come to at Kirkevaag on the 23rd December, 1155, granted to Ragnvald his half of the Islands, Ragnvald had no intention of putting up for long with Erlend's co-regency, which was thus forced upon him. Open hostilities broke out, and on the 24th October, 1156, the famous Battle of the Three Earls was fought at Knarrarstad, the result of which was that Erlend and Svein took all Ragnvald's and Harald's ships and other possessions. Earl Erlend did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory, however. After a wild Christmas debauch on Daminsey, in a sleep out of which his men did not suc- ceed in waking him, he was attacked and murdered by the two earls on December 20th, 1156. Vigfusson concludes from the fact of its being «full moon», that this event took place in 1154, when full moon fell upon the 21st December, while in 1156 it fell upon the 28th; but it is a question whether the words of the original really mean «full moon». It is there said: «Nylysi var mikit». «Nylysi» means the light of the moon when the moon is waxing — the first and second quarters; and thus «Nylysi var mikit» tells us nothing more than that the moon about the 20th December was in its second quarter, and this applies both to 1154 and to 1156. It will thus scarcely be possible to determine the date by astronomic means; and we therefore follow Munch's statement, which is based upon a thorough investigation of the sequence of the historical data, as presented in N. F. H. II, p. 833.
The scene of these events, Knarrarstad, was in reality Ragnvald's residence; and while we read in the Orkneyinga Saga, chap. LXXI, that he had a house
•<•< Norwegian Monuments.
there, in which he once spent Christmas, wo learn from chapter XO that there was also a castle. There are actually still traces at Knarrarstad both of the castle and the house, as close to Scapa there are the ruins of a Pictish tower ivated by George Petrie) and to it are joined extensive foundations of houses, evidently from a later time than the tower. The Norsemen have thus surrounded the tower with buildings.
ft The Buildings of the Great Men of Orkney.
10. Longskeal on Gairsay. After Earl Erlend's murder, Svein Asleifson came to an agreement with Earl Ragnvald. A reconciliation would also have been effected with Earl Harald, if he had not been over hasty in trying to make up for the loss he had suffered in the Battle of the Three Earls, by a visit to Svein's house on Gairsay. Svein fled, escaping by the aid of a boat which he took from the monks on Hellisey. At length, however, these two also became reconciled at a meeting in St. Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkevaag, on the 1st June, 1157. At Gareksey, Svein Asleifson's house, where he used to spend the winter with 80 men at his board, while in the summer he went out on Viking expedi- tions, there was a drinking-hall which, according to the Orkneyinga Saga, chapter CIX, was the largest in the Islands. It does not seem, however, to have been finished before Svein's death, as it is related that his sons, Ola and Anders, erected the gable walls of the large drinking-hall in the summer after his death. Munch translates here incorrectly, «they furnished the drinking-hall with an upper storey ». The drinking-hall has probably been one of those with a door at each end, but until Svein's death was without entry and small chamber at the gable-ends. It is probably these rooms that the sons built at both gable- ends. It is most likely that the memory of the situation of the long drinking-hall is preserved in the name Longskeal at a farm on Gairsay. Its foundations are hardly likely to be found, as the place seems to be occupied with forti- fications.
The Earls Ragnvald and Harald now ruled together in apparent peace. The crafty Harald, however, and his cunning foster-father, Thorbjorn Klerk, lay in wait to kill Ragnvald; and during a hunting-expedition in Kalvedal in Caithness, Thorbjorn Klerk attacked the unsuspecting earl, while Harald had to submit to see his foster-father cut down by the Earl's men. This took place on August 21st, probably 1158 (or 1164?).
In 1192, the gay, light-hearted Earl Ragnvald, who was one of the best skalds of his day, but by no means a saint, was canonised, probably on ac- count of his crusade and the founding of St. Magnus' Cathedral. The 21st August is still celebrated as the «day of his martyrdom*. Svein Asleifson survived
Norwegian Monuments. 33
Earl Ragnvald some years, but fell in 1171 on an expedition to Ireland, which he had promised Earl Harald should be the last he undertook.
11. The Castle on Wire (Cobbie Row). On the little island of Vigr near Gareksey, there lived at this time a wealthy farmer, Kolbein Hruga. In the middle of the 12th century, he had a stone castle erected on the island. Munch says that the Orkneyinga Saga does not expressly state that the castle stood upon Vigr, but this is due to a corruption of the text, which formerly read: «I pann tima bjo einn ungr madr i Eyjunum er Kolbeinn hruga het»; whereas Vigfusson, instead of «ungr» reads «ivigr», i. e. «i Vigr» — «I penna tima bjo i Vigr i Orkneyjum Kolbeinn hruga, Noroenn ma<5r». We learn as definitely from Haakon IV's Saga (Chap. CLXXI) that the castle stood upon Vigr. It is there related that Snaekoll Gunneson, in 1231, after the murder of Earl John, fled to the castle that Kolbein Hruga had built upon Vigr, and there stood a siege. It is also said there that the castle was divided into an outer and an inner borg, the besieged having their provisions and a number of cattle in the outer castle (fore-borg).
Wallace says that the ground-floor of the house, which has been preserved (1693), is built in the form of a square, with thick, lime-cemented walls, a broad doorway, and a narrow slit for a window. The space within the walls measures rather more than 10 feet. Barry describes this inside keep as a square building with sides measuring 15 feet (inside measurement), and walls 7 feet thick. The castle was surrounded by trenches and ramparts. It is now almost level with the ground, but local tradition makes Kolbein Hruga a giant, Cobbie Row, who throws stones at churches, and commits other similar acts. As we see, his name has passed to the castle itself in more recent times.
12. St. Peter's Church on Wire. In 1188, Kolbein Hruga's son, Bjarne, be- came bishop of the Islands after William I's successor, William II (1168 — 1188). There is a church on Wire, which is not mentioned by Munch, and which was probably built by the clerical owner of the island. The fact that this plain, old- fashioned country church was built by the same Bjarne who had such an im- portant share in the building of the splendid cathedral of St. Magnus, is easily explained when we consider that the church was only a private chapel, erected at his own cost, and merely to serve as a place of worship for the garrison of the castle. The church is roofless, and is filled with great quantities of rub- bish. The south wall and the upper parts of the gables have fallen. These gables appear to have risen in steps like those of Egilsey and Swendro. The church consists of a nave and a lower, narrower chancel. The head of the west doorway and the chancel arch are round. The roof has been an open timber roof, covered with slabs of stone. Jo. Ben says that the whole island of Wire was dedicated to the apostle Peter, so the church was called St. Peter's church.
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 5
;54 Norwegian Monuments.
13. St. Catherine's Chapel at Linton (Shapinsay) bears so striking a resem- blance to the church of Wire, that there is every reason to attribute them both, as Dryden does, to the same time. Here, however, the entrance is on the south side, not on the west as at Wire. The dimensions are almost identical in the two churches, but there is much less of the Linton chapel left. The reason for the dedication of the chapel to St. Catherine is that Linton Farm was a portion of the church property of that saint.
d. The Vanished Monastery in the Orkneys.
14. The Chapel on Hellisey (Ellerholm). The Scottish chronicler, John of Fordun, states in the «Scotichronicon» VIII, 25 (Part I, p. 474 of the Edinburgh edition of 1759), that a certain Laurentius, who had been abbot in the Orkneys, and was a monk from the monastery of Melrose in Scotland, was elected abbot of the last-named monastery on May 14th, 1175. («Et Laurentius quondam ab- bas in Orcadia, monacus Melrosensis secundo Idus Maii electus est in abbatem Melrosensem».) There must thus have been a monastery in the Orkneys in 1175. Something of the kind, moreover, is actually indicated in two places in the Orkneyinga Saga itself. When Earl Ragnvald, on his arrival in Westray in 1136, had heard mass in the church at Hofn, he went out on the church hill, and there saw a procession of sixteen monks coming up towards the church. They wore long garments and tonsures. He thereupon sang a verse about the strange custom of the maids in the West of having bald heads, thereby re- ferring to the long garments and the tonsure (Chap. LXVI, Vigf. LXXVI).1 And in the year 1157, it is stated in so many words (Chap. XCIX) that Svein Asleifson, on his flight from Gareksey from Earl Harald, took a boat that be- longed to the monks on Hellisey (Ellerholm). It is probably this that has led several translators to render one line in the above-mentioned verse of Ragn- vald's — «sja liggr ut vi<5 elum ey» — as dies out by Hellisey*, whereas in reality there is no mention of any place-name, but only that this island lies out in the storms, the showers (elum). Our closest investigations must now be directed to the not unimportant question of where the monastery may have stood, which existed at any rate in 1175, and had an abbot.
In the above-cited chapter XCIX, there is actual mention of the monks on Hellisey, the same island that Fordun (in another place) calls Heleneholm,
1 This story and accompanying verse are here strangely abrupt and unconnected with the rest. On the other hand, the very same situation with the 16 clerics repeats itself in 1138, when from his castle at Knarrarstad at Christmas time, Ragnvald sees Bishop John of Atjoklar (Athole) coming up from the shore with his 15 companions on their way to Bishop William on Egilsey, «and they seemed strange to» him. It his here then that the verses really belong (Orkneyinga Saga, chap. LXXI, Vigf. LXXXI), and not to the year 1136.
Norwegian Monuments. 35
evidently a corruption of the Norwegian Helliarholm, Cave Island. We might thus naturally be led to believe that the monastery indicated by Fordun must be sought for upon this island. There are, however, only the foundations of a small chapel, in which service was probably held by monks from the mon- astery which has actually existed somewhere or other in the Orkneys, but of which there is at any rate no trace on this island, although the name of the «Monkhouse», probably suggested by the above-named passage in the Orkney- inga Saga, chap. XCIX, has been given in our own day to the site of a little house near the chapel. This cottage cannot have been an actual monastery, but was probably a simple abode for the monks who performed the service in the chapel. Such indistinct traces of the chapel itself remain, that no certain con- clusions can be drawn regarding the age, form, or construction of the building. We can only say that it may have been in existence in 1157.
15. The Ruined Monastery at Stromness. If we are thus obliged to leave Hellisey without having found there the monastery mentioned by Fordun, we are under the necessity of looking elsewhere to find its whereabouts. The only thing we can say with certainty about it is that it was a Cistercian monastery; for as Laurentius had been a monk of Melrose, and became abbot of Melrose, which was a Cistercian monastery, the monastery in Orkney, of which he had been abbot in the interim, must also have belonged to that order. The order of Cistercians at that time was not old; it was founded in 1098, and did not come to Norway until about 1146. It was, as we know, a revival of the Bene- dictine order, and all Norwegian monasteries before the last-named year were purely Benedictine monasteries. P. A. Munch1 suggests that possibly Christ's Church in Birsay, founded by Earl Thorfinn, may have been connected with a monastery of Cistercian monks from Melrose, just as the bishop's see in Man was long connected with, or considered to belong to, the Cistercian abbey at Furness in the archbishopric of York; but there is at any rate no sign of anything of the kind, nor any tradition or written evidence of it.
In another place2 Munch has given expression to the hypothesis that the monastery may possibly have stood on Egilsey, a circumstance which would then have been in connection with Bishop William's stay on the island from 1135 to 1138. Not only have we seen, however, that this stay was occasioned by altogether different circumstances, but Munch himself can find no other place to give as the dwelling-place of the monks on that island than the round tower of Egilsey church, an idea which would scarcely have occurred to him if he had visited the place and seen the circular space measuring 2V2 metres in diameter which he assigns to both abbot and monks. It is moreover impossible to believe that the Islands should have had a Cistercian monastery ten or
1 Saml. Afh. Ill, p. 102.
2 I.e. p. 104.
Norwegian Monuments.
eleven yours earlier than the date at which any such are known to have been founded in the mother-country.1
A modern tradition connects the name of the «Monastery» with a ruin on the south-west point of Mainland, near the town of Stromness, where in olden days there must have stood a farm called Straumnes. There is no mention of any such monastery, however, anywhere in literature, until the name suddenly makes its appearance in the year 1842; and I have not found it marked on the maps before 1881. This ruin, which I visited during my stay in the Is- lands, consists of a single, very high wall of uncoursed masonry (Stat. Ace's «Kirke»), and of a smaller, lower mass of masonry lying to the south-west of the first, both proclaiming themselves to be parts of ecclesiastical buildings, by the fact that they are in a churchyard. The large dimensions, in marked con- trast to most of the Islands' other buildings from the 12th century, seem to me decidedly to refer them to a far later period.
The expression «abbas in Orcadia* implies on the one hand a regular monastic system in the Orkneys in 1175; but on the other hand the expres- sion tin Orcadian, without giving the name of the monastery, seems to indicate that in 1175 there was only one monastery on the Islands. This does not, of course, preclude the possibility of there having been several towards the close of the Middle Ages, even if they have left no other trace than a name and a bit of wall; and the Stat. Ace. is even of opinion that the church wall may be more recent than the Eeformation, i. e. 1558. I do not think that anything is known in other ways of a monastery at Stromness; but even if it were so, it cannot have assigned to it so early a date as 1175, and we shall thus be obliged to continue our search for the site of that monastery «in Orcadia».
16. The Cistercian Monastery on Eynhallow, and its Church. The islands of Hrossey and Hrolfsey (Mainland and Rowsay) are separated by a sound, Evje Sound, in the middle of which a long island, covered with low bushes, divides the waters of the sound, which here flow in a strong current (roust) down to Kirkwall Bay. It is the island of Enhallow, or Eynhallow. The north side of the little island looks across the whirling eddies towards the dark Costa Head, while its south side, with its smooth water, looks eastwards across at the smiling Vestnes on Rowsay, westwards to the no less bright Evje on Mainland - scenery of enchanting beauty, just such as the mediaeval monks were accus- tomed to choose for the sites of their monasteries.
The name of the island, Eynhallow, points in the same direction, for it leads back to the island's mediaeval Norwegian name, Eyinhelga, the holy isle; and there is certainly a reason for its bearing this name, which is that by which the very centre of the Irish monastic life, St. Columba's holy isle of [ona, was designated by the Norsemen. The name itself actually implies the
1 Lyse Monastery, founded 1146; Hovedoen, 1147.
Norwegian Monuments. 37
existence of monastic buildings on Eynhallow; for a mere church might have given the island the name of Church Island, but the actual transfer of the name, Eyin Helga, from the Iona monastery's island distinctly implies a corresponding build- ing here. P. A. Munch does not know of the buildings on Eynhallow, and thinks that the island has obtained its name of Eyin Helga more «from the tradition of the sanctity of its soil than from any sacred building or structure erected on it». After the discovery I believe I have made upon the island, I must maintain on the contrary that the legend of the sanctity of the soil must be de- rived from the «sacred buildings and structures* on the island; for, to be brief, I believe I have found there the Cistercian monastery indicated by Fordun, which has disappeared. It was the name of the island that first turned my thoughts in this direction, and I have found the idea confirmed in all its de- tails by what the island itself has shown me.
Eynhallow lay beyond the sphere of Munch's personal investigations on the Islands, these being confined to the southern part of Mainland, Stromness, Orphir and Stennis; for the discovery of the actual church on Eynhallow, which will shortly be mentioned, seems to have been made before his visit to the Islands; and if he had set foot on Eynhallow, the fact that instead of the ab- sence of «sacred buildings and structures*, such buildings were very conspi- cuous on Eyin Helga, could hardly have escaped his sharp eye. It is more remarkable that also Dryden, who knows and has described the church, has been blind to the significance of the extensive structures surrounding it. The only explanation of this can be that he was unacquainted with the appearance of our small Norwegian monastic buildings, and has either taken the distinct mediaeval foundations for the remains of Celtic pilgrims' houses, or for more modern additions.
Until quite lately too, the island has really been regarded as holy ground, and legend says that rats and mice cannot live on it, and that «when the corn was cut after sunset, blood flowed from the straw*.1 Not only, however, could rats and mice, according to the legend, not live there, but it is a fact that human beings did not thrive there either, and for this reason the island has been uninhabited for the last fifty or sixty years. «They were good, worthy people*, said the old sailor, who rowed us across to the island, and who could remember its former inhabitants. «But they were always ill and poorly*, he added; «there was no strength in them*. Finally, probably about 1840, an in- fectious fever broke out among them; and as Mr. Balfour, who owned the island, supposed that the disease was occasioned by unhealthy dwellings, he was going to pull down the block of houses in which the people lived. When the roof was removed, however, it appeared, to the surprise of every one, that they had been living in an old church, which evidently dated from Norwegian times. Its inhabitants were now taken elsewhere, and the church was laid
1 Jo. Ben. 1529.
Norwegian Monuments.
bare and examined. As we have said, however, all its surroundings were over- looked. Dryden has given us a view of the whole block of buildings, but has made no mound-plan of it, or mentioned it in his account. It is true it is a complicated and not always easily explained group of buildings that we have before us; but 1 nevertheless do not hesitate in declaring it to be a monastery (figs. 66—68).
We will turn then, in the first place, to the church itself. In its original form, it must be earlier than the year 1175, as very primitive forms occur in it, for instance, the so-called Saxon arch; but it has been added to after that date. The chancel arch, for instance, which is evidently later than the nave, is a Gothic pointed arch. This, however, cannot be supposed to have been introduced into the Islands before about 1200. The church stands at a distance of about 200 metres from the south-west coast of the island, and when it was re-discovered formed a block of four dwellings, in which four families lived. During the time in which it was used as a dwelling, the church had of course undergone considerable alterations, all of which, however, can be demonstrated. To mention a particular instance, the place for the altar in the rectangular east wall of the chancel had been transformed into an enormous fireplace, of which the chimney and hearth are still visible in the wall.
We enter the church from the west. The first family had occupied the almost square porch (the lower storey of the tower) (C), which is somewhat narrower than the nave. It is connected with the latter by a round-headed door (4) about 1.33 metre in width; and in the west wall, opposite this door, is the principal entrance (2), a very narrow doorway, over which are raised two slabs of stone in the form of a so-called Saxon arch. It gives the impression of great age, and is certainly one of the oldest parts of the church. Strange to say, it appears to have altogether escaped Dryden's attention; it is not marked on his plan, and not mentioned in the letter-press. It was probably not discovered and opened until after Dryden had concluded his investigations about 1870; but I have not been able to obtain any certain information on this point. In the north and south walls there are two openings of the same width as the west doorway, almost close up to the east wall. The northern aperture (1) is headed by a round arch of hewn stone, the southern one (3) is flat. West of these apertures, as also close to the west wall, on both sides of the doorway in the west wall, and in towards the nave on both sides of the east door of the porch, there are small square holes right through the wall, probably loopholes. A similar hole is to be seen on the south side of the chancel arch, all of them being disposed at the height of a rest; for in those dangerous times the church Avas a place of defence. The porch has undoubtedly carried a tower; but the thinness of the walls, combined with the fact that the tower has completely disappeared, make it probable that it was built of wood.
Dryden, who, as we have said, does not know of the west doorway, denies the existence of a tower above the porch, which he supposes to be the
Norwegian Monuments. 39
original chancel of the church, in which case the entrance to the church would have been beneath the present chancel arch, which, together with the chancel itself, is of a later date than 1200. The discovery of the actually existing west doorway, however, demolishes this assumption, which would moreover imply that the church, instead of being as usual orientated, was placed with the en- trance in the east and the chancel in the west, in other words was «occiden- tated», which is improbable.
The second family appear to have inhabited the nave. In the west wall of the nave (B), there is the above-mentioned round- arched doorway from the porch, and a doorway near the west end of both north and south walls. Both these doors (5) appear to me to belong to the original ecclesiastical building, whereas the door-stop and wooden frame for a panel may possibly belong to the subsequent secular additions. Both doors are square-headed, and the posts are perpendicular. To the east of the doors the nave has a north window and a south window (6), both square-headed. The north-eastern corner of the nave presents certain remarkable features. In the north wall, for instance, there is a large square ambry, 1.20 metre in height, 1.20 metre broad, and V2 metre deep. The bottom of it is at a height of 1.16 metre above the floor. In the very corner there are vestiges of a stair up to the rood-loft above the chancel, similar to that which we believe we have found in the churches of Deerness and Brough of Birsay.
The third family occupied the chancel and a smaller apartment added to it subsequently.
The chancel (A) opens on to the nave through the previously-mentioned large, pointed chancel arch (7), which Dryden, indeed, considers to be of later date than the nave. It is of hewn stone, and at the impost has an abacus of red sandstone. In the north wall of the chancel, there is a rectangular-headed door, which must, however, belong to the secular additions, and has been knocked through in order to give the family who occupied the chancel a sepa- rate entrance through an almost square, newer room built at the same time outside the door. The south wall of the chancel and the rectilinear east wall have received the addition in more recent times of an external strengthening wall. The south wall of the chancel is further strengthened with a buttress, which appears to belong to the original building, whereas the two similar strong buttresses on the south side of the nave are of quite recent date, having indeed been put up since the discovery of the church, for the support of the weak portions of the wall (see fig. 3). The east wall of the chancel, as already mentioned, has been transformed into a fireplace. A square-headed window is found in the north wall, and another similar one in the south wall. The church has evidently not been vaulted, but has had an open roof.
We have not yet, however, come to the end of this peculiar church. If we return to the nave, and go out at its south door, we come upon a strange
4(1 Norwegian Monuments.
construction — a little, square room, not bonded with the church (fig. 69). The walls as they now stand are only about 2 metres in height. The entrance to the room has evidently boon on the east side (a) close to the wall of the church, -t of the south door of the nave. The part of the room nearest the church forms a narrow passage, while the south part is occupied by a winding stair, of which there are only eight steps remaining, but which show's that this ante- ohamber has been much higher; for in its further windings the spiral stair must have ascended above the south door of the nave, supported by the wall of the nave. This chamber must thus in all probability have been the base of a belfry, as the assumed west tower of wood would hardly have been adapted to carry bells, but was only a kind of watch-tower above the porch, which, with its loopholes, entirely gives the impression of a place of defence. The belfry seems to have been of later date than the church itself, and is probably synchronous with the chancel arch and the chancel; for the red sandstone occurring here and there in those parts, is also found in the base of the tower.
Dimensions. The external length of the church is 17.27 m., its external width 5.41 m. (7.70?); the length of the nave 6.72 m., its width 3.93 m. (internal measurements); the length of the porch 2.54 m., its width 2.43 m.; the length of the chancel 4.10 m., its width 2.54 m., the thickness of the walls 0.82 m., the supposed height of the nave about 6 m., the area of the room on the north of the chancel 2.62 x 2.46 m.
It would appear, from what has been stated above, that at the beginning of the Gothic architectural period, i. e. a little later than 1200, during Harald Maddadhson's latter days, the church has received a new chancel and belfry; and it seems to me probable that the erection of these parts must have been simultaneous with most of the remarkable structures to be described below.
The monastery is now entered. This building, the remains of whose walls are sometimes quite hidden by bushes and long grass, and sometimes rise to the height of an entire storey, is here and there difficult to trace continuously. It surrounds the church on the south and west, and will at last, when traced in all its details, reveal a distinct, indeed a striking resemblance to a regular, though primitive Norwegian monastery; and I assume it to be in these ruins that we must look for the monastery which the Abbot Laurentius left in 1175, but which was shortly after subjected to a complete rebuilding simultaneously with the erection of the chancel arch and belfry of the church. It is especially to the Cistercian monastery on Hovedoen that the building we are now enter- ing shows points of striking resemblance (fig. 70).
Round the north and east sides of the church, at some distance from it, runs a rectangular wall, parallel throughout with the walls of the church. It appears never to have been very much higher than it is at present; and it clearly proclaims itself to be the churchyard wall, thus having the same situa-
Norwegian Monuments. 41
tion here, on the north and east of the monastery church, as in the Norwe- gian monasteries (e. g. Utstein, Lyse, Selje). I will not venture to determine the age of this wall, nor will I venture to say more of the three rooms adjoin- ing the belfry on its south side, than that they are of recent origin. It may how- ever, be regarded as probable that the position of their walls indicates the line of older walls.
On the other hand, we see on the west of the church, in a line with these walls, a collection of rooms that must undoubtedly, I think, be referred to the Middle Ages, and in the main be synchronous with the chancel of the church, i. e. about 1200. They extend both north and south, far beyond the longitu- dinal walls of the church. If we go through the porch of the church and out under the Saxon arch of the west doorway, we find on the other side of a low transverse wall, which must have carried an open arcade, a square court of about the width of the church. Through the above-mentioned door, the monks would enter the church, and have perhaps used the porch as a kind of vestry, while the congregation have entered the church through the base of the belfry and the south door of the nave opening into it. This square court — which, in the building's secular period, must have been covered with a roof, as there is a recent fireplace in the south wall — must then have been the cloister court (E), with a passage at any rate on the east side. As usual the cloisters have been surrounded on three sides by the various buildings of the monastery.
If we attempt to dispose the rooms of the monastery, we shall find its arrangement corresponding in a great degree to that of the Norwegian monas- teries. The south-east room, which lies south of the church and south-east of the cloisters, and whose later walls now divide it into two, has probably been the chapter-house of the monastery (G). The next apartment towards the west, on the south side of the cloisters, will then probably have been the parlatory (H), and if so has been situated, like those of the monastery on Hovedoen and Selje and Lyse monasteries, beside the chapter-house, and like it to the left of any one coming out of the church. In several of the Norwegian monasteries, a narrow passage comes next to the parlatory, running between it and the succeeding rooms out into the open air, no doubt the entrance for such of the laity as wished to converse with the monks in the parlatory. This passage (I) is also found in the monastery on Eynhallow between the parlatory and the adjoining apartment. This next room proves to have later walls on three sides; and if these indicate the position of the older walls, this has been an apartment whose situation corresponds perfectly with the corner room in the Hovedoen Monastery which is generally designated as the dormitory (M). The correctness of this name, however, is very doubtful; I should be inclined to imagine that on Eynhallow this apartment was the refectory.
Beside this room, right in front of the entrance to the church is an apart- ment (R) that exactly answers to the scullery and kitchen on Hovedoen; and
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 6
^o Norwegian Monuments.
behind this apartment, projecting beyond the rectangle of the monastery, is a room that exactly corresponds with the -outhouse* on Hovedoen, and projects in the same way beyond the square of the building (P). The abbot's room is probably to be sought for to the south of the parlatory. Lastly, the fourth Bide of the cloister court is occupied by an apartment answering to the sup- posed hospice (S) of Hovedoen; but in Eynhallow the short side of this com- partment is towards the cloister court, while in Hovedoen the corresponding room turns its long side towards the cross-passage. Gables and walls stand in their full height, but, like the church, without a roof. It has possibly, together with the cloister court, formed a dwelling for the fourth family. The gable towards the cloister court shows that the space we have so called has really been a courtyard, and not originally a covered space.
In the corner towards the south-west (E to M) are to be seen the remains of an old wall, running in an oblique direction as regards the rest of the buil- ding I should imagine that this is the remains of the earlier building rebuilt after 1175; but time did not permit of further investigation.
The resemblance to the Norwegian monasteries, not only as regards what we find, but also what is wanting, is quite remarkable. In none of the Nor- wegian monasteries is there any trace of monks' cells, nor yet is any indication of them to be found on Eynhallow. There, as in Norway, they have probably been in an upper storey. That part of the monastery, however, which answers to Hovedoen's hospice, is a one-storeyed building, whose walls and gables, as ire have said, are still standing in their full height.
The names of the various apartments, which we have here transferred from Hovedoen to the Eynhallow Monastery, are of course purely hypothetical; for even on Hovedoen the determination of the rooms is not indubitable. There is one main difference from the buildings on Hovedoen and at Selje and Lyse, however, which must be noticed. Whereas in all the Norwegian monasteries, the buildings lie to the south of the church, on Eynhallow they are on the west. The reason for this difference, however, is not difficult to see, and is evidently to be sought for in the nature of the land on the island. To the south of the orientated church, the ground slopes steeply down towards the sea, which would make large substructures necessary if the monastery were to be kept on the same level as the church; and a sloping or lower-lying plane for the monastery would present many inconveniences. On the other hand the ground to the west of the church is on the same level as the church, and would thus be especially adapted for the erection of the monastery buildings.
The correspondence throughout the building here described with the Nor- wegian monasteries, as has here been shown, makes it evident to me that we are actually standing in the vanished monastery of the Orkneys, whose abbot was transferred in 1175 to Melrose, at about the same time as the erec- tion of the present monastery buildings, and of which the original time of
Norwegian Monuments. 43
erection probably coincides with that of Hovedoen and Lyse monasteries in the years about 1140. Its connection with Melrose shows, as we have said, that like those two Norwegian monasteries it was a Cistercian monastery, an assumption which is not at any rate contradicted by the rectangular termina- tion of the chancel, which distinguishes all Cistercian churches. Excavations might reveal important facts, such as whether the illness of the inhabitants was connected with the graves round, and perhaps beneath, the church and cloister court.
The monastery must have been suppressed long before the Reformation, as Jo. Ben (1529), who lived before the cessation of Catholicism on the Islands (1558), relates nothing of either the church or the monastery that so satis- factorily explains the name of the island — Eyin helga.
e. Scattered Monuments upon the Islands.
17. Buildings on Papa Westray and Westray, and on Mainland. On Ragn- vald's death, Harald Maddadhson became absolute ruler on the Islands. Du- ring Sverre's struggle for the power in Norway, however, a party had formed against him, whose stronghold was in the Orkneys (Eyskjaegger). When Sverre had been victorious in Norway, he therefore threatened Earl Harald with punishment, and in 1195, when 62 years of age, Harald had to cross over to Norway and do homage to the king in Bjorgvin. The king pardoned him, but took from him the Shetland Islands. Two years later, a new pretender to the earldom presented himself in the person of Harald Unge, a grandson of Earl Ragnvald, who also laid claim to Caithness. This was too much for old Harald, and recourse was had to arms to decide the matter. The contest was short, however, as Earl Harald Unge fell in a battle at Thurso in 1198, where Harald's Tower now stands. The young Earl Harald's patron, King William, however, sent stewards to Caithness; and when Harald killed one of them, and made Bishop John pay the penalty by having his tongue cut out and his eyes put out, the incautious Earl also made an enemy of the Church, and was com- pelled to submit to a humiliating peace at Perth, 1202. At last in 1206,^he closed his eyes at the age of 73, after having filled the earl's seat for 67 years.
Of his sons, Earl David died in 1214, and Earl John, concerning whose rule the only fact mentioned by the Saga is that the peasants in Caithness burnt Bishop Adam in his own kitchen — ruled until 1231, when he was killed by a distant kinsman, Snaekoll Gunneson.
4i Norwegian Monuments
At the Karl died without sons, the earldom now passed into the hands of a now Scottish dynasty, and hers the Orkneyinga Saga concludes. A new period also oommsnoes in the architecture of the Orkney Islands, with the introduction of the Gothic stylo. For the sake of completeness, I will mention, before passing on to this now period, some buildings of small importance, which appear to he of earlier origin, namely, the Kir k of How (kirkj a at haugi) on Papa Westray, the church at Yeskenaby on the west coast of Mainland, the Castle of Snusgar at the same place, and the Church of the Holy Cross on Wntray, all of them unimportant ruins.
II. Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
(1137—1468).
a. St. Magnus' Cathedral at Kirkwall. 1. Introduction.
St. Magnus' Cathedral is the grandest building in the Orkneys, its erection having extended over both the Norman and the Gothic periods, the mightiest monument left by the Norsemen in the West, indeed, next to Trondhjem Cathe- dral the oldest monument of the whole of ancient Norway. It was the result of the flow of new Norwegian culture that with Earl Ragnvald's arrival in the Islands succeeded to the older Celtic, and instilled fresh Norwegian blood into the veins of the half Celticised inhabitants. The 250 years that had passed since the conquest of the Islands by the Norsemen had transformed Nor- way from a Vikings' nest into a country that shared in all the civilisation of the age, while the Orkneys had become isolated and beholden to their Celtic connections, who had also left their impress upon the architecture of the Is- lands. Only here and there, as in the churches of Orphir and Brough of Birsay, can Anglo-Norman influence be traced. But with the erection of St. Magnus' Cathedral by the Agder peasant, Kol, and his son Ragnvald, Nor- wegian culture, as developed during the last 250 years, made its entry into the Orkneys, which were thereby brought into the great European cultural movement; and after about 1200, the Celtic influence disappeared entirely. From this time monastic life is found upon the Islands; from this time the relation of Sagas in the Norwegian spirit begins; even the worship of St. Mag- nus, inaugurated by Ragnvald, indicates a renunciation of the old, half-hea- thenish Viking existence.
Here too is a confirmation of what may generally be said of the Viking expeditions, namely, that although in themselves wild and barbaric, they always
I,; Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
contained the germ of a now, rich cultural development, that stirred as soon as the warlike spirit sank to rest and left room for the play of the intellectual Btrength and civilising power that also dwelt in the Vikings. St. Magnus' Ca- thedral is the living expression of this thought.
It is to the stones of the church themselves that we must go in order to learn its history; for the Saga has but little to relate concerning this remarkable building. The Orkneyinga Saga only tells us that when Ragnvald had obtained the mastery over the Islands, he immediately set about the fulfilment of the vow he had made in accordance with the advice of his father Kol, on his de- parture from Norway, a vow to build at Kirkevaag, in honour of his kinsman, St. Magnus, a church of stone that should be more magnificent than any other in -these countries > (Orkney and Norway?). We may thus safely assume the ir 1137 to be that of the founding of St. Magnus' Cathedral; for the Saga states that he immediately had the foundations of the church marked out and hired workmen, and that Kol himself superintended and directed the entire huilding operations. It further states that at the commencement the work was pushed on so rapidly, that more was completed during the first year than during the four or five years following. The reason of this was that the under- taking was planned upon so large a scale that there was soon a lack of money; whereupon Ragnvald — acting once more upon the advice of his father — offered the peasants unlimited allodial rights (right of ownership of land) in return for a certain sum paid towards the building of the church once for all, which brought in such a large amount, that the work could once more be car- ried on energetically. This is very remarkable, as the peasants of the Islands already possessed this right before Ragnvald's time. As the reader may re- member, Peat-Einar had acquired the peasants' allodial rights in exchange for his promise to undertake to protect the country from the predatory raids of the Vikings; but Sigurd Digre had given them back these rights on condition of their supplying the necessary men for his expedition against the Scotch. It is therefore probable that in this act we are to understand that those peasants who supplied men obtained the right of ownership of the land for themselves personally, while every new owner had to redeem his allodial right by the payment of a reasonable sum on acquiring his land. Instead of this constantly repeated tax, Ragnvald now probably offered them, in return, of course, for a much larger sum paid once for all, namely, one mark in silver for every plough land, the power of purchasing the right of possession for all time. This the peasants gladly agreed to, especially as the new cathedral promised to shed a splendour over the Islands and their national hero.
Subsequently we learn from the Saga that Earl Ragnvald negotiated in St. Magnus' Church with Earl Erlend's men, who had fled into the church after the earl's death in 1156. Shortly after, the peace meeting between Earl Harald and Svein Asleifson was also held in the church; and we find that the sail
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 47
from the ship that Earl Ragnvald had taken from Svein Asleifson and given to Earl Harald was kept in St. Magnus' Cathedral. It must moreover be the cathedral that is meant when it is stated that Earl Ragnvald prevented Thor- bjorn Klerk from breaking open the church door at Kirkwall; though it may possibly be St. Olaf's Church that is meant. We may at any rate conclude that part of the church must have been consecrated before or during the year 1156; and as Ragnvald was away on a crusade between 1153 and 1155, it may be said with tolerable certainty that part of the church was already consecrated when he and the head of the church, Bishop William, set off for Jerusalem in 1153.
After giving a brief survey of the appearance and architectural history of the cathedral, the author continues in the words of his travelling-companion through the Islands, who has made a special study of St. Magnus' Cathedral, and has contributed the following account, which is here given in full.
2. Detailed Description of St. Magnus' Cathedral and its
Architectural History.
(by Johan Meyer, Architect)
Chapter 1. The Architecture of the Cathedral.
On entering the cathedral by the west central doorway, the eye is first met by the somewhat sober forms of the latest building-period; but in the dim perspective within, we catch a glimpse of the transition to richer and bolder detail, until the view is rudely interrupted by a hideous wall of painted wood and white glass, just where a temporary west wall must have been erected in front of the part of the church first consecrated, the choir. This alone, with its subsequent extension eastwards, is now the parish church of Kirkwall; and as it is there that we must seek for those parts of the building that are known to have been erected while Kol of Agder still superintended the work, we will pass quickly through the nave and enter the old choir.
In spite of the appalling vulgarity that dominates the whole of the modern decoration, the view of the choir is imposing in its effect. Even the hideous galleries squeezed in between the pillars, and the walling-up of the triforium arches, cannot entirely destroy the feeling that must have filled the building when the high altar with its shrine and sacred vessels of precious metal shone in the light of the candles, and the great east window with its grand tracery and transparent pictures in glowing colours carried the splendour of the altar right up to the richly-moulded vault of the roof.
jo Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
How gladly would we put in a word in favour of the removal of the disturbing additions, so that justice might be done to the original structure!
But the noble work of Ragnvald and Kol is no longer in the possession of Norwegians, and as it is easier to appeal to the noble Scot by picture than by word, a sketch is presented in fig. 72, giving an idea of the grand effect of the unbroken interior, an effect that might easily and at no great expense be regained.
As the interior now presents itself, the effect as a ivhole is to some extent a disappointment; but for this very reason, the attention is all the more attrac- ted by the numerous highly interesting details, and the abundant variety of form produced by the various architectural periods.
Ragnvald 's plan has served as a guide for the entire structural develop- ment; and with a respect for the already existing, that is uncommon in the Middle Ages, subsequent architects, one after the other, have adapted their own style to that of the founder, without, however, to any great extent renoun- cing their artistic individuality. This will best be seen when we look at the pillars, and the triforium and clerestory of the north and south walls (figs. 72 a 92). Turning towards the north, we see the oldest parts of the church between the west piers of the central tower and a very visible joint running through about the middle of the third free pillar towards the east. This marks the addi- tion of the subsequent extension of the choir.
The oldest part, consisting of three bays with triforium and clerestory and corresponding external walls, but without the groined roof over the nave, and without the richly-carved corbels between the clerestory windows, supporting the ribs of the vaulting (omitted in fig. 73), represents, together with the almost exactly similar, corresponding south wall, all that can now with certainty be referred to the time before Earl Ragnvald's journey to Palestine, in other words, all that was built between 1137 and 1153.
All the constructive members and dressings, and most of the inner surface of the walls, are here formed of rather small, hewn blocks of red sandstone of approximately cubical form, separated by broad joints of mortar. The high, square plinths of the pillars, surmounted by a plain, round base, the scolloped capitals, and the broad archivolts of the arches with their beautiful, strongly- marked triple division, the effective toothed ornament on the outer arch, and tin; fine zigzag ornament on the narrow, sharply-projecting hood-moulding, the richly-framed windows and the ribbed vaulting of the aisles — all show a well- considered, delicately-felt combination of the usual motives of the Norman style. Notwithstanding all irregularities, the capricious alternation of forms in the pillars, combined with the commanding size of the central bay, produces the impression of harmonious grouping, and is also extremely peculiar and pleasing.
The treatment of the triforium, as fig. 73 shows, is exceedingly simple, and the depressed form of the central arch will at first sight appear ungraceful to
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 49
the observer, who, however, is easily reconciled to this by the beautiful propor- tion between the height of the triforium and that of the arches of the nave.
Whereas arches and triforium in the nearly contemporaneous basilica designs of southern England were of almost equal importance, — as at Winchester — and in the west of England the triforium was reduced to an insignificant orna- mental gallery — as at Gloucester and Tewkesbury, where the arches of the nave at the same time were made disproportionately high — , the Durham school in this particular chooses the golden mean, always very much as in St. Magnus' Cathedral (fig. 108).
The rectangular recesses in the piers of the triforium are continued in the archivolts of the arches, of which the only ornamented member is the zigzag border of the projecting hood-moulding.
Both the hood-moulding, the imposts and the string running beneath the triforium are chamfered. The base of the triforium piers is a simple chamfer. The clerestory is separated from the triforium by a string, the lower edge of which is a round moulding. There are windows in each bay, both up in the clerestory and down in the aisles, those of the latter being comparatively large (figs. 76 & 77). There has been no question here of employing glass, for there is neither any original groove for the glass, nor any frame for the window- panes. The windows are splayed inwards from the plane of the innermost of the external recesses. Inside there is a shaft on either side, whose base and capital are bonded with the wall. These shafts support a plain archivolt, framed in the usual manner by a projecting hood-mould. Unlike the large pillars, many of these shafts, especially in the clerestory, have a well-propor- tioned Attic base upon a square plinth, without leaves at the corners. The capitals of the window-shafts are sometimes simple cushion capitals, sometimes compound like those of the round pillars, and sometimes, especially in the north clerestory, bell-shaped with transition to square, and with square abacus (figs. 76 & 77).
The original, undoubtedly apsidal termination to Ragnvald's choir has dis- appeared, and west of the parts mentioned above are found the later forms of the choir-arch piers (fig. 75). But on passing from the space now used as a church into the transept, we find ourselves again surrounded by forms similar in the main to those described above. The four smaller arches in the east wall, of which the two inner ones open into the aisles of the choir, the two outer into the transept chapels (fig. 78), quite correspond in their mode of treatment with the earliest arches in the choir; and the correspondence between the ear- liest windows of the transepts and those of the choir (fig. 76) is equally great.
Progress in the development of style is however already apparent in the four large arches in the triforium overlooking the transept nearest the base of the tower (figs. 75 & 79), the opening being divided by a double shaft in the centre supporting two round arches. The double shaft has a well-developed
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 7
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
bell-shaped capital ornamented with foliage, a boldly moulded abacus, and a wide, comparatively flat base.
At many other points in the transepts also, an inclination to increase the amount of ornament is observable, e. g. in the somewhat richer moulding of the string-courses, in the more frequent employment of the zigzag ornament, and in graceful arcades along the base of the north, west and south walls. The capitals of the shafts of the clerestory windows display a fully-developed scolloped form.
The blank arcade of the transepts corresponds entirely with that on the south side of the nave (fig. 81 a & b). The latter is composed of intersecting round arches, whose archivolts are ornamented with well-developed, but not deeply i ut, zigzag moulding, and which are supported by pairs of shafts separated by a small projecting keel, their capitals being sometimes simple bell-shaped orna- mented with foliage, sometimes cushion capitals treated in various ways, and their bases very steep, resembling more or less closely the principal Attic form, and always resting upon a very high square plinth, which in its turn rests upon the bench running along the wall.
Simultaneously with this greater richness of detail there appears an increasing tendency towards the employment of undressed stone — argillaceous slate in courses of from 7 to 15 cm. in height — both on interior and exterior wall-surfaces.
The above-mentioned circumstances lead us to suppose that after the con- secration of the choir, which probably took place before the departure of the Earl and Bishop William for the Holy Land in 1153, the work for the most part remained in abeyance until their return in 1155. The transepts — exclu- sive however of the clerestory at either end and the gables — the north-east and two south-east round pillars in the nave with their superstructure up to and including the triforium, and consequently the piers at the base of the tower with the original arches resting upon them, were all probably erected between 1155 and 1168, the date of the death of William the Old (fig. 82). All the bases of the pillars in the nave with the exception of the westernmost pair, exhibit exactly the same mode of treatment as those in the choir, as is also the case with the lowest four or five courses of the pillars. This indicates that the entire foundations of the church were laid in the time of William the Old. Of the aisle walls, the four easternmost bays of the north wall, and the six easternmost bays of the south wall — with the exception of parts of the upper portions, — also appear to belong to his time (figs. 71 & 84).
Where the westernmost pair of pillars now stand, there were then probably, as we shall demonstrate presently, massive piers, upon which it was intended that the inner corners of two west towers should rest. Comparatively large towers containing staircases were also intended to stand at the west corners of the transepts; but their internal projection made the very narrow transept appear still narrower, and evidently for that reason the idea of carrying them
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 51
up above the roof was abandoned, and the interior portions already erected were pulled down to the level of the clerestory floor (fig. 86).
The treatment of form in the earliest portions of the walls of the nave corresponds very closely with that of the transepts, and the treatment of the arches and the triforium with that of Ragnvald's choir. The arches of the triforium, however, are without the effective hood-mould; and the chamfering of the angles detracts from the effect. This chamfering of all sharp edges seems to have been done, however, at a rather later period; for the eastern- most arch on the south side, seen in fig. 82, exhibits the commencement of zigzag ornament on the outer arch-moulding, which could hardly have been introduced there if the moulding had not originally been square.
In the aisles, only the three north-east and one south-east bays exhibit the original heads forming the vault-brackets, while the entire vault belongs to a later period. The three easternmost windows in the north aisle correspond with the choir windows; but all the windows in the south aisle, and the two in the north aisle on the east side of the north doorway, exhibit late Norman work (figs. 81 a & b, and 83). The south-west doorway in the aisle harmonises with the older parts, but has subsequently been altered externally at a later period; while the blank arcade on the east side of the north doorway seems to belong to the period after the death of Bishop William I (fig. 83).
The piers supporting the tower are lozenge-shaped in section, and com- posed of half-shafts, some round, others keeled, with bell-shaped capitals richly ornamented with foliage and surmounted by a square abacus, and with a deeply-moulded Attic base. These piers and their large arches richly moulded in four recesses and ornamented with undercut zigzag, evidently belong to the transition period towards the close of the 12th century. The mouldings still retain the same combinations of rounds, hollows, fillets and chamfers as in the older parts; but the execution is deeper and freer than before, and the keel appears as a new member. The projecting hood-moulding with the zigzag ornament is still retained.
A similar treatment of form is to be found in the west end of the arcade on the wall of the north aisle, with its sharp accentuation of the arches' points of intersection, and in the two windows of the north aisle and three of the south aisle nearest east of the north and south doorways respectively (figs. 81 & 83); and it is probable that the two side-chapels in the transepts, with their pointed windows, bold, sloping base, corner buttresses, arched corbel-table, and ribbed vaulting, are to be referred to the same period.
The striking resemblance of these parts of St. Magnus' Cathedral to the details of the chapter-house of Trondhjem Cathedral lead us to assign as the time of their origin the close of the 12th century.
In the very next stage of development, as shown in the clerestory at the end of the transepts (figs. 85—88), Ave once more find the round arch given
52
Norwegian Monument* under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
l>y choice the place of honour. Tt is probable that in the clerestory at the end of the north transept, with its large double window, we have one of Bishop Bjarne Kolbeinsan's earliest works from the time about 1190. All the details are formed with a strong, conscious effort after beauty; and the tech- nical execution is thorough in the extreme. Even the passage apertures opening on to the window recesses (fig. 87), which are comparatively little seen, are treated just as carefully as the face of the wall itself.
While the pointed arch, which shortly before had been employed in prefe- rence to the round arch, once more gave place to the latter, other approaches to Gothic motives were visible. The round plinth and round abacus, for in- stance, are combined with the otherwise Norman forms in the windows; and in the same way the foliage of the capitals is sometimes the Gothic natural designs, and sometimes kept in traditional Romanesque style, but always beautifully and clearly executed. Even the gable embraces within its beauti- fully moulded coping, which terminates below in grotesque heads of animals, a richly-moulded circular window surrounded with dog-tooth ornament.
In the end wall of the south transept, corresponding with the above- mentioned group of windows in the north, there is a large rose window, the tracery of which, however, belongs to a later period. There is also a smaller circular window in the gable.
In order to find the immediate continuation of the above-mentioned work, we must leave the interior of the church for a moment, and from without turn our attention to the only north entrance to the church, which at the same time forms the western termination of the Norman parts of the north side. The shafts and capitals of the doorway are modern, but have been formed after the pattern of the worn originals. Its well-considered proportions, its effective mouldings, and the bold finish to its gable, with the niche in which the figure of some saint has probably stood, make this doorway (fig. 89) one of the most interesting parts of the cathedral; and there can hardly be any doubt as to its lx-ing contemporaneous with the upper parts of the transepts. This doorway indicates that Bjarne built the nave as far as the westernmost pair of pillars, where a temporary west wall must at the same time have been put up.
Judging from their bell-shaped capitals with round abacus, and from the kf-el moulding employed in the middle order of the trebly recessed arch (fig. 72), the rest of the nave pillars, with the exception of the already-mentioned three easternmost, belong to the period about 1200. The large bracket between the triforium arches, supporting the ribs of the vaulting, their form that of an inverted pyramid terminating in a fantastic dragon's head, indicate that Bjarne intended the nave to be vaulted; but the slender ribs of the vaulting, which are so ill suited to the form of the brackets, show the vaulting, and probably the whole of the clerestory, to be of a somewhat later period. The vaulting in the nave is so distinct from the earliest vaulting in the choir (fig. 90), that it
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 53
is impossible to imagine them contemporaneous, and the last-named must cer- tainly be ascribed to Bjarne. The drawing shows how the brackets of the choir vault are let into Ragnvald's clerestory. The conflict between Norman and Gothic forms is very noticeable, and we can understand the builder's great consideration for that which already existed.
Heads are still the chief subject for the corbels, but the sculptor has learnt to give them individual expression, and places nobly-formed faces to contrast with distorted, brutish physiognomies. The shaft in section is slightly keeled; the abacus of the bell-shaped capital is square and, like the hood-moulding, is chamfered below, with a sharp incision immediately above the chamfer. Some of the diagonal ribs of the pointed-arched vaulting have fully-developed early Gothic mouldings, with dog-tooth in the hollows, while the cross-springers are boldly moulded with no particular ornament, and resemble the mouldings of the large group of windows at the end of the north transept. Fig. 90 c is a section of one of the diagonal ribs of the third bay of the vault, which runs far down on the left of the vaulting-shaft, and rests upon a low-placed capital with round abacus and well-developed Gothic foliage. Both this and the ridge- rib in the two westernmost bays, evidently belong, as we shall presently show, to a later period.
Bjarne's bracket must have been symmetrically developed, as the third bay of his vault spanned the east clerestory windows, with the diagonal ribs in the east resting on corner brackets between the main wall and the original east wall of the choir. All these parts, ascribed to Bishop Bjarne, and the side-chapels possibly already built in his predecessor's time, are carefully exe- cuted in red sandstone with very narrow joints. Even the plain surfaces of the wall, both interior and exterior, are treated in this manner.
At the end of the south transept, we find a beautiful Early English door- way (fig. 91), and on entering by it, we discover a similar polychromatic mode of treatment and the same pointed arches on the inside of the three west door- ways; but we do not obtain a complete idea of the new style until we once more return to the present parish church behind the glass partition (the old choir). No trace is left of Ragnvald's apsidal termination to the choir; but from the previously-mentioned vertical joint through the third free pillar in the choir counting from the base of the tower, the choir shows itself to have been enlarged eastwards by three bays (fig. 92). Above the arcade of pointed arches at the east end, with ornamental crosses in the spandrils between the arches, rise the slender mullions of the large east window, lifting the great rose light with its twelve compartments right up under the arch of the vault (figs. 93 & 95).
The bays are wider, and the pillars more slender than in the older parts. The arches are therefore a little higher, but the height of the capital is the same, and both the main arches and those of the triforium are semicircular
54 Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
and kepi in close correspondence with the earlier style. The plain windows of the clerestory here, on the other hand, are pointed, and correspond with those in the nave.
The pillars are lozenge-shaped in section, the points being formed by ■lightly keeled half-shafts, and the recesses filled with two slender shafts sepa- rated by a deep hollow without intermediate fillets.
The shaft-like members of the pillars have each their own base and capital, the larger ones keeled, with square plinth and square abacus above the bell capital, which is ornamented with foliage; the smaller ones banded together, with round plinth and round abacus (fig. 94). The abaci of the corresponding shaft-like half-pillars on the aisle walls are alternately polygonal, circular and square (fig. 106). The foliage is very inferior both to that of the transition style and to what is left of the ornament on the Gothic doorway in the south transept and on the northern west doorway. It evidently belongs for the most part to the more naturalistic style, which in English architecture was developed in the last quarter of the 13th century, and of which, in Norway, traces are visible in the choir of Stavanger Cathedral and — more developed — in certain details of Trondhjem Cathedral, executed after the fire of 1328.
Among the foliage in the choir of St. Magnus' Cathedral, winged dragons and other animal forms are introduced, and also heads (fig. 94).
The arch mouldings are of Early English character, with each member strongly accentuated. A fillet runs along the round mouldings.
The ball-floiver ornament on the vault-arches, which takes the place of the beautiful dog-tooth of the earlier parts, the more natural treatment of the foliage, the arch-mouldings with the deep undercutting and the round moul- dings sometimes keeled, sometimes filleted, and above all the well-developed but strictly geometrical tracery of the east window, are all criteria that point to the second half of the 13th century as the time of their origin.
Fig. 90 shows how the later vaulting in the chancel is connected with the earlier. This later vaulting has a main rib running horizontally east and west, which was also, when the choir was lengthened, continued westwards through the earlier vaulting as far as the chancel arch. The floor immediately in front of the westernmost pair of pillars in the choir-extension is raised three steps (fig. 92).
The south aisle of the choir (fig. 106) presents a fine perspective and some beautiful details, e. g. the south doorway with the two windows above it. The north aisle, on the other hand, quite loses its effect owing to the modern galleries.
The north and south triforium and clerestory are easily accessible by means of the two wide spiral staircases in the west corners of the transepts (figs. 71 & 102).
There are no passages in the east and west end walls, and the north and south passages communicate with one another by means of a passage over
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 55
the arches that support the tower. From this passage running round the tower, the steeple is accessible by means of a narrow winding stair in each of the four corners; but only one of these leads from the belfry up to the foot of the spire.
On leaving the interior of the cathedral, we turn our attention to the lofty vaulted roof of the nave. The ribs and their ornamental bosses have a some- what poor effect, and the ill-defined junction of the vaults with the main walls without any projecting moulding is ugly. While all the corbels both in the nave and the aisles seem to be of the same date as their respective wall-surfaces, the vaulting appears to be later. The two westernmost bays of the nave cannot have been erected before the middle of the 15th century in the time of Bishop Thomas Tulloch, together with the upper part of the west front.
If we stand in the churchyard with our gaze directed towards the north side of the cathedral, we notice how just those parts of the interior upon which we especially dwelt, reflect their character in the external architecture. We easily recognise the original rectangular shorter choir in its entire length both on the north and south sides (fig. 96). The wall of the aisle is divided by buttresses that correspond with the piers within. Of these the east one is con- siderably broader than the rest, indicating that the aisles here terminated rect- angularly, with half gables on either side of the choir apse. The clerestory wall has no buttresses. The original corbel-table with its grotesque heads is easily discovered considerably below the coping of the present wall.
In the oldest parts, the outer surface of the wall is everywhere composed of the grey clay slate, carefully selected and laid; while the details and dres- sings are carried out in blocks of red sandstone.
We find an external echo of the internal construction in the buttresses and windows in the wall. The lavish treatment seen in the arches of the choir, appears again more particularly in the dressings of the choir and transept windows, and the earliest of those in the nave (fig. 77).
The buttresses run right up under the greatly projecting cornice, in this way breaking the series of grotesque corbels. These corbels, with their conti- nually varying forms of heads, belong to the first half of the 12th century, and in the latter half of that century were replaced by arched corbel-tables such as we see both on the aisle walls and those of the transeptal chapels (figs. 74 & 85); while the square corbel-table appeared once more in the 13th century, but with different corbels, conventionally alike in detail (fig. 86).
The earlier parts of the nave and choir have no external base, and that of the transepts consists merely of a simple chamfered projection. The eastern part of the choir and the transeptal chapels, on the contrary, have a rich, bold base. The two rectangularly-ended transeptal chapels of about the year 1190 show pointed windows, late Romanesque round-arched corbel-table, and slender turrets terminating the corner buttresses.
-,,; Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
The gable window in the north side-chapel is still round-headed. The wall- BUlfaoee are composed entirely of smoothly-hewn blocks of red sandstone with narrow joints, as are also those of the end transept wall, from the clerestory floor upwards, and that surrounding the previously-mentioned beautiful north doorway.
The work connected with the eastward extension of the choir during the l;>th century demands special attention, particularly the east front (fig. 95), with its Large window filled with tracery, beneath a gable ornamented with crockets and flanked by slender turrets, above which towers the beautiful belfry. The belfry seems to have been built somewhere about the same time as the extension of the choir. Until 1671, the tower was surmounted by a slender, octagonal, wooden spire, covered with metal.
The mutual proportions and peculiarities of the three west doorways will be discussed more fully in Chapter II. We will here only say that the north one (fig. 99), by its still pure Attic bases and bell capitals, its simple but excee- dingly bold arch-mouldings enriched with very small dog-tooth and nail-head ornament, proclaims itself to be somewhat earlier than the centre and south doorways. These two have bases — like those in Stavanger — composed of three round mouldings one above another, capitals that form one continuous band of vine foliage, beneath a rectilinear abacus, and a greater variety in the decoration of the arch-mouldings (figs. 100 & 101).
Deeply undercut zigzag ornament alternates here with freely executed foliage. The centre doorway exhibits a striking resemblance to the west door- way in Holyrood Chapel, which, however, has not the ornamental gable and pinnacles of the St. Magnus design. This design resembles that of the «bishop's doorways* at Trondhjem and Stavanger. Nothing is left of the pinnacles but remnants of their basal part; but from these it would appear that they were rich in detail.
The clerestory in the nave, with its small lancet windows, its conventional corbel-table with the massive parapet above it, as also the upper part of the west front with its large but roughly-executed pointed window, the head filled with net-like tracery, offers comparatively little that is of interest. The two westernmost bays of the aisle walls, with their projecting buttresses and pointed windows ornamented with cusps, must have been built at the same time as the upper part of the west front, in the 15th century.
Figs. 102—105 are geometrical drawings of the main features of St. Mag- nus' Cathedral, taken from MacGibbon and Ross's «Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland*.
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 57
Chapter 2. The Architectural History of St. Magnus' Cathedral.
When Ragnvald and his father Kol of Agder had obtained sway over the Orkneys in 1137, they immediately began to make preparations for the erection of the church of St. Magnus.
At that time, Norman Romanesque architecture, first in France and then throughout Great Britain and Norway, had attained to perfect clearness in arrangement and treatment of form; and the foundations of St. Magnus' Cathedral were now marked out after the plan of contemporaneous large churches abroad.
The original ground-plan was altered in several points during the building of the cathedral, which extended, with many interruptions, over a period of 300 years; but it appears to have been the following.
A nave with two aisles of the same dimensions as the present one ex- tended, in seven bays, from the east piers of two large west towers to the west piers of the base of the central tower, where it was interrupted by transepts, the interior width of which was similar to that of the nave proper. On the east of these transepts it was intended to throw out two apsidal chapels; and between them lay the choir, extending eastwards as a continuation of the nave and aisles, with a length of three bays, from the choir-arch in the west to the large semicircular apse in the east, the aisles probably terminating rectangu- larly where the curve of the apse commenced.
The nave was divided from the aisles by circular pillars built of small blocks, supporting round arches; and the triforium opened on to it by large, single arches under the sloping roof of the aisles. Above these arches rose the clerestory wall with a large window over each of the triforium arches, and a narrow passage running from window to window in the thickness of the wall. The narrow aisles were in the first instance intended to have a groined roof, while the nave and transepts were probably meant to have an open timber roof, such as is still seen in the transepts. The apse must have been roofed with a half cupola, a similar treatment having also been intended for the pro- posed transeptal chapels.
There are several indications that two large towers of the width of the aisles were to stand one on each side of the west front and the large main doorway, while pairs of smaller towers flanked the ends of the north and south transepts.
The parts of this well-marked design were grouped about a central tower at the intersection of the nave and transepts. In its general features, this tower must have been planned like the present one, but of course with a totally different treatment of the detail (fig. 74).
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 8
58 Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
The principal dimensions of Ragnvald's design were as follows:
Length of interior, including apse, about 55.0 metres.
Length of nave being 31.5 metres
Breadth of transepts with tower piers . . 9.5 »
Length of choir 14-0 >
Breadth from wall to wall of the aisles 13.7 »
Breadth of nave proper, also of transepts 5.2 »
Combined length of north and south transepts 27.5 »
Height of original walls of nave about 14.5 >
Thickness of the earliest aisle-walls & their eastward extension . 0.87 »
Thickness of the other walls about 1.5 »
The length of the subsequent eastward extension of the choir is about 10.5 metres.
Fig. 108 shows the relative proportions of St. Magnus' and some of the best known churches in Normandy, the north of England, Scotland and Norway. This comparison shows St. Magnus' to be a little larger than Hamar Cathedral, but considerably smaller than Trondhjem Cathedral. Its effect, however, is far grander than its dimensions would lead one to expect, partly on account of its modest surroundings, and partly on account of its comparatively great height and the beauty of detail in its earlier portions.
The Orkneyinga Saga states that Kol of Agder took especial charge of the work of building, which at first was carried on so rapidly that more was accomplished in one year than in four or five afterwards. The want of money thereby occasioned was fortunately quickly relieved, as has been already rela- te* 1, by the interest taken by the Islanders in the work; and not many years had passed before the roof was placed upon the choir, and the high altar was ready for consecration.
During the years 1153—1155, Earl Ragnvald and Bishop William I (the Old) were engaged in their expedition to the Holy Land, and it would seem that the first consecration and the enshrining of St. Magnus' relics must have taken place before they sailed. In any case, the east part of the cathedral was consecrated before the close of 1156; for at Christmas in that year, after Er- lend Haraldson had been killed at Daminsey, his men sought refuge in the cathedral, and Earl Ragnvald negotiated with them there. A temporary west wall was then put up at the choir-arch, and probably remained there until about 1200, when it may be presumed that Bishop Bjarne built the upper parts of the end walls and the roof of the transepts. A west wall was pro- bably then placed between the two west piers supporting the tower, but must soon have been moved to the west of the north doorway. As far as we can now see, the only entrance to Ragnvald's part of the church was a west door- way, which must have been made in the temporary wall.
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 59
In 1157 we may assume that the work was resumed with vigour. The transepts were built, the pillars of the nave begun, the easternmost being finished together with their arches and triforium, while the bases and four or five courses of stone of the other pillars as far as the north doorway, were laid. The corresponding aisle walls were also begun at this time, and appear to have been built up, in the west to the bottom of the windows, in the east right up to the cornice, before the death of William the Old. The two door- ways in the south aisle — of which that nearest the west end is still pre- served as regards the interior, while externally it was rebuilt in the 16th century — seem to have been completed at this time; and their position indicates that in the first instance the intention was to associate a monastery with the cathedral. The monastery buildings would then as usual have been grouped around the cloister quadrangle, being entered from the cloisters, which in their turn communicated with the interior of the cathedral by the two doors mentioned.
As stated in Chapter I, the piers and arches supporting the central tower exhibit a treatment of form that without doubt fixes the latter part of the 12th century as the time of their origin. It is clear, however, that this part must have been built with the adjoining portions of the building, which exhibit the character of the first architectural period. It will also be evident to an atten- tive observer that the form of the pillars is just such as could easily be pro- duced by a subsequent cutting of the original pillars with their square recesses, cushion capitals, and simple chamfered bases, as they still appear on the side towards the aisles (fig. 78). On the other hand the pointed arches could not of course be made out of the round ones; the old arches would have to be taken down and replaced by new ones. It may from this be concluded with almost perfect certainty that at any rate during the time of William the Old, the walls of the tower were carried up no higher than was necessary for their connection with the clerestory.
From the time of the death of William the Old, there is no account of the progress of the building; but the general development of style set its distinct mark upon architecture in the Islands as elsewhere. The first design is fully on a par with architectural works of the same period in the great civilised countries, and only in a few points from a later period do the details of St. Magnus' present a somewhat rustic character. The asumption must therefore be correct, that throughout the 12th and 13th centuries the development of style was very little behind that of the north of England, Scotland and Nor- way. A further proof of this is to be found in the striking similarity between the main doorway of St. Magnus' and that of Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh. They appear to have been erected by the same builder. The reader may be reminded in this connection, that as civilisation in the course of the 12th cen- tury rapidly penetrated into the Highlands of Scotland, the position of the
(i(1 Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
Orkneys soon became in reality far less isolated than it had been at the time of Ear] Ragnvald'a arrival from Norway.
We must therefore, in opposition to the theory of MacGibbon and Ross, maintain our assumption that an assignment of dates to the architectural periods of St Magnus' Cathedral, based upon a comparison with dated buil- dings in the before-mentioned countries, will at any rate produce an approxi- mately correct result; and this result gains in probability by being associated with the line of Orkney bishops, as the time of greatest building activity seems
oincide with the rule of the most powerful bishops.
Thus considered, the above-mentioned alterations in the base of the tower must be ascribed to Bishop William II (1160—1188), when compared, for in- stance, with the interior of the chapter-house and the upper transept-galleries in Trondhjem Cathedral, and with the choir of Canterbury Cathedral. The aisle- wall east of the north doorway seems to be of the same period. It is also possible that the two rectangularly-terminated side-chapels and some of the aisle windows belong to this time.
For the rest, it appears that little building was done in the time of Wil- liam II. The Saga too, has nothing to relate of him except the date of his death, while, as stated elsewhere, it loudly extols his successor, Bjarne (1188—1223).
Bjarne was the son of Kolbein Hruga of Vigr, and thus belonged to one of the most distinguished families in the Islands, being related on the female side to the Earl's house.
Kolbein built a fine castle of stone on Vigr, and it seems very natural that the father's interest in building should be inherited by this talented son, who was also famed as a skald.
Bjarne commenced his episcopal career with efforts to obtain from the Pope the canonisation of Earl Ragnvald. In 1192, when he had gained his end, he had the earl's remains exhumed and — in all probability — enshrined in the Cathedral. From what has been stated above, it seems natural to point to him as the director of the considerable amount of work that, judging from the distinguishing features, must be referred to the end of the 12th century and the first quarter of the 13th. (Cf. the lower part of the octagon in Trondhjem Cathedral from the time immediately after 1183, Arbroath Abbey in Forfarshire, erected between 1177 and 1233, and the Nunnery on Iona, built shortly after 1233). Bjarne, on being appointed to the bishopric, found only the choir capable of being used for divine worship. The remainder of the church was still roofless, and the west scarcely showed above the ground.
Realising that the completion of the work was beyond his attainment, Bjarne chose to leave the westernmost part untouched, beginning to work almost simultaneously upon the north doorway and the clerestory in the north and south walls of the transepts. When the transepts and the nave as far as the inner piers of the west towers had been roofed, he added to the choir in
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his old age the beautiful groined roof of three bays, of which the two western- most are almost uninjured by the hand of time, while the remaining one had to be taken down upon the subsequent eastward enlargement of the choir.
By the time Bjarne died, Kagnvald's design had thus been carried out, except as regards the west front — which was still wanting, and was replaced by a temporary west wall between the east piers of the west towers — and the steeple, which was only carried up to the height of the ridge of the roof. The wall-plate of the nave and transepts was somewhat lower than the present one, and the roof projected beyond the cornice, without gutter and parapet.
Bjarne had endeavoured to procure in time the large amount of money required for his great work. According to the Saga, many miracles had already taken place at Kagnvald's tomb outside the cathedral; and now, after his canonisation, the fame of the new saint naturally spread farther, and pilgrims' offerings began to flow more abundantly into the coffers of the church. In spite of this, however, the resources must have been entirely exhausted at the time of Bjarne's death in 1223. When we reflect further that the result attained must be said to have relieved the needs of the time, and secured a fitting space for several — probably five — altars, it seems more than probable that a long pause in the work supervened. Bjarne's successor, Jofreyr (1223—1247), was a weak man, who as early as 1237 was said to have been already bedridden for many years.
The fact that Henry, canon of St. Magnus', the natural son of a priest, was unanimously elected to be Jofreyr's successor in 1247, and upon the recom- mendation of Cardinal William of Sabina and King Haakon, was recognised as bishop, notwithstanding his illegitimate birth, indicates that his abilities must have been tested, and this again suggests the thought that he may have been the actual manager of the bishop's affairs during Jofreyr's later years. As a distinct difference in style is discernible between the last-mentioned work, the choir vault and its corbels, and the succeeding ones, the doorway in the south transept and the lower portion of the west front, it seems reasonable to refer the latter to the time of Bishop Henry (1248—1269).
The pointed doorway in the south transept seems to have been his first work (fig. 91), and there were evidently such great designs connected with this as could only have been conceived by a powerful personality under a peaceful, firm rule; and this the Orkneys seem to have enjoyed in the time of the earls of the house of Angus.
In the first instance, as we have already said, two doors were planned in the south aisle, intended to communicate with the cloisters of a projected monas- tery. As one of these was now omitted and the end wall of the south transept broken through instead, all thought of the monastery was abandoned; and at the same time the eastward extension of the choir was planned. Up to Bishop Henry's time, Ragnvald's choir had served its purpose in its original form; but
aj Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
as it was very short, wo may safely assume that the area between the piers supporting the tower was included in it As the choir floor was higher than that of the Dave and transepts, and was separated from the lower-lying area by the choir-screen, the two transepts became like separate chapels entered from the aisles of the nave, their altars being in the two side-chapels. Under these eiivnmstanees, it would be unnatural to make an entrance to the church through one of the chapels; and the consequence of the doorway plan would then he that at the same time the choir-screen was moved back to the eastern central pillars.
There was indeed little enough room in the choir for the church rites of that time, and more space had therefore to be added in the east than was taken away from the west. One would have expected that the enlargement of the choir would be started before the doorway was made at the end of the south transept; but a fresh consideration led to the adoption of the opposite mode of procedure. As we have already said, the church was still without its perma- nent western termination, there being only a temporary hoarding; and as was only natural, it would cause dissatisfaction if the great alterations at the east end, which required the taking down of parts that were completed, were begun before the walls of the west front with its doorways and towers were raised upon the foundations that had waited for them for more than a hundred years. But when this wrork was begun, not only the west entrance in the temporary wall, but also the doonvays in the north and south aisles, would be encumbered with scaffoldings and building-material. There would then only be left the temporarily retained doorway farthest east in the south aisle as an entirely free entrance to the cathedral. So Bishop Henry began his labours by opening up yet another door.
We may then imagine the erection of the west front to have been the next step. When the base had been laid, however, and the tower doorway built at the north-west corner (fig. 99), and when the stones for the arches of the other two doorways possibly lay ready in the stone-mason's yard, the conditions in the narrow chancel showed themselves to be so impossible, that the bishop had to concentrate all his energies upon the eastern enlargement, in the mean while suspending operations on the west front. In this enlargement of the choir, Ragnvald's apse was of course left standing until the new part was roofed over, and the connection would be made with the least possible interruption of the services. The assumption that the above has been in the main Bishop Henry's mode of procedure is strengthened by a consideration of the new south doorway in connection with the three west doorways (figs. 99 —101, 109—111).
It seems remarkable that whereas the polychrome treatment in red and white has been very carefully carried out in the transept doorway, and a regular dove-tailed pattern in alternating colours laboriously fitted into the sides of the
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 63
doorway in the old gray slate wall, and the same colour-scheme carried out in the left-hand doorway of the west front and the two buttresses one on either side of it, it has been omitted in the two right-hand buttresses. It recurs, how- ever, in the arches of the two other west doorways, and a number of white blocks are mixed irregularly with the red, both in the upper portion of the west front and in all work that can be assumed to have been executed after Bishop Henry's time. There is no ground for supposing that the last-mentioned buttresses were rebuilt at a later period. The position of the shafts of the centre and right-hand doorways in the west front, with their bases formed of three round mouldings without intervening hollows, their capitals bell-shaped, the upper part drawn into one straight band ornamented with foliage, and ball- flower ornament in the jamb mouldings, answering to the dog-tooth between the corresponding orders of the arch — all gives the impression of being of more recent origin than the arches. It thus seems natural to suppose that the stones forming the arches must have lain ready cut long before they were placed in position, and that the work on the west front must have been sud- denly suspended. This is not the case with the right-hand west doorway, which is as if cast in one piece with the adjoining portions of wall and buttresses as far up as the horizontal string on the latter; and although in this point its Early English character differs somewhat from that of the doorway of the south transept — e. g. in the rectilinearly receding abacus above the bell capitals of the shafts of the doorway — the mouldings, the foliage, and the polychrome treatment, all show that its erection cannot have taken place long after that of the latter doorway. The course of development goes from that doorway through the left-hand doorway in the west front on to the later portion of the choir.
We should be very much inclined for this reason to assume that the above- mentioned south doorway was built about 1240, while Henry might be supposed to be acting for Jofreyr, and that the west front was begun about 1250, shortly after his appointment as bishop. The east part of the choir with the magnificent east window must then have been built about 1270, i. e. about the same time as the choir of Stavanger Cathedral, the Chapel of the Nine Altars at Durham, and the chapter-houses of York and Wells.
It would appear from the traces left in the later portions of the west front and the north and south walls, that it was intended to maintain a regular alternation of white and red sandstone throughout the west front, in imitation of the Italian churches and a few French of that period. This circumstance may perhaps also indicate that Henry was the director of the work.
It is not improbable that after 1237 Henry was sent by Jofreyr to Rome to obtain the confirmation of the latter in his bishopric, and the recognition of himself as Jofreyr's acting substitute. There is also some reason to suppose, from the accounts left us, that Henry was born in the Orkneys. As a native, he would be well acquainted with the different stones found in the islands;
M Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
and having perhaps seen on one of his journeys to Roni6 the particoloured Italian buildings, the possibility of obtaining a similar effect in St Magnus' has struck him. This is indeed merely hypothetical, but a polychrome treat- ment is bo seldom met with in northern countries, that one involuntarily searches for a prototype. In any case, Jofreyr can hardly have accomplished much of the building; and it is scarcely conceivable that Bishop Peter (1270 — 1288) should have erected the south-transept doorway in the Early English style, while both at Stavanger and Trondhjem, and at the not far distant Elgin, the Decorated style was the dominant one.
The fact that the choir enlargement is carried out entirely in red stone and not in stripes, does not lessen the probability that Henry was its builder; for its main walls were a direct continuation of the part built by Ragnvald, and a striped arrangement would have destroyed the coherence of the new with the old. Nor could he have intended the main walls adjoining the west front to have been treated polychromatically.
It is not easy to determine how far the work at the east end advanced in Henry's time. The manner in which the old aisle-walls are heightened there, however, gives a clue to the solution of the question. On the north side the height of the wall is increased, out of consideration for the Gothic vaulting of the aisle, by employing exclusively red stone, and in such a manner that Ragn- vald's corbel-table is left untouched; a new Gothic corbel-table runs eastward in a line with the old, and upon it is built a continuous piece of wall divided by a string-course from the massive parapet (fig. 77). This addition to the height seems to have been made before Henry's idea of a polychromatic west front was given up.
In the corresponding raising of the south wall (fig. 87), on the other hand, white blocks have been very largely employed; the old corbels have been removed, and a new Gothic cornice placed higher up in the usual place under the gutter. White stone has also to some extent been employed in the parapet above.
The addition to the outside height of the clerestory wall all round, with its cornice and parapet, corresponds in every way with this upper part of the wall on the south side of the choir; and since for this too is employed prin- cipally white stone that in spite of its inferior quality was originally procured for the pattern on the west front, the idea of this treatment must have been abandoned before the erection of this upper part. The corbels of the main cornice, which in this matter are the surest guide, seem to indicate the period about 1300.
This last-mentioned part of the work must therefore be ascribed to Bishops Peter (1270—1288) and Dolgfinn (1288—1309). If our view is correct, Bishop Henry must have succeeded in completing his chancel in its enlarged form, with both choir and aisles covered with groined vaulting. In the time of the two
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 65
succeeding bishops a few small additions were made to the choir, the north and south walls of the nave were made higher, the walls of the central tower carried up to their present height, and the work on the west front was once more resumed by the erection of the arches prepared in Henry's time, upon the later jambs.
The idea of a polychromatic treatment of the west front was abandoned, while the plan of building two west towers was still adhered to. Such towers were becoming more rare, however, in British architecture in the 13th and 14th centuries; and when, in the 15th century, the cathedral at Kirkwall had progressed so far that the west front began to rise above the junction with the roof of the aisles — probably in Bishop Thomas Tulloch's time (1422 — 1455) — the towers were also given up, and the cathedral was finished in the west exactly as Henry had done it in the east, and as it has remained, in all essentials, until our own day (fig. 98).
The pair of pillars inside nearest to the west wall, and the corresponding half-pillars on that wall, must at that time have been carried up sufficiently far to receive the pressure from the arches, and their solid masses of masonry were calculated in accordance with the weight of the towers. These huge pillars were now unnecessary, and were replaced by the present circular pillars with circular abacus and circular base; and the corresponding new semicircular attached pillars between the west doorways were built into the earlier masonry (fig. 107).
It must have been in these alterations that the great displacement westwards of the second pair of circular pillars and their arches took place (fig. 104).1
The two western bays of the aisle walls, with small pointed windows or- namented with cusps, and boldly projecting buttresses, as also the corresponding- part of the nave, were now finally built, as nearly as possible in harmony with the earlier parts.
The assumption that to Bishop Thomas Tulloch is due the honour of finally concluding the building of the west end of the cathedral, gains in probability from the fact that besides being bishop he was also the royal commissioner in the Islands, and that his revenues were thus considerably larger than those of the bishops before him. He must have increased the building-funds of the cathedral with this money.
Thus the work of building was concluded about the year 1460. The vaul- ting of the two westernmost bays was still wanting, however; and an imitation in wood and plaster was put up in the 19th century.
1 Sir Henry Dryden supposes that the cathedral's original west front stood where the latest circular pillars now stand, that a new west front was erected in front of it, and that the above-mentioned displacement occurred when the new front had to be joined to the older part. It seems to us, however, almost inconceivable that in such poor circumstances as those of the Orkneys, such a comparatively costly and risky piece of work should have been determined on as the taking down of an old, and the erection of a new west front, all to gain an additional four metres or thereabouts.
MONVMENTA ORCADICA 9
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
Chapter :i. Comparison of St Magnus' Cathedral with Buildings of the same Period in Scotland and Norway.
A glance at the various plans and elevations placed side by side in fig. 108 will show that a striking resemblance exists between the Orkney Cathedral and the cathedrals and abbey churches — some rather earlier and others of the same period - - of the north of England and of Scotland. These are all closely grouped about Durham Cathedral as the type and forerunner both as regards plan and treatment of form.
The resemblance is so striking that even the definite statement of the Orkneyinga Saga to the effect that Kol of Agder was the actual director of building operations at Kirkwall, fails to alter our conviction that the artistic impulses in the 12th century reached the Islands from the south, not from the east.
An endeavour to explain this circumstance will possess some significance for the history of Norwegian architecture, and will therefore be made here. I'nfortunately the written sources at our disposal are as destitute of informa- tion upon this point as of that relating to the work of the various bishops of Orkney: and we shall therefore hardly be able to attain to absolute certainty by a study of the literature.
There are numerous scattered indications, however, that seem to strengthen the view that a careful consideration of the building must immediately have called forth, that St. Magnus' Cathedral is a daughter, or possibly grand- daughter of Bishop William of St. Carilef's splendid cathedral at Durham, one of the largest and grandest of the English cathedrals.
When Bishop William of St. Carilef, after three years' exile, returned to Durham in 1093 from his old home in Normandy, he immediately laid the foundations of his new cathedral, and pushed on the work with so much vigour, that the choir was consecrated before his death in 1096. This choir is still in the main intact, except that its apsidal termination has been replaced by the Early English Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the choir proper roofed with later groined vaulting.
From the construction it would appear that Carilef's successor, Flambard, who recommenced the work of building with energy in 1099, was careful in his endeavours to realise Carilef's plans. The cathedral as a whole, with the exception of the vaulting, was complete as it now stands at the death of Bishop Flambard in 1128.
At this period, the authority of the Archbishop of York extended not only over the north of England, but, according to English ideas, over the whole of Scotland and the Scotch and adjacent Norwegian islands, while the see of Durham extended northwards as far as the Frith of Forth, and thus embraced
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. (57
a considerable portion of the Scottish king's territory. It is not surprising therefore to learn from an old account, that King Malcolm Canmore was pre- sent at the laying of the foundation-stone of Durham Cathedral. It is at any rate certain that Turgot, who had formerly been in Norway under Olaf Kyrre, and was now prior of the Benedictine monastery connected with the cathedral, was made Bishop of St. Andrews by Alexander I (1107 — 1124), son of Malcolm and Margaret, and thereby became in reality primate of the church of Scotland.
This appointment marks the ultimate victory of the Anglo-Norman influence over the more separatist Scottish tendency, and at the same time the triumph of the rites of the Romish church over the Irish church of St. Columba, the triumph of Norman art over Celtic. Before Malcolm Canmore's time, the cur- rent of civilisation seems to have had some difficulty in penetrating into the Highlands.
In 1068, after the Norman Conquest, Edgar Atheling and his sister Margaret came as refugees to King Malcolm, who then resided at Dunfermline. The fugitives were well received, and not long after, the Anglo-Saxon princess was married to the young Scottish king, in the old cathedral of St. Andrews (St. Regulus?). Many of the Anglo-Saxon nobles by degrees followed their royal family to the north, and a livelier intercourse was thereby developed between the countries.
Immediately after her marriage, Queen Margaret erected a church at Dun- fermline, and dedicated it to the Holy Trinity. Here both Malcolm and she were buried; and the abbey was enlarged by their sons, Alexander I and David I, by the addition of transepts — that have now disappeared — and a nave with two aisles (see fig. 108). An Augustinian monastery was attached to the abbey. Both the abbey and the monastery seem to have very closely resembled the Durham buildings, as they did also in the treatment of the detail (see fig. 108), the scale only being considerably reduced; and as the plan of vaulting the nave was rejected from the very first, an unbroken series of round pillars takes the place of Durham's alternation of round pillars and clustered pillars, the latter of which carry the vaulting. It also seems as if the transepts at Dunfermline have been without aisles, and with apsidal chapels as at South- well and Selby, abbeys which must also be reckoned as belonging to the Dur- ham school (see fig. 108). This school, in addition to the constantly recurring design of seven free pillars in the nave, the apsidal termination of the choir, and the straight termination of its aisles, is characterised by a quiet and dig- nified treatment of form, by well-judged proportions, and a sparing but highly effective employment of ornament, that brings out strongly the lines of con- struction. In this respect it seems to be rather connected with the northern French style, and is in sharp contrast to the Norman style of the south of England, which in most cases exhibits a leaning towards a barbaric splendour, frequently without regard to the constructive expression.
gg Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence.
While the historic facts are thus in perfect harmony with the evidence, afforded by the architectural examples still standing, that the Scotch ecclesias- tical architecture of the 12th century was influenced directly by that of northern England, the historical evidences of a direct influence exerted by Durham or Dunfermline upon the work at St. Magnus' Cathedral at Kirkwall are far more uncertain, and reduce us chiefly to the consideration of probabilities.
As already stated, the Saga distinctly mentions Kol of Agder and Earl Ragnvald as the directors of the building operations, of course in conjunction with Bishop William the Old. These must naturally be acknowledged as the true builders, who both conceived the project and procured the funds for its realisation. But when we wish to make it clear whether the artistic impulse came to the Islands from Scotland or from Norway, the question does not turn first of all upon the employer, but upon the workmaster and his men.
It does not seem unreasonable in itself to suppose that Kol might have brought his builders from Norway. Building had been actively carried on under Eystein and Sigurd, the sons of Magnus, and capable builders and stone-masons would therefore be easy to find.
If the builder had come from Norway, however, he would in all proba- bility have designed his new work more or less in accordance with one or another of the churches then existing in his native country. Of these only the larger ones can be considered, namely, Christ Church, Nidaros (Trondhjem Cathedral), St. Mary's Church (the old) in the same town, Christ Church, Ber- gen, which has unfortunately totally disappeared, and cannot therefore be taken into account, St. Alban's Church, Selje, St. Michael's Church, Bergen, St. Harvard's Church, Oslo, and St. Swithin's Church, Stavanger.
Of the above-named, only St. Halvard's in Oslo, and Trondhjem Cathedral have any resemblance, and only these therefore are worth a careful comparison. The first of them, it is true, possesses fully developed transepts, and must have had a belfry above their intersection with the nave. The nave had two aisles, but was comparatively very short; the choir was without aisles, and the side- chapels were joined immediately to it. It originally had no west tower. This does not present any striking resemblance to the original design of St. Magnus'. As regards Trondhjem Cathedral, our opinion is that hardly any of Olaf Kyrre's building remains above ground; and of the Norman building, only the transepts with their side-chapels are left. These, it is true, show an external resemblance to the corresponding parts of St. Magnus' Cathedral; but whereas the chapels in Trondhjem are as if cast in one piece with the transepts, in St. Magnus' they are later additions in places where the original intention has certainly been to have apsidal chapels; for their opening into the transepts belongs to the ear- liest design. As moreover all the transeptal chapels of that period with which we are acquainted in England and the north of France are apsidal in form, we may take it for granted that this was also the case at St. Magnus*. The
Norwegian Monuments under Anglo-Norman and Gothic Influence. 69
rectangular termination of the altar-recess, whether large or small, does not appear to be employed with any frequency in the more richly ornamented churches of the Norman Romanesque style until after the middle of the 12th century; but from that time it rapidly gained ground, so that in both Groat Britain and Norway scarcely a single example of a semicircular apse, and very few examples of polygonal apses, can be proved to have been built after the year 1200.1
It would appear from the above that Trondhjem Cathedral has had no influence whatever upon the conception of the original plan of St. Magnus', and that therefore the latter cannot be employed as a support for the assump- tion that the transepts of Trondhjem and their chapels were built before 1137.
There is unfortunately no trace left of Christ Church, Bergen. Whether it may have resembled St. Magnus' must therefore be left uncertain; but it is scarcely probable that it was built upon a more elaborate plan than the later church of St. Swithin, at Stavanger.
We have thus sought in vain in Norway for a model for St. Magnus'; and we are strengthened in our assumption that the architect came from Durham or Dunfermline.
It must also be remembered in this connection, that the see of Orkney was not closely connected with the church of the mother-country until the crea- tion of the Nidaros (Trondhjem) archbishopric in 1152.
The see of Orkney was founded about the year 1050, and it appears as though at first it was a contested question whether it should be under the York or the Hamburg archbishopric. At any rate the contention ended practi- cally to the </