User John Gibson
Course UML Vikings - Sec 081 SU22 KShrieves
Test Final Exam (required)
Started 7/6/22 9:47 AM
Submitted 7/10/22 8:31 PM
Due Date 7/10/22 11:59 PM
Status Completed
Attempt Score 100 out of 100 points
Time Elapsed 106 hours, 44 minutes
Instructions
The exam is untimed, and you can exit and return to it at any point before you submit it. It's also open-book and open-notes.
However, the fact that it's untimed and open-book means that I will expect that strong answers for all the questions include specific citations from the reading material (in The Viking Age, Hrafnkels Saga, or Volsungs Saga). In addition, high-scoring answers for the longer essay will be well-organized, meaning that they include an introduction with a thesis statement, a body that’s developed through well-reasoned examples, and a conclusion that pulls your ideas together. High-scoring answers in both sections will also demonstrate careful and well-stated composition.
Results Displayed All Answers, Submitted Answers, Feedback
Question 1
14 out of 14 points
Imagine that you were born in Iceland in the year 1000. What would you personally find most challenging about living in the Viking Age? Answer in 1 paragraph, supporting your idea with references to the material that you read this semester.
Selected Answer:
The most challenging to me, personally, as a science major student that writes lab reports and keeps track of data on sophisticated computer programs daily, is the lack of modern rigorous record keeping practice in the medieval times, including the decades around the year 1000 in Iceland. For example, Iceland's Althing law was not written until the year 1117, many centuries behind Roman Empire, and oral transmission of information could introduce errors and introduce doubts. In Viking literatures, the famous writer Snorri Sturluson said that the stories transmitted orally over generations only were "information and entertainment", not true knowledge[1]. In Egil's Saga, which depicts semi-fictional Icelandic life upward to the year 1000, six people were depicted as killed in a cruelly rigged ball game without the culprit being prosecuted[2], giving human life very little value. Without reliable record keeping to produce knowledge, people didn't know that, without a doubt, the physical and chemical changes from life to death are irreversible. In Njal’s saga, which depicted semi-fictional Icelandic life between year 960 and 1020, a killer and his accomplices could not figure out if the victim Skarphedin was alive or dead when they heard the supposedly killed victim cite a poem in the ashes of a burned-down house [5]. Scientific knowledge gives human life value. If a person could live both in the alive and in the dead state with no clear differences, there was no point in preserving a life. It would be my biggest challenge to study and educate people about science and the value of a human life if I were born in the year 1000 in Iceland. Rigorous record keeping makes all the difference. Iceland industry has recently taken up Bitcoin "mining" operations, which supports a ledger-based currency system aiming at keeping track of all monetary transactions reliably within the currency exchange algorithm itself. It is Icelanders’ tradition to explore and discover, and the story has just begun.
[1] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 472
[2] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 346
[3] Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. Penguin Books, 1995, p 96
[4] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 354
[5] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 365
Response Feedback: [None Given]
Question 2
13 out of 13 points
Describe several ways in which Viking ships were distinctive, particularly for their time period. Answer in 1 paragraph, supporting your ideas with references to the material that you read this semester.
Selected Answer:
The most distinctive feature of Viking ships for their time period, when compared to neighboring Western Roman and English ships of the same time period, is likely the promonent norse mythical ornaments, such as "dragon's head" at the prow of king Olaf Tryggvason's Long Serpent of the year 999[1]. In contrast, when English "King Alfred ordered" nine ships in England in 896, his ships should not have a dragon head at the front of the ships[2]. This is because King Alfred was a devolt christian who paid tributes to Rome[3], and the serpent symbolized evil and hence shunned by christianity. The interesting point is that Olaf Tryggavson was also a christian. So, the depicted dragon head was likely syncretic art, which was unique of norse culture of that time period. The coil of a dragon tail at a Viking ship's stern is also uniquely Viking for the same religous reason. When comparing the Viking Age ships to ships of later time periods, a distinctive attribute of Viking Age ships was their shape, described as "long and broad"[1], with a broad deck used as "fighting platform"[5]. This particular shape changed in "later centuries"[5] with the abandoning of the use of the fighting platform. Yet, another distictive feature of Viking ships is the high-seat pillars depicted in The Book Of Settlement[3]. The high-seat pillars were used in a unique, traditional act of Scandinavian explorers. But, there was one variant of viking ships that were distinctive by themselves from other viking ships. They were called "monoxyla" by Byzantine court documents[1]. The "disembarking" and "re-embark" in the Byzantine empire's documents refers to the viking vessels crossing the Dnieper river barrages when "partly portaging them on their shoulders" was performed. It can be inferred that this type of Viking vessels were lighter than other Viking ships.
[1] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 188
[2] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 252
[3] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 315
[4] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 198
[5] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 191
Response Feedback: [None Given]
Question 3
13 out of 13 points
Discuss one way in which Vikings interacted with the Byzantine Empire. Answer in 1 paragraph, supporting your discussion with references to the material that you read this semester.
Selected Answer:
The Byzantine Empire hired norse mercenaries, called "Varangian guard", who left rune(Viking writing) evidence "carved into the published marble" in Hagia Sophia in modern day Istanbul, which is Constantinople during Byzantine time[1]. Specifically, the hiring practice was part of the treaty of the year 911, which allowed Swedish Rus soldiers "to remain in his(Byzantine Emperor's) service"[2]. The treaty itself was the result of a series of wars between Swedish Rus Vikings and the Byzantine Empire. The series of wars left records in archbishop Photius's sermons in Constantinople in 860 and in Russian Primary Chronicle for the year 904 to 907 about Kievan king "Oleg attacked the Greeks" in Constantinople[3]. Prince Oleg himself descended from Swedish migration from Novgorod near Baltic Sea to Kiev and "made it his capital around 882"[4]. From a literary perspective, in the Heimskringla saga, the mercenaries were embedded in the “Greek army”, with which the Norwegian prince "Harald arrived in Sicily" to lay a siege on a city[5].
[1] Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. Penguin Books, 1995, p 105
[2] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 287
[3] McDonald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 283
[4] Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. Penguin Books, 1995, p 102
[5] Donald, R. Andrew, and Angus A. Somerville. The Viking Age: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020, p 297
Response Feedback: [None Given]
Question 4
60 out of 60 points
Choose one from the following topics on which to write your essay.
Compare and contrast those who rejected Christianity versus those who adopted it. How did Vikings react to the call to conversion? For those who embraced the new religion, how did they attempt to convert others? Answer in an essay of about 5 paragraphs, supporting your points with detailed examples from the material you read this semester.
What are several qualities that you think Vikings valued in leaders? For each characteristic that you discuss, give an example of someone who either embodies or is an anti-example of that quality. Answer in an essay of about 5 paragraphs, supporting your points with detailed examples from the material you read this semester.
How did the Vikings relate to the natives of the lands that they settled in (for example, the English, Irish, French, or Native Americans)? Answer in an essay of about 5 paragraphs, supporting your points with detailed examples from the material you read this semester.
Selected Answer:
C. How did the Vikings relate to the natives of the lands that they settled in (for example, the English, Irish, French, or Native Americans)? Answer in an essay of about 5 paragraphs, supporting your points with detailed examples from the material you read this semester.
Vikings were famous for taking on the local cultures, including languages, of the natives of the lands that they settled and successfully assimilating into the people that they tried to conquer. There were very few exceptions, such as the Greenland colony, which was named for its attractive color during the Viking Age but became a failed colony due to climate change and natural forces outside human control.
They did not shy away from using their newly acquired languages. When Byzantine Emperor Theophilus unknowingly granted passage to Swedish Rus with "safe conducts to travel"[2], in 839, from Constantinople-Istanbul to Emperor Louis the Pious in France, it implied that the Vikings called themselves "Rus", a Finnish rooted word that Vikings acquired either consciously or unconsciously. In the thirteen-century Norwegian book King's Mirror, "must learn all languages" was stated explicitly[3]. It is obvious that learning the local language is a good start to assimilate into the foreign community, and learning a language requires practice.
Marriage was also used to assimilate Scandinavians into the foreign community. In the famous North Sea Empire that united England and Denmark for a brief period, in 1017, Danish Emperor Cnut married the widow of the English King Athelred[4]. In the East, the Norwegian prince Harald Hardradi was in exile to the Byzantine Empire as a mercenary when he married local Kievan princess Elizabeth[6]. In the Atlantic region, it is known that the Vikings had "intermarried “Hiberno-Norse"" with local Irish, as noted in Irish Times newspaper[5]. The newspaper disputed Njal's saga's war depiction where Vikings were depicted as completely driven out of Ireland. The newspaper pointed out that the war was fought between Irish families, and that, in reality, Vikings were already integrated into the very Irish families in the saga's action time. Marriage essentially made the Vikings relate to the natives of the lands as blood relatives.
The strategy of taking on local culture and intermarrage was very effective at integrating peoples. In the East, the legendary first Rus king Rurik came from Sweden to establish the Kievan kingdom, and within "a few generations", all the successive Kievan kings had pure Slavic names, such as Yaroslav[7]. In the West, French King Charles set the Christian baptization as a pre-condition before granting the Normandy land to the Viking warrior named Rollo to establish the Duchy Of Normandy in modern day French west coast in 910[8].
St Quentin was one of the last major cities before cargos traversing continental Eurasia could be loaded onto ships in the port towns, Calais and Gravelines, and be shipped across the English Channel. It served as a communications hub between French court and Duchy Of Normandy on the west coast. St Quentin's documents were of interest and importance to medieval historians to understand the Duchy Of Normandy when Dudo was assigned to the post with the title of "dean"[1]. When Dudo communicated in French Emperor's court document with the possible readership of all noblemen of France, including Rollo's grandson Count Richard of Normandy, trying to explain the "barbarous peoples" from "Scandinavia", with colorful French, such as "foreboding Mars" and "mate with as many women"[1], but without a shred of insult on the fact that Count Richard's ancestors were also from Scandinavia, the Vikings were no longer treated as Vikings. The Vikings were just French.
The Scandinavians explored for the riches and the colorful, and they became culturally enriched and colorful in the end. They relate to the native people their own people and the native culture their own culture, just like most people do, in the end.
[1] The Viking Age, p204-206
[2] The Viking Age, p277
[3] The Viking Age, p332
[4] The Viking Age, p431
[5] The Viking Age, p496
[6] Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. Penguin Books, 1995, p 109
[7] Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. Penguin Books, 1995, p 108
[8] The Viking Age, p268
Response Feedback: [None Given]
Friday, July 15, 2022 3:23:46 PM EDT
