effects of jewelry designs in the painted decorations of manuscripts,
in the masonry of churches, and in sculpture in stone and in wood,
the last an especially important medium of Viking art.
VIKINGSIn 793 the pre-Christian traders and pirates of Scandi-
navia known as Vikings (named after the viks—coves or “trading
places”—of the Norwegian shoreline) landed in the British Isles. They
destroyed the Christian monastic community on Lindisfarne Island
off the Northumbrian (northeastern) coast of England. Shortly af-
ter, these Norsemen (North men) attacked the monastery at Jarrow
in England as well as that on Iona Island, off the west coast of Scot-
land. From this time until the mid-11th century, the Vikings were
the terror of western Europe. From their great ships they seasonally
harried and plundered European coasts, harbors, and river settle-
ments. Their fast, seaworthy longboats took them on wide-ranging
voyages, from Ireland eastward to Russia and westward to Iceland
and Greenland and even, briefly, to Newfoundland in North Amer-
ica, long before Columbus arrived in the “New World.”
The Vikings were not intent merely on a hit-and-run strategy of
destruction but on colonizing the lands they occupied by conquest.
Their exceptional talent for organization and administration, as well
as for war, enabled them to take and govern large territories in Ire-
land, England, and France, as well as in the Baltic regions and Russia.
For a while, in the early 11th century, the whole of England was part
of a Danish empire. When Vikings settled in northern France in the
early 10th century, their territory came to be called Normandy—
home of the Norsemen who became Normans. (Later, a Norman
duke, William the Conqueror, sailed across the English Channel and
invaded and became the master of Anglo-Saxon England;FIG. 17-35.)
OSEBERG SHIP BURIALMuch of the preserved art of the
Viking sea rovers consists of decoration of their great wooden ships.
Striking examples of Viking woodcarving come from a ship burial
near the sea at Oseberg, Norway. The ship, discovered beneath anearthen mound as was the earlier Sutton Hoo burial, was more than
70 feet long. The vessel contained the remains of two women. The
size of the burial alone and the lavishly carved wooden ornament of
the sleek ship attest to the importance of those laid to rest there. The
vessel also once must have carried many precious objects that rob-
bers removed long before its modern discovery.
An animal-head post (FIG. 16-4) is characteristic of the mas-
terfully carved wood ornamentation of the Oseberg ship. It com-
bines in one composition the image of a roaring beast with protrud-
ing eyes and flaring nostrils and the deftly carved, controlled, and
contained pattern of tightly interwoven animals that writhe, grip-
ping and snapping, in serpentine fashion. The Oseberg animal head
is a powerfully expressive example of the union of two fundamental
motifs of warrior-lord art on the northern frontiers of the former
Roman Empire—the animal form and the interlace pattern.Christian Art: Scandinavia, British Isles, Spain
At the same time that powerful warlords were amassing artworks
dominated by abstract and animal motifs, elsewhere in northern
Europe Christian missionaries were establishing monasteries and
sponsoring artworks of Christian content. The early medieval art of
northern Europe, however, is dramatically different in character
from contemporaneous works produced in Italy and the Byzantine
Empire. These Christian artworks are among the most distinctive
ever created and testify to the fruitful fusion of native and imported
artistic traditions.
STAVE CHURCH, URNESBy the 11th century, much of
Scandinavia had become Christian, but Viking artistic traditions
persisted. Nowhere is this more evident than in the decoration of the
portal (FIG. 16-5) of the stave church (staves are wedge-shaped tim-
bers placed vertically) at Urnes, Norway. The portal and a few staves
are almost all that remain from a mid-11th-century church whose
fragments were incorporated in the walls of a 12th-century church.
Gracefully elongated animal forms intertwine with flexible plant
stalks and tendrils in spiraling rhythm. The effect of natural growth
is astonishing, yet the designer subjected it to a highly refined ab-
stract sensibility. This intricate Urnes style was the culmination of
three centuries of Viking inventiveness.
HIBERNO-SAXON ARTIn Ireland, the Christianization of
the Celts began in the fifth century. The new converts, although
nominally subject to the popes ofRome, quickly developed a form
of monastic organization that differed from the Church of Rome.
The relative independence of the Irish monasteries was due in part
to their isolation. The monks often selected inaccessible and inhos-
pitable places where they could carry on their duties far from
worldly temptations and distractions. Before long, Irish monks,
filled with missionary zeal, set up monastic establishments in Britain
and Scotland. In 563, Saint Columba founded an important mon-
astery on the Scottish island of Iona, where he successfully converted
the native Picts to Christianity. Iona monks established the monas-
tery at Lindisfarne off the northern coast of Britain in 635. These
foundations became great centers of learning as well as the most im-
portant centers of artistic production of the early medieval period in
northern Europe.
A style that art historians designate as Hiberno-Saxon (Hibernia
was the Roman name of Ireland), or sometimes as Insular to denote16-4Animal-head post, from the Viking ship burial, Oseberg,
Norway, ca. 834. Wood, head 5high. Viking Ship Museum, University
of Oslo, Bygdoy, Norway.
The Vikings were master wood carvers. This post from a Viking ship
combines in one composition the head of a roaring beast with surface
ornamentation in the form of tightly interwoven writhing animals.410 Chapter 16 EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE1 in.16-4AViking
ship burial,
Oseberg,
ca. 815–820.