SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

1°4
Saga-Book of the Viking Society
summarize fairly the methods of the four different disciplines he
considers. He condemns the saga material out of hand without
commenting on the meticulous scholarship which has gone
towards the reconstruction of a historical framework for the
Viking period in Iceland and elsewhere. Such an overstatement
as, "The sagas are not, however, entirely worthless, for the saga
writers used and sometimes quoted poetry of the Viking Age", is
significant of his attitude. His evaluation of the runic inscriptions
of Scandinavia is similarly inadequate.
Mr Sawyer's criticism of the methods used by archaeologists
suggests that he does not entirely understand the archaeologist's
role. To quote an Irish philologist (O'Rahilly) for an evaluation
of this role (p. 46) seems an insult to the great archaeological
thinkers. Could any archaeologist, or indeed any thinking
person, agree with the statement, "Archaeological facts are often
dull"? When seen in a context, they are neither more, nor less,
dull than a document, a coin, a place-name, or any other piece of
evidence about the past.
Similar lack of sympathy for the archaeological discipline may
be found in some of Mr Sawyer's generalisations concerning
art-history. He says, "It is ... unlikely that artistic developments
had much to do with political and economic changes" in the
Viking period. This is daft. It is becoming more and more
evident that political and economic changes have a considerable
bearing on art styles. Western Europe in the Viking Age abounds
in examples - Carolingian art, English art of the tenth century,
Viking art after the coming of Christianity, all demonstrate in
one way or another the effect of political and economic forces.
1t is noteworthy too, and from the point of view of method
deplorable, that Mr Sawyer accepts Dr Almgren's highly
controversial art-historical theories, to the virtual exclusion of all
others.'
Perhaps the best part of the book is that which deals with the
numismatic evidence. Mr Sawyer has thoroughly assimilated
the doctrines of the English school of numismatists and he
manages to outline some of their methods in language understandable
to the layman. He is a little one-sided in his arguments
- rather too fond, perhaps, of the earlier and more exiguous
numismatic material - but many of the conclusions he reaches
are fair. It is a pity, however, that he has used results taken
from unpublished work by Sture Bolin but without summarizing
Professor Bolin's evidence.
I am not a philologist and must leave criticism of Mr Sawyer's
1 B. Almgren, Bronsnycklar och Djurornamentik (1955).