4.23 Europe: a.d. 901 to 1000  (Page 7/7)

Finland

No special change in Finland in this century.

Overseas scandinavian centers: iceland and greenland

By 934 Iceland was as thickly settled as it would be until World War 11, with perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 people and a great literature accumulated. In A.D. 1,000 the Allthing (Parliament) formally adopted Christianity. One-half the people in Iceland were from Bergen, Norway, having fled from the tyranny of Harold Fairhair in the previous century. Sailing from Iceland, but originally from Norway, Bjarno Herjolfsson visited the coast of North America in 985 and a Norwegian colony was established on Greenland by Thorwald and his son Eric the Red of Jaeder, Norway about A.D. 1,000. (Ref. 237 )

Eastern europe

Southern baltic area

Some six tribes in Poland were finally united early in this period under the domination of the Polani Slavs with Meiszko I as the first historical ruler of the Polish people. The German Otto had previously subdued many Polish dukes, so in order to avoid further conquest by the Germans, Mieszko placed Poland under the Latin pope. In this attachment with Latin Christianity, Poland, Bohemia and Moravia differed from all the southern Slavs. Subsequently Mieszko resisted Otto II's armies and established the Polish border along the line of the Oder River and the Baltic Sea. His daughter married the king of Sweden and then she later married the king of the Danes and was the mother of Canute, of whom we shall hear much more in the next chapter. The chief city of Poland was Gniezno.

Boleslav I, ruling from 992 after Meiszko's death, was one of the founders of Polish greatness, conquering Moravia, part of Silesia and even Cracow. He had an efficient military machine and laid the basis for an good administrative system. He gained further access to the Baltic by conquering eastern Pomerania. (Ref. 8 ) Around various feudal centers having local princes, artisan villages developed, each dedicated to a single industry, such as making barrels, or gold-smithing, or horse-breeding. Kruszuica was one of these complexes which developed very rapidly. (Ref. 244 )

Russia

The Scandinavian merchants were still prominent in the river trade in Russia. Maureen Green (Ref. 79 ) quotes the Arab historian Ibn Fadlan, writing of the Vikings' arrival on the Volga in 922: "Never had I seen people of more perfect physiques. They are as tall as date palms, have reddish hair and fair skins. Every man carries an axe, a sword and a dagger, and is never seen without them". But he added: "They are the dirtiest of God's creatures.”

The Slavonic tribes about Kiev (the Varangian principality) were loosely united as "Rus" Thomas (Ref . 213) says that the first Grand Duchy of Kiev resembled the East India or South African Companies, only under Viking instead of English lords. Oleg and later Igor fought to the gates of Constantinople and forced various treaties with Byzantium. Igor's son, Svyatoslav, was the first Kievan prince to bear a Slavic rather than a Scandinavian name. Igor's widow, Olga, ruled for their child-son and introduced tax and administrative reforms which struck down the old tribal systems, and in various communities, types of parliaments were established. In addition to the upper classes (the families of princes, bodyguards, courtiers, etc.) and the working class of freemen and the slaves, there now appeared other classes such as traders and artisans and merchants. Illiteracy dropped. Although Olga became a Christian, with ceremonies in Constantinople in 957, Svyatoslav remained a pagan when he took the throne. He led the Rus in plundering the Khazar capital on the Volga but this was not difficult as the formerly war-like Khazars had largely become merchants and farmers. As the Grand Prince Svyatoslav attempted to destroy these peaceful people in 962 and 963 he only opened up the way for the fierce Pechnegs, who then dominated the southern Russian steppe, and who finally killed the Kievan prince. Additional Notes

After six years of fratricidal war Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1015) of Great Novgorod, with the help of Viking warriors, became the ruler of Kiev and the groom of a sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, thus making Russia a daughter of Byzantium. Through this marriage and trading links, the Greek Christian faith made considerable inroads into the Russian state. (Ref. 49 , 79 , 8 , 222 )

The original Georgian kingdoms had not reappeared after the Arab withdrawal although in 978 Abasgia re-christened herself "Georgia" in a bid for rekindling of old Georgian patriotism. (Ref. 137 )

Forward to Europe: A.D. 1001 to 1100