This admirable volume addresses recurrent cultural questions about how the past, whether recent or far distant, has been thought to matter when interpreted in subsequent times, including our own. Some writers about the past have chosen to associate the glance backward with their own era’s presumed tendencies about the future (as Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, published in 1888, made clear), while other writers or cultural critics have either condemned or idealized the past, or reduced its complexities to a few generalities thought to match the interests of their then-present-day audiences. Studies of how the past has been written and rewritten, to use part of the wording of the present volume’s title, can also struggle with the methodological question of how to determine what the past actually was, for it would seem useful, if not indeed essential, to have an accurate knowledge of what the past “was”—or at least what has survived to be known about it—in order to assess what subsequent re-creations have made of it.
In their Introduction (9-15), editors Oisín Plumb and Alexandra Sanmark have wisely foregone any tendency to oversimplify the volume’s contents by asserting a single dominating theme or thesis. To the contrary, one of the strengths of this collection is surely its variety. If there is one shared commitment, it is the commitment to exploring multiplicity itself as a factor of interpretations of the past—as the intriguing plural nouns in the volume’s title, Alternative Facts and Plausible Fictions, imply. The geographical scope is itself broad and diverse, as Northern Europe is identified as a concept encompassing Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Finland, and the North Atlantic islands: “This book examines the manner in which different ideologies have shaped the interpretation and presentation of the Northern European past” (9). The Introduction continues to explore the “effect that ideologies have had on scholarly investigation” (9), yet the individual chapters show a refreshing variety of approaches and emphases within their studies, so that much more than a commitment to an ideologically centered analysis is provided here.
Of the nine essays that follow (ch. 2-10 in the book), the first two address medieval representations of their own or past eras.
In “Finnar, Skraelingar, and the Orkney Picts: A Comparative Study of the Imagined ‘Other’ in Early Medieval Norse Culture” (17-32), Tara Athanasiou provides a well-documented demonstration of the claim that “The term ‘Viking,’ which is used popularly today to describe the Norse people of the period c. 800-1100...was not a term that the early medieval Norse used to describe themselves or construct their identities,” although “the manipulation and use of the identities of historically or ethnically separate ‘others’ is far from a modern invention” (17). Accordingly, “early medieval Norse writers often depicted the Picts, as an ‘other’ of the past, in ways that would “further their own social and political agendas” (17), and by “c. 1200, [when] the real Picts were lost to memory,” the Picts “had become part of a mythical recreation of the past in which they were depicted as supernatural, ground-dwelling trolls” in contrast to “the artefactual, monumental, and settlement evidence [which] all points to the affluent and sophisticated social structure of the pre-Norse Orkney Picts”(17-18).
The essay expands upon both parts of that claim—that the Picts were thus depicted by early medieval Norse writers, and also that the settlement evidence supports a contrary depiction of the “affluent and sophisticated social structure of the pre-Norse Orkney Picts”—without, however, explaining in detail whether the evidence for this contrary (and more favorable) depiction was available to the early medieval Norse writers but rejected by them. Nevertheless, the essay is valuable for its careful analysis of the ways in which early medieval Norse writers exemplify significant strategies for depicting the past, strategies that resemble those of other medieval writers more often featured in accounts of Western historiography.
In “The Icelandic Sagas and the Importance of Social Status in Viking Age Identity” (33-46), Patrick Temperilli points to “an increasing awareness of a distressing co-opting of Viking symbols and terms by white nationalist movements from Norway to the United States,” and adds that “popular misunderstandings about who the ‘Vikings’ were, or more specifically, how they identified themselves have been allowed to fester” (33). As the term “fester” implies, such misunderstandings have not been ethically or politically neutral, but stem “in no small part from insufficient vocabulary to describe both places and people...indeed, the very concept of identity is fluid, finding suitable constructs depending on unstable environments” (33). In this context, this essay “will focus exclusively on the use of the Icelandic sagas, specifically Islendigasogur, as a way to identify how the Norse identified themselves” (34), and it points out that “the Icelandic sagas portray a world where few things were as important in defining Norse identity as social status, a nebulous concept that can be broken down into six distinct but fluid and often intermingling categories: birth, wealth, fame, honour, sex, and religion” (36). The essay’s subsequent sections discuss each of those categories, giving examples with an overall conclusion that identifies birth, among the categories, as crucial in the sagas: “the question...as to who [the Njalssons’] father was” is “the kind of question that got to the heart of who someone was in the Viking Age” (44).
The seven essays that follow address post-medieval constructions of the medieval past, reflecting the timespan of the series to which this volume belongs (The North Atlantic World: Land and Sea as Cultural Space, AD 400-1900).
In “Shifting Views of Scotland’s Past in Nineteenth-Century German Language Travelogues” (47-73), Bernhard Maier notes that “at the very outset of the nineteenth century, a German lady traveller [Emilie von Berlepsch] not only wrote the first full-fledged German-language travelogue about Scotland, but also set the tone for many others that were to follow” (48). In this chapter as a whole, Maier “highlight[s] the shifting views of Scotland’s past in eleven German-language travelers’ accounts, covering the period from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the mid-1870s” (47). Maier also points out the crucial contexts provided by major works of drama: “Apart from the works of Ossian and the novels of Walter Scott, German-language travellers and the public relishing their travelogues could always be assumed to have read—or seen performed on stage—Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Schiller’s Maria Stuart” (70).
In “Reinterpreting the Celtic Past in Scotland: The Pre-War Work of John Duncan” (75-94), Frances Fowle discusses “the Celtic revival of the late nineteenth century,” which “took the form of a romantic reconstruction of the past” and was “driven by a demand for authenticity, but was underpinned by different ideological agendas” and was “spearheaded by the biologist, publisher, and utopian visionary Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), whose four-volume journal The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal (1895-1896) voiced the principal beliefs of the movement” (75). Among the contributors to Geddes’s journal was “the artist John Duncan (1866-1945), who produced some of the key images of the Scottish Celtic Revival” (75). Fowle points out that “while the nineteenth-century trend for creating racial taxonomies led in time to the belief in an Aryan master race, Duncan was strongly opposed to such notions” (91), and shows that “Duncan’s art was inspired not only by the creativity of his Celtic ancestors, but also by a profound belief in the unification of different races, nations, and creeds” (92).
In “‘From the Curved Branches of Skulls’: Old Norse and Origins of the Gothic Romance” (95-116), Peter J. Church offers “the proposition that the influence of the ancient and barbaric extreme North, embodied in the Viking Age people of Scandinavia, is a vital and incorrectly overlooked ingredient in the origins of Gothic literature” (95). Church also proposes “to forward an original and distinctive perspective by focusing on the direct correlation between how the Norse were perceived in the late eighteenth century in Britain and how this was embraced as a narrative mode by the fledgling Gothic writers” (98). The title’s reference to the “Curved Branches of Skulls,” sometimes associated with “the mythology of Norse warriors drinking ale from the skulls of their fallen enemies,” is here explained as a medieval mistranslation of “an Old Norse kenning...which was intended to represent drinking horns” (99). After sections on “Barbarism” (102-103) “Libertarianism” (103-105), “Geo-historical Distancing” (105-106), “Anti-Catholicism” (106-107), “Chivalry” (107-109), “The Sublime” (109-111), and “Doubling” (111-112), Church concludes that despite later modifications of the concept of the Gothic romance, “the influence of Old Norse culture, mythology, and literature on the authors of the earliest Gothic romances had been instrumental in the origins of this literary genre, in addition to playing a prominent role in forging a pathway to a wider Victorian fascination with the Vikings” (113).
In “American Valkyries: Equality, Exclusion, and Old Norse Imagery in the Nineteenth-Century Struggle for Women’s Rights” (117-135), Zachary J. Melton examines “[t]he association between Old Norse imagery and white supremacy in the United States”—an association that “began in the middle of the nineteenth century when a number of Americans used information found in Old Norse literature to promote ideas of Anglo-American predominance” (117). The chapter explores this nineteenth-century cultural use of Old Norse imagery to display (and sometimes to contest) ideas of white supremacy. The strong significance, now, of this earlier cultural borrowing is made clear from the chapter’s opening paragraph, where Melton points out that at a political meeting held in Virginia in 2017, right-wing extremists displayed “medieval symbols and images” along with hate symbols such as Nazi flags (117).
The chapter usefully focuses on four women who were important as feminists and suffragists—Margaret Fuller, Clara Bewick Colby, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Marie A. Brown—all of whom “found Old Norse literature helpful in supporting the arguments in their writings but used the material mostly as a supplement to a broad, romantic view of women’s history. For instance, they each contrast the treatment of women in ancient Scandinavia, using evidence from Old Norse mythology, Icelandic sagas, and even medieval law codes, against the unfair treatment and lower status of women in nineteenth-century America” (121). However, Melton reminds readers that this array of uses of the past should not be oversimplified: “The spectrum of different political purposes for which Americans have used the Vikings and their history is a testament to the ambiguity and the fluidity of Old Norse literature in the United States” (131).
In “Between Finland and Asia: The Changing Medievalist Models in Hungarian Nation-Building during the Inter-War Period” (137-163), Andrea Kocsis “considers how the archaeological heritage of the Middle Ages was used to create and maintain two models of nationalism in Hungary in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and shows how these have survived to the present day” (137). As this chapter explains, the “Eastern model focused on the Asian origins of the ancient Hungarian (Magyar) tribes...The leading figure for this model was Attila the Hun, the fifth-century king of the Hunnic Empire” (137), while “the Western model drew a parallel with the imperial models popular in Western Europe...It associated the Hungarian state with the Western Christian kingdoms and empires, and therefore looked to the Christian Middle Ages for its history” (137). The ways in which both of these “changing medievalist models” relied upon archaeological survivals, or incorporated representations of medieval concepts and realities, are explained, and references to Christianity, to military and political sources, and to particular sites are provided.
In “‘Anglo-Saxon’ Identity: A Critique from the Graveside” (165-184), Stuart Brookes explores the concept that “The past becomes...a basis for agency” (166) and offers a detailed study and critique of Anglo-Saxon identity as it is sometimes understood, using evidence from burials to provide “insights into the attitudes of those people participating in funerary rituals” (171). This chapter argues convincingly against any assumption that ethnic origins were the most important components in Anglo-Saxon concepts of identity. In a section headed “Demography is More Important than Ethnicity” (171-175), for example, Brookes shows that judging from burial evidence, “it is clear that expressions of gender, age, and kinship were more important than ethnicity” (173). Similarly, “admixture, rather than racial ‘purity’ was a characteristic of early medieval populations” (173), and “The lives of early medieval people were much more affected by who they owed allegiance to than where they came from” (178). Thus “The grand narrative we should be promoting is of admixture, regional diversity, and constant change, not one of cultural homogeneity, stability, and teleology” (179).
In “The Political Dimensions of Archaeology Today: A Personal View” (185-190), a short and eloquent contribution by the late Caroline Wickham-Jones, the focus is on the potential political impact of archaeological research—a crucial perception of how the past, or, more accurately, what is understood about the past from its material remains, is made to matter to the present. Acknowledging that “however esoteric, archaeology and politics will always be intertwined” (189), this chapter, which concludes the book, accepts that interrelationship as an opportunity allowing for optimism: “We might not like the actions of our ancestors, but we should never ignore or forget them. Sometimes it is good to be forced to face up to uncomfortable truths. Just because something happened in the past does not mean that we would espouse it today. Hopefully, deeper consideration of matters such as these, and their role in the present world, will now lead to a more nuanced and tolerant society” (189).
As indicated above, this volume offers a wide variety of expertly presented studies, including valuable analyses of post-medieval medievalisms, and it might seem churlish to note any lacuna. Nevertheless, a significant omission is the lack of any sustained treatment of the medieval chronicle tradition, which is surely an important component of medieval representations—with alternative facts and plausible fictions—of the Northern European past. The chronicle tradition is discussed, for example, in David Rollo’s book Historical Fabrication, Ethnic Fable and French Romance in Twelfth-Century England (Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature, 9; French Forum Publishers, 1998), which includes chapters (among others) on Wace’s Roman de Brut, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, Benoit de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie, Gerald of Wales’s works, and William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum. But no book can include everything, and the present volume makes an admirable (and, I expect, durable) contribution to the important process of looking backward at several major fabrications—here skillfully recognized as such—of the medieval European world across different time-gaps and multiple cultural perspectives.