Harald H�rfagre took control of Hjaltland in ca 875.
The image is from the Icelandic manuscript Flateyjarb�k from the 1400s
Prehistory
Shetland has been populated since at least 3000 BC. The early people subsisted on cattle-farming and agriculture. During the Bronze Age, around 2000 BC, the climate cooled and the population moved to the coast. During the Iron Age, many stone fortresses were erected, some ruins of which remain today. Around A.D. 297, Roman sources describe a people known as the Picts who ruled much of north Scotland, and Shetland eventually became part of the Pictish kingdom. Shetland's Picts were later conquered by the Vikings. Due to the practice, dating to at least the early Neolithic, of building in stone on the virtually tree-less islands, Shetland is extremely rich in physical remains of all these periods, though fewer are preserved as Ancient Monuments than in Orkney.
The artefacts of all the eras of Shetland's past are best studied by a visit to the newly built (2007) Shetland Museum in Lerwick.
Norwegian colonisation
By the end of the ninth century the Vikings shifted their attention from plundering to invasion, mainly due to the overpopulation of Norway in comparison to resources and arable land available there. Vikings colonised much of northern Europe, including the Iberian Peninsula, Normandy, Scotland, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. Subsequently they reached North America. The Norwegians tended to follow a northern route to the islands and less populous places whereas the Danes went to more populated areas such as England and France, and the Swedes went east.[1]
Hjaltland was colonised by Norwegian Vikings in the 9th century, the existing indigenous population no doubt being wiped out or driven out. The colonisers gave it that name and established their laws and language. That language evolved into the West Nordic language Norn, which survived into the 1800s.
After Harald H�rfagre took control of all Norway, many of his opponents fled, some to Orkney and Shetland. From these northern isles they continued to raid Scotland and Norway, prompting Harald H�rfagre to raise a large fleet which he sailed to the islands. In about 875 he and his forces took control of Shetland and Orkney. Ragnvald, Earl of M�re received Orkney and Shetland as an earldom from the king as reparation for his son's being killed in battle in Scotland. Ragnvald gave the earldom to his brother Sigurd the Mighty.
Shetland was Christianised in the tenth century.
King Sverre transferred Shetland from the earl to the Crown of Norway in 1195.
Image: The oil painting King Sverre's march over the Vossefjell by Peter Nicolai Arbo
Conflict with Norway
In 1194 when king Sverre Sigurdsson (ca 1145 - 1202) ruled Norway and Harald Maddadsson was Earl of Orkney and Shetland, the Lendmann Hallkjell Jonsson and the Earl's brother-in-law Olav raised an army called the eyjarskeggjar on Orkney and sailed for Norway. Their pretender king was Olav's young foster son Sigurd, son of king Magnus Erlingsson. The eyjarskeggjar were beaten in the battle of Florv�g near Bergen. The body of Sigurd Magnusson was displayed for the king in Bergen in order for him to be sure of the death of his enemy, but he also demanded that Harald Maddadsson (Harald jarl) answer for his part in the uprising. In 1195 the earl sailed to Norway to reconcile with King Sverre. As a punishment the king placed the earldom of Shetland under the direct rule of the king, from which it was probably never returned.
Increased Scottish interest
When Alexander III of Scotland turned twenty-one in 1262 and became of age he declared his intentions of continuing the aggressive policy his father had begun towards the western and northern isles. This had been put on hold when his father had died thirteen years earlier. Alexander sent a formal demand to the Norwegian King H�kon H�konsson.
After decades of civil war, Norway had achieved stability and grown to be a substantial nation with influence in Europe and the potential to be a powerful force in war. With this as a background, King H�kon rejected all demands from the Scottish. The Norwegians regarded all the islands in the North Sea as part of the Norwegian Realm. To put more weight on his answer King Harald activated the leidang and set off from Norway in a fleet which is said to have been the largest ever assembled in Norway. The fleet met up in Breideyarsund in Shetland (probably today's Bressay Sound) before the king and his men sailed for Scotland and made landfall on Isle of Arran. The aim was to conduct negotiations with the large army as a backup.
Alexander III drew out all negotiations while he patiently waited for the autumn storms to set in. Finally, after tiresome diplomatic talks, King H�kon lost his patience and decided to attack. At the same time a large storm set in which destroyed several of his ships and kept others from making landfall. The Battle of Largs in October 1263 was not decisive and both parties claimed victory, but King H�kon H�konsson's position was hopeless. On 5 October, he returned to Orkney with a discontented army where he died of a fever on 17 December 1263. His death halted any further Norwegian expansion in Scotland.
King Magnus Lagab�te broke with his father's expansion policy. He started negotiations with Alexander III. With the Treaty of Perth in 1266 he surrendered furthest Norwegian possessions including Man and the Sudreyar (Hebrides) to Scotland in return for 4000 marks sterling and an annuity of 100 marks (which the Scottish soon stopped paying). The Scottish also recognised the Norwegian sovereignty over Orkney and Shetland.
One of the main reasons behind the Norwegian desire for peace with Scotland was that trade with England was suffering from the state of war. In the new trade agreement between England and Norway in 1223 the English demanded Norway make peace with Scotland. In 1269, this agreement was expanded to include mutual free trade.
Pawned to Scotland
In the 14th century Norway still treated Orkney and Shetland as a Norwegian province, but Scottish influence was growing, and in 1379 the Scottish earl Henry Sinclair took control of Orkney on behalf of the Norwegian king H�kon VI Magnusson.[2] In 1348 Norway was severely weakened by the Black Plague and in 1397 it entered the Kalmar Union. After a time Norway became controlled by Denmark. King Christian I of Norway, Denmark and Sweden was in financial troubles and, when his daughter Margaret became engaged to James III of Scotland in 1468, he needed money to pay her dowry. Apparently without the knowledge of the Norwegian Riksr�d (Council of the Realm) he entered into a contract on 8 September 1468 with the King of Scotland in which he pawned Orkney for 50,000 Rhenish guilders. On 28 May the next year he also pawned Shetland for 8,000 Rhenish guilders.[3]. He secured a clause in the contract which gave future kings of Denmark-Norway the right to redeem the islands for a fixed sum of 210 kg of gold or 2,310 kg of silver. Several kings of Denmark-Norway tried to redeem the islands during the 17th and 18th centuries, without success.[4]
The Hansa era
After the decline of the Vikings, four centuries followed where the Shetlanders sold their goods through the Hanseatic League of German merchantmen in Bergen, and later to merchants from Bremen, L�beck and Hamburg. The Hansa would buy shiploads of salted cod and ling. In return, the island population got cash, grain, cloth, beer and other goods. The trade with the North German towns lasted until the Act of Union 1707 prohibited the German merchants from trading with Shetland. Briefly Shetland went into an economic depression as the Scottish and local traders were not as skilled in trading with salted fish. However, some local merchant-lairds took up where the German merchants had left off, and fitted out their own ships to export Shetland fish to the Continent. For the independent farmers of Shetland this led to a negative spiral, where they had to fish for the merchant-lairds.[5]. The Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone freed the Shetland 'serfs' from the rule of the landlords in the 1880s.
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Author: James PenrithPublisher: Vacation Work Publications; Third edition edition (August 1, 2007)Languages: EnglishISBN-10: 1854583719ASIN: 1854583719Price: $14.93 |
