Keywords

Mare nostrum (“Our sea”): Introductory Remarks

Sailing in the Baltic Sea in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages was the basis of life within the vast territories of northern and north-eastern Europe. This inland sea was a kind of mare nostrum for the peoples of the European north. Due to its geographical position, the Baltic Sea had long formed a network of routes connecting the peoples living on its shores. Already in the eighth and ninth centuries, the inhabitants of this region witnessed the growth of trading centers of a similar type, such as Kaupang, Birka, Hedeby, Ladoga, etc. The exchange of goods (the so-called Baltic trade) was carried out on the basis of common currency—glass beads to start with, then Arabic silver, and, later, German and English silver coins. Still, this connection of peoples did not always have positive connotations. The Baltic Sea region might be characterized as a general space of the unsafety and insecurity of travel, quite typical of this period.1 The dichotomy of meanings and characteristics of what was happening on the shores of the Baltic Sea might be conveyed by such pairs of words as peace—war, peace—absence of peace (which is not the same as war), safety—danger, security—insecurity, hospitality—hostility.2 Trade was a far from safe undertaking, both for merchants and natives. Merchants could turn out to be pirates, the Vikings, while local residents could behave in quite an unfriendly manner toward the newcomers.

Sources from different parts of the Baltic region emphasize the safety and security problems that arose and describe various ways of solving them. Adam of Bremen in the 1070s writes in his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum that the people of Björkö, a trading place often visited by merchants from Denmark, Norway, and the southern Baltic, were forced to block the sea entrance to Björkö by masses of hidden rocks, making its passage perilous not only for the pirates but for themselves as well.3 Regardless of whether these obstacles were created by nature or people,4 this is how Adam saw the situation. In his mid-thirteenth-century Knýtlinga saga, Olafr Thordarson (Óláfr Þorðarson) puts the following words in the mouth of Emperor Henry V (r. 1111–1125): “It is customary in many lands for men of authority to keep the harbours on their coasts locked, and collect large fees. Not only that, it helps protect the kingdom in case of war.”5 On the emperor’s advice, Knud Lavard (Knútr lávarðr, d. 1131), the Danish prince and duke of Schleswig, blocked the Schlei, a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea, with the help of iron chains and timber structures. He did this because “at that time Denmark suffered badly from attacks by the heathen, and other Baltic peoples, who spent summers looting and harrying both merchants and those ashore.”6 Snorri Sturluson presents the Baltic Sea in his Heimskringla (c.1230) as a region still crowded with Viking pirates. Thus, according to Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, Estonian Vikings seized a merchant ship on which Astrid (Ástriðr) and the young Olaf (Óláfr—the future Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason, r. 995–1000) were heading (c.970) from Sweden to Old Rus’.7 An example of how raiding and peaceful trade went hand in hand is given by Snorri when he tells of “a man called Loðinn, from Vík, wealthy and of good family,” who “frequently went on trading voyages, but sometimes went raiding.”8 According to Snorri, the Norwegian Jarl/Earl Erik (Eiríkr, r. 1000–1011), who went on a Viking campaign to obtain booty, “made first for Gotland and lay off there for a long period during the summer and waylaid trading ships that were sailing to that country or else vikings.”9 The Chronicle of Novgorod (written soon after 1234) reports s.a. 1188 about the attack on Gotland against Novgorodian merchants, and describes the response: “in the spring they let no man of their own go beyond the sea from Novgorod, and gave no envoy to the Varangians, but they sent them away without peace.”10 Issues of security, hospitality, and peace seemed indeed closely tied.

In this chapter, I focus on a particular means of securitization employed by the Russian princes in the first half of the eleventh century as it was described in the Icelandic sagas. The sagas were written in the middle of the thirteenth century and come down to us in still later manuscripts. Despite the time gap between the events and their record, the saga information is reliable to some degree. Sagas contain descriptions of hospitality provided by the konungar af Hólmgarði, i.e., Russian princes, toward the former and future Norwegian kings. They tell how the Russian princes took charge over the young Norwegian kings’ sons, how they put them at the head of the army that protects the entire country, or how they offered them part of their land to rule over, but these descriptions are in accordance with a certain stereotype, a literary formula aimed at praising a noble Scandinavian outside his own country, which reduces the reliability of saga information.11 However, the descriptions of security measures that will be discussed in this chapter are unique and therefore seem trustworthy.

In the first step, I concentrate on the long waterway from Scandinavia eastwards, along the Baltic Sea and beyond, and how this waterway was imagined in the minds of medieval Scandinavians. Second, I describe the location of Ladoga and the difficulties along this waterway from Ladoga to Novgorod. Third, I turn to three descriptions of the following situation contained in the sagas: Norwegians who have sailed to Ladoga send one of their own to the Russian prince for a travel permit, and as a group they embark on a journey only upon receiving this permission. The security means in question—namely, a right to travel through his territory, from Aldeigjuborg to Hólmgarðr (i.e., from Ladoga to Novgorod), given by the Russian prince to the merchants and noblemen arriving from Norway—might be considered simultaneously as a manifestation of hospitality, as assistance to help them overcome the distance, as protection from attacks by local residents, and as a security measure, a protection of local population against unwanted guests. To clarify this, I focus on the terminology of the sagas, in particular on the term “peace” used to designate a guarantee of personal security. Since these three themes are atypical compared to the other saga material, they are likely to reflect, at least to some extent, historical reality, which can be corroborated with archeological evidence as well as with the evidence from Old Russian sources, as I do in the final section of the chapter. In so doing, I will show the way the issues of hospitality and safety were tightly interconnected in the most remote corner of the Baltic in the first half of the eleventh century.

…tendatur usque in Greciam (“…Extends Even to Greece”)

Adam of Bremen believed that the Baltic Sea, this gulf of the Ocean, “extends a long distance through the Scythian regions even to Greece.”12 He also says that from Schleswig “ships usually proceed to Slavia or to Sweden or to Samland, even to Greece,”13 and that from the island of Bornholm ships “are usually dispatched to the barbarians and to Greece,” and that “oracular responses are sought” in Courland “from all parts of the world, especially by Spaniards and Greeks.”14 As a result, Schleswig, Bornholm, Iumne (Wolin), Ostrogard Ruzziae, and Greece are for Adam stations on one and the same waterway, which is not far from the truth. After all, the mental map of this learned cleric, who had not made any long voyages, arose as a mixture of information obtained both through a study of the writings available to him and inquiries of his contemporaries, particularly his Scandinavian informants. The river system of Eastern Europe (leading in particular to Greece) was an ideal road for long-distance international trade and well-known to Scandinavian Vikings (Fig. 3.1). I do not think that the Baltic Rim should be seen as stretching as far as the Black Sea. I follow Kristel Zilmer’s conceptualization of this region “in terms of belonging within a broader network of travel routes that connected Northern Europe with areas to the east and south, the Baltic Sea region can also be shown to form a transit zone or a gateway that provided access to larger territories.”15 In her studies of the waterway traffic, Zilmer does not simply examine the Baltic region as comprising the sea and the immediate coastal lands, but includes in her study adjacent areas connected to the Baltic Sea by many rivers. In her view, the Baltic region “covers not only the sea basin and surrounding coastal areas but radiates out to include further inland territories that are either fully or in a substantial part located within the drainage basin.” She also includes north-western Russia, “an attractive destination for traffic that at least led through the Baltic region.”16

Fig. 3.1
The map displays trade routes from Scandinavia through Eastern Europe. In total, there are 16 centers along the route. They are Keupang, Birka, Hedeby, Novgorod, Polotsk, Gnezdovo, Kiev, Constantinople, Ladogo, Ryurikovo, Gorodische, Smolensk, Rostov, Suzdal, Murom, and Bulgar.

Trade routes from Scandinavia via Eastern Europe. Map by Alexey Frolov

Full size image

Aldeigjuborg ok jarlsríki þat, er þar liggr til (“Aldeigjuborg and the jarl’s Dominion that Belongs with It”)

Let me begin by focusing on (Staraya) Ladoga,17 a settlement on the left bank of the Volkhov River, 12 km from its inflow into Lake Ladoga. To get to Ladoga from Scandinavia, travelers had to go in the eastern direction through the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Finland, then 74 km along the Neva River, enter Lake Ladoga and continue along its southern bank to reach where the Volkhov River flows into the lake, before finally traveling against the current up the Volkhov. The Volkhov River (224 km long) connects two lakes, Il’men’ (where its source is) and Ladoga (where its mouth is), and two significant towns in Old Rus’, namely Novgorod and Ladoga. On the way from the Gulf of Finland to the East European Plain, Ladoga was unavoidable.18 Moreover, Ladoga is a place where the sea route comes to an end and an inland river route begins. Both of them required special and different sailing skills, which meant the ships had to be re-equipped or even changed.19 Not far from Ladoga, upstream the Volkhov River, there were the most dangerous of the Eastern European rapids, the Volkhovskie (Gostinopol’skie) rapids. They stretched for 9 km between the steep limestone banks that were over 20 m high. Thirty kilometers farther downstream began the other rapids—these ones known as the Pchevskie—which stretched for another 9 km and created further difficulties for navigation. Overcoming the rapids required travelers to reload goods, transporting them overland along the river, and dragging or pulling ships on ropes along the coast. The conditions for crossing the rapids are described in detail in the 1269 treaty of Novgorod with Lübeck and Gotland.20 The ships on which the Germans brought their goods to the Novgorodian Land could not pass the Volkhov rapids. The goods were reloaded onto flat-bottomed Novgorodian boats that were led to Il’men’ by local pilots. Even experienced pilots were not safe when passing the rapids, as evidenced by a clear division of responsibility: the German guests were responsible for the ship itself, whereas the pilots were not responsible for the sunken goods.21

Archeological materials demonstrate that Ladoga started to develop by the middle of the eighth century,22 and by the second half of the eighth and early ninth century, Ladoga had already become a major node of international trade. Hoards of Arab dirhams (from 786, 808, and 847), Mediterranean glass beads, ceramics from the Near East, Baltic amber, ceramics, and carved bone from Friesland characterize the scope of Ladoga’s contacts.23

The earliest Ladoga may have been a center of proto-state formation in the Northern Volkhov and Lake Ladoga region. A settlement where ships arrived, armed people gathered, and considerable wealth was accumulated clearly had to be controlled by someone and become an object of self-securitization. Certain guarantees were required so that the system of trade centers in the Baltic could function properly, which typically meant that the ships entering the harbor would not be stolen or burnt and that visitors would neither rob nor kill each other. At that time, such guarantees could only be given by a local ruler who possessed authority and military strength. No “remote control” would be effective in this situation, and indeed, the subordinate position of Ladoga in relation to Novgorod is a much later phenomenon.24

From the moment of its foundation, Ladoga was the center of a particular administrative district, gorodovaja volost’,25 located along the rapids of the Volkhov. Satellite settlements and road stations that were part of this volost’ controlled the lower reaches of the Volkhov (about 60 km long) and attended to the international shipping.26 The location of fortified settlements on the Volkhov—Lyubsha, Novye Duboviki, Gorodishche, Kholopiy gorodok, and some others—served as the trade route. They are known as the most dangerous parts of the rapids, which lay a day’s distance of sailing from one another.27 The time when this system formed might only be determined, according to Sergey Kuz’min, through archeological data that would indicate the origin of a settlement in the area of the rapids in the tenth century.28 Importantly, hospitality and safety measures went hand in hand in this context. Outposts located along the Volkhov, on the one hand, were able to prevent an enemy from getting in and, on the other hand, provided assistance to merchants. Securitization in this case was multilayered: it was the protection of those living inland from the newcomers, and the protection of the newcomers from those living along the way as well as from the physical dangers of the journey itself. These outposts can be seen as a form of “distributed safety,” or “distributed security,” with Ladoga making up the key element in this quasi-system, since no one could leave Ladoga and go south without permission and assistance from the political centers in this region.

Surprisingly, probably because the route through Ladoga was a natural and necessary stopover, it is rarely mentioned in the sagas similarly to all the other obvious routes.29 Still, when it does appear it constitutes this crucial, intermediate station on the way from Scandinavia to Novgorod (and its rulers) and back. Three stories deserve our attention.

Peace, Security, and Hospitality

The Saga of Magnús the Good and Haraldr the Harsh Ruler in Morkinskinna (1217–1222), one of the three big compendia of the kings’ sagas, tells how Magnus (Magnús, the future Magnus I the Good, r. 1035–1047), a five-year-old boy left in Rus’ by his father Olaf II (Óláfr Haraldsson, r. 1014–1028, the future St. Olaf) before his last battle at Stiklestad in 1030, was returned to his homeland by some Norwegian magnates so that the title of king could be conferred on him.30 The chapter about Magnus’s return to Norway opens with a statement about the severance of trade relations between Rus’ and Norway, more precisely between Yaroslav the Wise (Jarizleifr, r. 1019–1054 as Grand Prince of Kiev) and Sven (Sveinn, d. 1035), the son of the Danish King Cnut the Great (Knútr inn ríki, r. 1018–1035), who was installed by his father as ruler of Norway (1030–1035) after St. Olaf’s death:

At this time there was hostility between Sveinn Álfífuson and King Yaroslav because King Yaroslav correctly judged that the Norwegians had betrayed Saint Óláfr. For a time there was no trade between them.31

What the saga labels “a betrayal of St. Olaf” is the fact that in 1030 the Norwegian magnates allied with King Cnut the Great of England and Denmark (r. 1016/18–1035), and met the future holy ruler in battle near Trondheim where Olaf was killed. According to Elena Melnikova, the comment that there was no trade peace under Sven suggests that such peace had existed before that. She states that during St. Olaf’s reign, roughly between 1024 and 1028, a trade peace with Rus’ was concluded ensuring free trade and the safety of Norwegian merchants in Rus’.32

These saga events might thus be dated to 1034. We learn of two wealthy Norwegian merchants, Karl and his brother Bjørn (Bjǫrn), who “intend to make a trading voyage” to Old Rus’ (in Morinskinna’s terms “í Austrveg”). They realize that “because of the declarations of King Sveinn and King Yaroslav and the hostility [‘ófriðr’] between them the voyage is hardly without danger [‘má þat kalla eigi varligt’].”33 What kind of danger or risk is referred to here? First of all, the absence of a trade peace with a given polity meant a ban against merchants sailing to that region, and punishment of them in the case of violation of this prohibition. Karl’s words on the merchants’ return confirm this: “It occurs to me that we had no permission for this voyage to the Baltic, and there is every reason to think that the king will have a case against us … there will be some risk both to our property and lives.”34 Karl’s words indicate that trade relations were a political matter, and a merchant going to another country had to obtain permission from his ruler. This probably only extended to the periods when a trade peace was absent.

There was also another risk: the inhospitality of local residents. And this is what the travelers encountered. When they sailed “at a big market center” in the Rus’ [Austrríki] and “anchored with the intention of purchasing what they needed,” the natives “refused to trade with them.” It is telling that this happened “as soon as the natives realized that they were Norwegians.” The situation got to the point that “it was shaping up for a battle, and the natives were ready to attack.”35 Karl stopped the attack of local residents by saying that their king might not like such treatment of “foreigners who come with articles for trade,” and then went to King Yaroslav, which means that the trading city was in his state, and it could be only Ladoga. The saga does not provide any details about where and on what terms Karl’s fellow travelers stayed in Ladoga, only tells of his journey, but again without any details: “There is no information about his trip until he came before King Yaroslav and greeted him.”36 Further events did not develop in a favorable way for the Norwegian either. Having found out who he was and where he had come from, Yaroslav “ordered that he be taken and put in irons, and this was done.”37 However, at the request of Magnus, he released Karl: “Prince Magnús wants you to be granted a truce [‘grið’]”38 (and to “all those Norwegians,” adds Flateyjarbók).39 Yaroslav suggested that Karl should either go to his ship and conduct their trade as they wished (there is an interpolation in Hulda: “and make sure that you have peace [‘grið’] from other natives if I give you freedom”),40 or spend the winter with him and go on his mission in the spring. Karl agreed to the second proposal and departed in the spring with Yaroslav’s instructions to Norway, but there he fell into captivity. He managed to escape with the help of Kalv Arnason (Kálfr Árnason), a Norwegian magnate who had been fighting in the Battle at Stiklestad against St. Olaf, but who now swore allegiance to his son Magnus.

They sailed east to Russia [‘Garðaríki’] to meet with Magnús. He and King Yaroslav were overjoyed to see Karl. He told them all about his travels, then placed Kálfr’s case before Magnús … Karl said: “Kálfr will now swear to you that he did not strike your father King Óláfr.” … Then the king and Magnús took up the matter between them.… They sent for Kálfr, for whom Karl had already secured a truce.41

Clearly, the same situation is repeated in the saga story twice. First, only Karl went to King Yaroslav, while a group of merchants stayed behind. The plan was likely for Karl to obtain a “peace” (permission) for the rest of them to travel from Ladoga to Novgorod. When Yaroslav freed Karl, he said that Magnus wanted a truce (peace) to be granted to him and all the Norwegians, which means that this “peace” for Karl was not a liberation from imprisonment, but a right to travel and transport goods which applied to his Norwegian compatriots awaiting him in Ladoga. The interpolation in Hulda that contrasts the “peace” (grið) from local residents and the “freedom” (frjálsi) received from the king makes clear that the concept of “peace” also included “personal security.” In the second part of this account, Karl and Kalv Arnason went to Rus’ together, but only Karl came before Yaroslav. This means that Kalv, a hostile and unwelcome guest, had to wait somewhere (in Ladoga?) before being given a “peace” to travel. The “peace” that Karl received for Kalv was most likely a guarantee of his immunity, since Yaroslav and Magnus were convinced that Magnus’ father, St. Olaf, had been killed by Kalv. Upon his arrival to Yaroslav, Kalv “swore an oath that he had not struck a blow at King Óláfr, and he committed himself to support Magnús faithfully.”42 Even if this version of Kalv’s arrival in Rus’ contradicts other versions of the same plot in the kings’ sagas, this story provides important information, namely, that a noble Norwegian and a political opponent of the Russian prince had to wait to be granted the right to travel inland. The most likely place for Kalv’s temporary stay—an antechamber, as it were—was Ladoga.

My second example is a fragment from the last chapter of Óláfs saga Haraldssonar in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla. Snorri, although he used Morkinskinna as a source, omits the story of Karl and merely describes how a group of Norwegian magnates—and not only Kalv Arnason—went to Rus’ in 1035 after the young Magnus:

They travelled in the spring east over Kjǫlr to Jamtaland [Jämtland], then to Helsingjaland [Hälsingland] and came out into Svíþjóð [Sweden], got ships there, travelling in the summer east to Garðaríki [Rus’], arriving in the autumn at Aldeigjuborg [Ladoga]. Then they sent messengers up to Hólmgarðr [Novgorod] to see King Jarizleifr [Yaroslav] with this message, that they were offering King Óláfr the Saint’s son Magnús that they would receive him and accompany him to Norway and give him support so that he might obtain his patrimony, and uphold him as king over the land. So when this message reached King Jarizleifr, then he took counsel with the queen and his other leading people. They reached agreement that the Norwegians should be sent word and summoned there to see King Jarizleifr and Magnús and his people. They were given safe conduct for this journey. So when they got to Hólmgarðr, then it was decided between them that the Northmen who had come there should pay homage to Magnús and become his men, and they confirmed this by oaths with Kálfr and all the men who had been against King Óláfr at Stiklarstaðir [Stiklestad].43

Again, it follows from the saga that all those Norwegians who had arrived at Ladoga (listed explicitly) did not venture further into the country, but sent ambassadors to the prince with an oral message about the purpose of their trip. Having discussed the situation, Yarolsav decided to send word to the Norwegians who remained in Ladoga and thus summon them to come before him. Snorri clarifies that they were given peace (grið) for their trip. To term grið, “peace,” used here (“in pl., metaph. a truce, peace, pardon”)44 differs from the synonymous friðr in that it expresses a concept limited in time or space. Following The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, the expression selja grið means “to conclude a temporary truce, usually legally bound by oath, for the period until there is a settlement of a conflict.”45 Járnsíða, a law code that Magnús VI of Norway (r. 1268–1280) had issued for Iceland in 1271–1274, gives an explicit example: “If a man wants to go to a thing [assembly] summoned by means of an arrow message [i.e., in case of war, etc.], against whom charges had been brought there earlier, then bonds should guarantee him safety [‘selja grið’] on the way to this thing and back, a five-day guarantee in summer and half-a-month guarantee in winter.”46

Heimskringla thus intimates a guaranteed safe passage from Ladoga to Novgorod, but one of a different character than safe passage given to the merchants as reported in Morkinskinna. In the first part of the story recounted in Morkinskinna, the measures were intended to protect those men from attacks by local residents and to help them overcome the difficult waterway: i.e., hospitality and security for trade guests. In the second part of this story dealing with a Norwegian magnate, an opponent of the father of the Norwegian prince staying at the Russian court, those measures served to prevent a potentially dangerous foreigner from entering the territory, in which case hospitality concerned security measures and codes of conduct protecting the host community. Finally, as described in the fragment from Snorri’s Heimskringla dealing with the same Norwegian and his companions (also Norwegian magnates), the essence of these measures was to help the Norwegians on their way home, that is hospitable assistance and security for the departing guests.

The final, third example comes from Eymundar þáttr in Flateyjarbók. It concerns a trip of a certain Eymundr Hringsson and Ragnarr Agnarsson to Rus’ sometime between 1016 and 1019. The fragment describes a similar course of action to those above, although the text here contains an obvious contradiction:

Without breaking their journey, Eymund and his men travelled to Novgorod in the east to King Jarisleif [Yaroslav], whom they visited first at the request of Ragnar. King Jarisleif was son-in-law to King Olaf of Sweden, being married to his daughter Ingigerd. As soon as the king heard of their arrival, he sent messengers bearing an offer of safe conduct and an invitation to a lavish feast [‘til fridrar uæitzslu’], which they accepted gladly.47

The story opens with a statement that the two men did not stop on their way until they came to Yaroslav (and here a stereotypical formula of the type letta ferð sinni “to alight from, to interrupt a journey” is used).48 But in three phrases it turns out that they had to have stopped: only after Yaroslav had learnt of their arrival, he sent them “peace.” Here, however, instead of friðr (meaning both peace, but also personal security, inviolability) the term friðland (a peace-land or friendly country) is employed which was “used in the laws of old freebooters (víkingar), who made a compact not to plunder a country, on condition of having there a free asylum and free market.”49 It seems that, in contrast to the stereotypical story, the text reflects a real situation, namely the difficulty faced by the noble Scandinavians in reaching Novgorod without a delay and a stop in Ladoga. These foreigners are neither merchants, who had arrived during the absence of a trade peace between the two countries, nor political opponents of the Russian prince and his distinguished guest. The saga does not hint at the difficulties that these guests might have encountered while awaiting permission to travel further. As a result, it seems that in the eyes of the saga authors, Ladoga was a kind of a gateway, a space of (in-)hospitality, and a waiting room whose nature depended on the status and intentions of the arriving aliens.

The question arises as to what period the described events and hospitality arrangements reflect. The early eleventh century, when Eymundr and his companions went to Rus’ to meet Prince Yaroslav? Or the late fourteenth century, when Eymundar þáttr became part of the Icelandic manuscript Flateyjarbók (1387–1394)? The above-mentioned stereotypical formula of an uninterrupted travel was used in the sagas when their authors did not have any information about the events that had occurred on the way, and this technique was regularly used in the sagas. If the compiler of Flateyjarbók deliberately introduced the details about the “peace” given to the travelers by Yaroslav into the saga, he must have omitted the automatic “travel formula.” But as he was probably unfamiliar with the route, he did not pay any attention to the remark that the travelers had received the “peace” for the duration of their journey from the king. Apparently, the compiler did not realize that while waiting to be given this “peace” they must have been accommodated somewhere, in all likelihood in Ladoga.

Concluding Remarks

The three saga excerpts are unique when it comes to providing insight into the security measures embedded in codes of hospitality. Sagas repeatedly describe how Scandinavian kings, jarls, merchants, and travelers came to Rus’, but they only discuss safety measures in connection with Yaroslav’s reign. This is not a coincidence. Historians of Old Rus’ record a number of cardinal changes that took place during Yaroslav the Wise’s time in power. The first and most important of them was a transition from personal (spontaneous) relations to inter-state (systemic) relations.50 It is likely that the sagas have reflected Yaroslav’s direct participation in the events described.

A retrospective view suggests that in the eleventh century, the security of the visiting merchants (and not only merchants) was ensured in the same way as it would be a century and a half later. I have already mentioned the account of The Chronicle of Novgorod s.a. 1188: in response to the attack on Novgorodian merchants on Gotland, the Russian party “let no man of their own go beyond sea from Novgorod.” Importantly, they “gave no envoy [‘ни cълa въдaшa’] to the Varangians, but they sent them away without peace [‘бeз миpa’].”51 This meant that the Varangians who left Novgorod had no guarantees of personal security. They had no “peace,” i. e., no kind of official document, nor was there any “envoy” with them, i. e., no person obliged to accompany foreigners within the Novgorodian Land, both upon arrival and departure.52 The existence of such a tradition is confirmed by the relevant articles of trade agreements.53 The envoys carrying out these duties are mentioned in the Treaty of Novgorod with Gotland (the Gothic Coast), Lübeck and German cities on peace and trade (1259–1260),54 and in the Treaty of Novgorod with Lübeck and Gotland (1269).55 These two treaties emphasize the fact that they confirm or reinstate “the old peace treaty,” which according to scholars had been an intermediate treaty between the one written down in 1259–1260 and the earliest one, written on the same parchment, that is datable to 1191–1192 (or 1201).56 It is likely that this treaty summed up at least two centuries of relations between Novgorod and Scandinavian countries, and a century or half-century of Novgorod–German relations. In turn, it laid the foundations for further trade relations in the eastern Baltic.57 According to the preamble, the agreement of 1191–1192 was a confirmation of the old peace treaty58; however, the content and the date of the latter are unknown.

Archeological data, for their part, demonstrate that at an early stage of its existence, Ladoga, along with trade and craft functions, assumed functions of a frontier fortress that protected an area to the south of Lake Ladoga and the route inland. This is evidenced by three stone fortresses built successively at the mouth of the river Ladozhka in the ninth, twelfth, and sixteenth centuries.59 A chain of similar fortified settlements located along the Volkhov served as strongholds and control stations on the waterway from Ladoga to Novgorod.60

We can only make assumptions as to how exactly control functions were carried out, how information was transmitted, and in what form the “peace” was given in this area. Long discussions on the emblematics of the Old Russian princes from the tenth to the first half of the thirteenth century61 has led, among other things, to one interesting hypothesis. Silver and bronze trapezoidal pendants with the symbols of the Rurikids, found mainly in the large urban centers of Old Rus’, are likely to have been the attributes of officials, and served as credentials for diplomatic representatives and administrative officials, like the Old Norse jartegnir,62 repeatedly mentioned in the Icelandic sagas.63 It is quite natural that Ladoga occupied a key position on the route from the Baltic Sea to the depths of Old Rus’ and further to the east. Anatolij Kirpichnikov believes that the trade and defensive functions of the Ladoga region, that clearly stood out during the period of Novgorod–Hanseatic commerce, had been inherited from a much earlier period.64 In the sagas, we find confirmation of this thesis, and the three saga texts discussed above—containing information on the permission to travel through his territory issued by the Russian prince Yaroslav the Wise in the first half of the eleventh century—reflect a real situation: namely, the existence of a system that combined hospitality and safety measures for both host communities and incoming guests along this route.

Notes

  1. 1.

    Reuter (2006).

  2. 2.

    On peace, see Lambert (2009).

  3. 3.

    Adam of Bremen: lib. I, c. 60; Tschan (2002: 51–52): “For the people of Björkö, very often assailed by the inroads of pirates, who are numerous there, have set about deceiving by cunning artifices the enemies whom they could not resist by force of arms. They have blocked that bight of the restless sea for a hundred or more stadia by masses of hidden rocks, making its passage as perilous for themselves as for the pirates. All the ships of the Danes and Northmen, as well as those of the Slavs and Sembi and the other Scythian people, are want to meet at stated times for the diverse necessities of trade.”

  4. 4.

    Kohlmann (1908: 73).

  5. 5.

    Hermann Pálsson and Edwards (1986: 125–126) [Knýtl: 199, ch. 85].

  6. 6.

    Hermann Pálsson and Edwards (1986: 126) [Knýtl: 199–200, ch. 86].

  7. 7.

    Finlay and Faulkes (2011: 140): “She travelled with some merchants.… But as they sailed east by sea, vikings came against them. They were Eistr (Estonians)” [Hkr: 1, 230].

  8. 8.

    Finlay and Faulkes (2011: 187) [Hkr: 1, 301].

  9. 9.

    Finlay and Faulkes (2011: 211) [Hkr: 1, 337].

  10. 10.

    Michell and Forbes (1914: 34) [NPL: 39].

  11. 11.

    See Jackson (2019a: 115–172).

  12. 12.

    Tschan (2002: 193) [Adam of Bremen: lib. IV, c. 10].

  13. 13.

    Tschan (2002: 187) [Adam of Bremen: lib. IV, c. 1].

  14. 14.

    Tschan (2002: 197) [Adam of Bremen: lib. IV, c. 16].

  15. 15.

    Zilmer (2010: 100–101).

  16. 16.

    Zilmer (2005).

  17. 17.

    Prior to 1703, the town was called simply Ladoga.

  18. 18.

    Kirpichnikov (2014: 82).

  19. 19.

    Nosov (2012: 103).

  20. 20.

    Yanin (1990: 84), Skvairs and Ferdinand (2002: 49, 274–275), Skvairs (2003: 187–200), Khrustaljov and Bondar (2011).

  21. 21.

    “And if the Germans and Gotlanders arrive along the Volkhov to the rapids, they should without delay demand the rapids’ pilots and put those good people into their ships and pay them, as it had been from olden times, but not more. And if a merchant comes up in Gostinopolye, he gives as much as he used to give from olden times, but not more…. And if a boat that had left for the goods, or is loaded with goods, is crushed, it should not be paid for, but for hiring a boat one should pay” [GVNP: 59, No. 31].

  22. 22.

    The oldest dendrochronological date from Ladoga is 753.

  23. 23.

    Lebedev (1985: 210).

  24. 24.

    Platonova and Lapshin (2018: 430).

  25. 25.

    See the title of this paragraph.

  26. 26.

    Kirpichnikov et al. (1985: 50), cf. Nosov (1981, 1984), Sorokin (1993), Kirpichnikov and Sarabjanov (1996: 54–56).

  27. 27.

    Konetskij and Nosov (1985).

  28. 28.

    Kuzmin (1998).

  29. 29.

    Jackson (2019a: 85–92).

  30. 30.

    It is preserved in GKS 1009 fol (ca. 1275). A variant of this saga is preserved in AM 66 fol (Hulda) of the late fourteenth century. The lacunae of GKS 1009 fol are filled with a text from GKS 1005 fol (Flateyjarbók), namely the quires added to it in the second half of the fifteenth century.

  31. 31.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 91) [Msk: 1, 6–7].

  32. 32.

    Melnikova (1997a, 1997b).

  33. 33.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 91) [Msk: 1, 7].

  34. 34.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 93) [Msk: 1, 10].

  35. 35.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 91) [Msk: 1, 8].

  36. 36.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 91) [Msk: 1, 8].

  37. 37.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 92) [Msk: 1, 9].

  38. 38.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 92) [Msk: 1, 9].

  39. 39.

    Flat: 3, 255.

  40. 40.

    Fms (1831: 9–10).

  41. 41.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 97) [Msk: 1, 17].

  42. 42.

    Andersson and Gade (2000: 97) [Msk: 1, 17]

  43. 43.

    Finlay and Faulkes (2014): 277 [Hkr: 2, 414–415].

  44. 44.

    An Icelandic-English Dictionary: 214–215.

  45. 45.

    Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog s.v. grið.

  46. 46.

    Járnsíða: 270.

  47. 47.

    Hermann Pálsson and Edwards (1989: 72) [Flat: 2, 120].

  48. 48.

    An Icelandic-English Dictionary: 385.

  49. 49.

    Ibid.: 173.

  50. 50.

    Melnikova (2011).

  51. 51.

    NPL: 39.

  52. 52.

    Rybina (1986: 29, n. 15).

  53. 53.

    On these treaties, see Feldbrugge (2001: 182–186).

  54. 54.

    “If a winter guest [i.e. a merchant who has arrived in winter] is not accompanied by either our envoy or Novgorodin merchants [traveling] from Novgorod or from Gotland, and if something happens to German merchants on the way from [the island of] Kotlin to Novgorod, or from Novgorod to Kotlin, while they are without an envoy, then there should be no claims to Novgorod, as it stood in the old treaty” [GVNP: 57, No. 29]. On the dating of this treaty, see Khoroshkevich 1997: 128–129.

  55. 55.

    “And winter guests should come on a guarantee of the prince, and the posadnik, and all Novgorodians, according to the old treaty, without obstacles. And they should take on a Novgorodian envoy and Novgorodian merchants, according to the old treaty. And if they do not take the Novgorodian envoy and something happens on the way from Novgorod to Kotlin, then the prince and the Novgorodians do not care” [GVNP: 58, No. 31].

  56. 56.

    Khoroshkevich (1997: 130), see Rybina (1989).

  57. 57.

    Khoroshkevich (1997: 128).

  58. 58.

    GVNP: 55, No. 28.

  59. 59.

    Kirpichnikov (1984).

  60. 60.

    On such settlements, see Nosov (2012).

  61. 61.

    See Molchanov (1999).

  62. 62.

    Beletskij (2004), Molchanov (2010), Tsemushau (2018).

  63. 63.

    Jartegnir (мн. ч. oт jartegn, n.) has the meaning of “credentials” accompanying an oral message (orðsending) “which a messenger had to produce in proof that his word was true” (An Icelandic-English Dictionary: 324). See, for instance, Hermann Pálsson and Edwards 1986: 72: “…delivered the message from King Knut along with the tokens of proof…” (Knýtl, ch. 42). I am inclined to think that the jartegnir accompanying an oral message are for saga authors something similar to the seals accompanying a written message of a later time (Jackson 2019b).

  64. 64.

    Kirpichnikov (1979: 96).