Open [36.0 MB]

LIFE OF CHARLES IJALIDAY. Ixi
adds, called upon him for acts rather than words. Even
when acting as priest his memory was only burdened with
a few solemn forms of words taken in the temples, nnd some
short pray ere and toasts recited and uttered at sacrifices
and feasts. But the Christian monk was by the very
nature of his services and by the solitude of his cell thrown
into fellowship with letters. 1
It thus appears clearly that whilst the Norsemen of
Iceland were familiar with writing, from their habitation
in Ireland and constant intercourse with it, they yet made
no use of it from the date of their settlement in AJX 874
till the year 1000, the date of the introduction of Chris-
tianity, and with it of writing.
And for one hundred years after its introduction writing
was confined to ecclesiastics, the earliest fragments of MSS.
that have survived being portions of ecclesiastical legends
which the clergy had composed in the Icelandic language
for the edification of their flocks.*
This contempt of writing and of the use of scribes by a Early contempt
people so interested as the Icelanders evidently were in Europe.
the history of Iceland and Norway, as is proved by their
sagas, can only be accounted for by the life of daring and
warfare, of piracy and conquest, at sea and on land, begun
at the age of eleven and twelve and continued to old age.
These early centuries were an age of brute force. Whilst
the Norsemen fought and plundered at sea, the rest of the
northern hordes passed a similar life on land, overwhelming
the wealthier but weaker inhabitants of the ancient Roman
world.
In that age of darkness and violence letters and learning
were held in scorn by the strong, and thought fit pursuits
only for priests and monks. The highest
warriors and
chiefs could not write, and appended only their marks or
seals to their charters and treaties. Clerk is only cleric (or
'
Ibid.
* Burnt Nial, ibid.
'