Whaling in the Middle Ages

Yesterday's post referred to Ohthere of Hålogaland supporting himself partially through whaling. Whaling centuries ago should not be a shocking idea: evidence for whaling in Alaska has been found dating to 1000BCE, and there are neolithic depictions in Korea that may be about whaling as far back as 6000BCE.

Rather than going out into the open sea to catch a large animal, a common method was to take several small boats away from a shore where it was known that whales and dolphins consort, then forming a barrier in an attempt to drive them to beach themselves on shore.

Another method that presents less danger to sailors is to use a drogue, a floating object that is attached to a harpoon by a rope. If the harpoon makes solid contact with a whale, the buoyancy of the drogue makes it difficult for the animal to descend and tires it out so that the sailors can catch up with it. Melville's Moby Dick refers to druggs for this purpose.

Petroglyphs in Korea show boats surrounding sperm whales and humpback whales, but most whaling tackled smaller prey (see relative sizes here). Large whales were looked on to the medieval mind as scary and dangerous, but the smaller ones were gladly hunted for food and materials. One inventory of whales from the Middle Ages mentions the pilot whale (between five and ten meters long) as a popular target for its relatively small size and the ability to drive it into shore. Minke whales were also valuable due to their smaller size.

Smaller whales, porpoises, and dolphins that were driven to beach themselves were then clubbed or knifed. The body parts were divided equally among the participants. Some animals wound up on shore on their own and a call would go out to gather and finish it off (if it were still alive) and share the spoils before they spoiled.

The Dominicans Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190 - 1264) and Bishop Albertus Magnus (c.1200 - 1280) wrote of observing whaling; they both described it as a group project. Bede (672 - 735) also mentions the capture of whales.

Iceland had some very strict laws about whaling, which we will talk about tomorrow.

Ohthere of Hålogaland

When King Alfred the Great asked for an Anglo-Saxon translation of Orosius' Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, or "Seven Books of History Against the Pagans," he was fine with adding things that he thought worthy. One was the travels of Wulfstan of Hedeby, asked by Alfred to open up trade with northern Europe. The other was the account of the travels of Ohthere of Hålogaland.

Ohthere claimed that he lived in the extreme north of Norway. Hålogaland has been identified with the far north, today called Nord-Norge. He seems to have been quite wealthy, claiming to own a herd of 600 reindeer, and also making his money from whaling, walrus-hunting, and tribute from Lapps.

According to the account tacked onto Orosius:

Ohthere told his lord, King Alfred, that he lived northernmost of all the Northmen. He said that he lived in the north of the country by the West Sea. He said though the land stretches a long way north from there, yet it is completely unpopulated except for a few places here and there, where Finnas [Sami] camp, hunting in winter and fishing by the sea in summer. [source]

He was some kind of leader who received tribute from the Lapps:

That tribute consists in animal skins, bird feathers, whalebone and in ship's ropes made from the hide of whales and seals.  Each one pays according to his rank.  The noblest must pay fifteen marten skins, and five reindeer, and one bear skin, and ten ambers of feathers, and a bear, or otter-skin coat, and two ship's ropes, both to be sixty ells long, one to be made of whale's hide, the other of seal's. [source]

He also refers to the usefulness of walrus bones and that he brought some to give to Alfred.

He traveled widely, sometimes just for the sheer joy of discovery it seems. He describes sailing up the coast of Norway and going "over the top" and south again to what is called the White Sea, finding wasteland. At so me point he traveled to England, where he met Alfred. He offers the earliest details in England of what the Scandinavian countries were like.  In fact, his account is the earliest use we know of the term "Norway" (norðweg), as well as the name "Denmark" (dena mearc).

Ohthere's account brings up a question I never thought of: if they hunted whales in the Middle Ages, how did they go about it? How dangerous was it in their smaller ships? Tomorrow let's talk about the feasibility of whaling in the Middle Ages.

Orosius in the Middle Ages

The History written by Paulus Orosius in the 5th century carried influence for a thousand years afterward:

"The exceptionality of the Historiae is indicated by its incredibly rich and diverse reception over the subsequent centuries. The work became the standard point of reference on antiquity for the medieval and early modern world. It had an enormous impact of the historiography of later centuries, from Bede and Otto of Freising, to Petrarch and Dante, to Edward Gibbon.

At least two hundred and seventy-five manuscripts survive, the oldest dating to the sixth century, and the work was translated into Old English, Arabic, Aragonese, and Castilian prior to the modern period." [source]

That statement comes from a report on a three-day conference at the University of London in May 2022 with a score of scholarly presentations on Orosius' effect on the centuries that followed

One of the first laps in its progress came during the reign of Alfred the Great (849 - 899) of England. Alfred was a promoter of education and literacy, and wanted important works translated into Anglo-Saxon/Old English for his own (and others) pleasure.

We have two Old English manuscripts of the History, from the 10th and the 11th centuries, as well as some fragments. This version differs from the Latin original in that it was expanded with descriptions of Germania, Scandinavia, and the Baltic region, with a very detailed verbal map, for example:

To the west of the Old Saxons is the mouth of the river Elbe and Frisia. To the north-west is the region called Anglia and Silland and part of the land of the Danes. To the north of them are the Abodriti, and to the north-east the Wilti who are called Havolans. To the east is the territory of the Wends who are called the Siusli. To the south-east, some distance away, is Moravia. The Moravians have to their west the Thuringians ...

It makes sense that a king with more ties to Northern Europe than a Mediterranean author would want an expanded version that covers areas significant to his kingdom. Two travelers familiar to this time period—Ohthere and Wulfstan of Hedeby (sent by Alfred to Prussia to open up trade)—have their travel narratives added to Orosius as well during Alfred's time.

Let's learn more about Ohthere tomorrow.

(The illustration is of a carpet page from a 7th century manuscript of the History. It is the earliest known carpet page of an English manuscript.)