Kingdom of the Isles

North and west and south of Scotland are numerous islands, the Shetlands and Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man, respectively. From the 9th to 13th centuries, they were collectively known as the Kingdom of the Isles.

Their widely spread locations made them vulnerable to invasion and take-overs. Ireland looked at the Hebrides and Man with desire, and Norway was interested in the Orkneys. Magnus Barefoot of Norway managed to conquer the Kingdom for a time in the 11th century, until the previously ruling family reclaimed the rulership.

We might know very little about this part of the world, but the Isle of Iona had a prominent monastery, whence came many prominent religious figures like Adomnán and others whose activities are recorded starting in the 6th century, although Viking invasions starting in the mid 9th century disrupted life and record-keeping.

The Norse referred to the islands as Suðreyjar ("Southern Isles"). The Laxdaela Saga (one of the Icelandic sagas) refers to people coming to Iceland from Sodor, meaning the southern isles. "Sodor" remains in the name of the Church of England diocese for some of the isles.

The natives of the Isles were Gaels, and Gaelic remained the spoken language even under Norse occupation, although Gaelic place-names all but disappeared in favor of Norse names. Norse occupation on the Isle of Man left 26 runestones, when all of Norway has only 33!

Possession of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man came to a head in the war between Magnus VI of Norway and Alexander III of Scotland. Their conflict ended with the Treaty of Perth in 1263, which recognized Scotland's ownership of the Isles.

Next, let's go into a little more detail on runestones.

Who Was Snorri Sturluson?

Snorri Sturluson (1179 - 1241) was one of several children in a powerful clan. His father died when he was young, and he was raised by Jón Loptsson (or Loftsson), one of the most powerful and respected chieftains in Iceland. Through this connection he had a far better education than he would have received otherwise, learning all about Icelandic history, law, and Norse legends.

Snorri was married in 1199 to Herdis; from his father-in-law he inherited an estate and a chieftainship. He had at least two children with Herdis, but his philandering ways resulted in him leaving her behind to become an estate manager in western Iceland called Reykholt. He fathered at least five more children with three different women.

Known for his knowledge of law, he was made lawspeaker at the Althing, the national parliament of Iceland. He was also known, however, as a poet, and it was that reputation that garnered an invitation to Norway from King Hákon Hákonarson. He was given gifts and a ship, and he wrote poetry about them. the king made him a skutilsvein (knight), and hoped Snorri's loyalty thereby would help Hákon extend his realm to Iceland, by having Snorri speak on his behalf in the Althing.

Unfortunately for Snorri, his attempts to join Iceland to Norway, even as the most powerful chieftain in Iceland from 1224 to 1230, turned much of the island against him. Snorri eventually realized he did not want to support Hákon's plans, and while meeting with the king back in Norway in 1238 famously said (supposedly) "ut vil ek" (literally "I wish out" or "I want out" but idiomatically meaning "I will go home"). He returned to Iceland in 1239.

Snorri became a target of assassination when Hákon sent men with orders to kill or capture him. In 1241, he was confronted in his house in Reykholt. Cornered in the cellar, he died after saying "Do not strike!" to his attackers. The manner of the well-known poet's death raised the ire of people in both Iceland and Norway, and the king backtracked, saying he would have lived had he simply given himself up for capture. (In 1262, the Althing ratified union with Norway.)

Regarding his poetry: Snorri's most consequential work was the Prose Edda, which gives us the most detailed information on the non-Christian religious beliefs of the Scandinavian world. I will go into more on that next time.

Medieval Zoos

Collections of animals for private amusement or public display have existed for a long time. There is a current trend toward calling them "conservation parks" to move away from the connotations of 20th century zoos that housed animals with no regard to their natural habitats. "Zoo" itself was a shortened form of "zoological garden" or "zoological park" which were common in the 19th century. An early modern zoo, the London Zoo, opened in 1828 as the "Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society of London." References to collections of animals earlier than the 19th century often use the term "menagerie" from the French ménage, "members of a household."

Pre-medieval evidence of menageries abounds in carved stone walls from Egypt and Mesopotamia, where we learn that rulers sent expeditions to collect giraffes, elephants, bears, dolphins, and birds. A Middle Assyrian Emperor had a collection of animals in the 11th century BCE. King Solomon had a menagerie, as did Nebuchadnezzar. Alexander the Great collected different animals from his expeditions and sent them back to Greece. The Romans kept various animals—bears and bulls for example—for entertainment in the Colosseum. (The illustration here is from Villard de Honnecourt.) Cortes destroyed a collection of animals maintained by Montezuma in 1520.

Caliph Harun al-Rashid sent an elephant as a gift to Charlemagne. Charlemagne created three menageries, and they included monkeys, lions, bears, camels, and falcons along with other exotic birds. Henry I of England had lions, leopards, and camels at his Woodstock palace. As early as 1204, "Bad" King John kept a collection of different animals at the Tower of London. The Tower had three leopards added when Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II sent them as a wedding gift to Henry III. The king of Norway sent a "white bear" (could they have subdued and sent a polar bear?) in 1251, and the king of France sent an elephant in 1254.

Clearly the desire to see exotic animals from distant lands (and the prestige of owning them) was of great interest for as long as human beings had the time and resources to collect and maintain them.

About Charlemagne's elephant, though...we've all heard about Hannibal trying to bring elephants over the alps to attack Rome. Bringing elephants to Europe predated Charlemagne by a millennium. What did it take to give an elephant to Charlemagne, and what happened to it? His name was Abul-Abbas, and I'll tell you about him next time.

Emma of Normandy

Emma of Normandy (c.984 - 6 March 1052) was queen of England, Denmark, and Normandy. As the daughter of Richard the Fearless of Normandy, she was a desirable marriage prospect for King Æthelred to form better relations between England and Normandy. Æthelred hoped the union would help stave off Viking raids on England, which were often staged from Normandy.

Her wedding gift included properties in Devonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Suffolk, and Winchester, as well as the city of Exeter. Her children by Æthelred were sons Edward the Confessor and Alfred Ætheling, and daughter Goda of England. Upon her husband's death in 1016, she remained prominent in politics.

This made her a valuable prospect for marriage when Cnut of Denmark went looking for a bride. Actually, Cnut was looking to conquer England, and Emma may have had a hand in saving her sons' lives by agreeing to marry Cnut. She became Queen of Denmark and England with Cnut starting in 1018. When Cnut conquered Norway in 1028, she became queen likewise of Norway.

She was not, however, just a pretty face or a way to link kingdoms peacefully through matrimony. As the richest woman in England in her time, she also held significant authority over ecclesiastical offices in the lands she owned. She is also one of the first medieval queens to have her likeness portrayed in documents. Pictured here is a page from the Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, or "Praise for Queen Emma." The title is clearly meant to flatter her, since the three-part history within discusses the conquest of England by Sweyn Forkbeard, the defeat of England by Cnut and his reign, and the events after Cnut's death (which do involve Emma's seizing of the royal treasury to keep it safe from Earl Godwin of Wessex, who disputed the choice of Cnut's successor).

She was buried alongside Cnut in the Old Minster in Winchester, but parliamentary forces during the English Civil War disinterred and scattered the remains. They were eventually recovered; Winchester has a mortuary chest that contains the remains.

Emma's life was eventful and influential, which may have been luck or a trait she got from her mother, Gunnor. We'll take a look at Gunnor next.

Ultima Thule

A 1537 rendition of Thule

On New Year's Eve 2018, a NASA probe transmitted pictures of Ultima Thule, an object 4 billion miles from Earth. "Ultima Thule" is not your typical astronomical naming convention.

Ultima Thule, or the "ultimate Thule," was first described about 300BCE by a Greek explorer named Pytheas. It was supposedly about six days north of Britain, a place so far from the natural world that land and sea and air were no longer separate substances, but instead formed a strange mixture in which one could not survive.

A thousand years after Pytheas, Isidore of Seville (mentioned here, also involving astronomy) explained Ultima Thule as being so far north that there was no daylight beyond it, making the sea cold and sluggish.

As stories of explorers (verified or not) appeared, Thule was identified and re-identified with lands farther and farther from mainland Europe. St. Brendan's voyages suggested new lands that historians thought might refer to Thule. The later Middle Ages decided it must refer to Iceland or Greenland. In early modern times, Norway became the candidate to explain early stories of a land that far north.

In the 20th century, the idea of Thule was co-opted by certain German writers and politicians as the legendary origin of the Aryan race. Fortunately, the 21st century has given it a new connotation.

The Battle of Largs

One of the re-creations of the Battle of Largs [source]

King Haakon Haakonsson of Norway refused to sell islands off the Scottish coast to King Alexander II of Scotland, so Alexander started to invade territories held by Norwegians. Hakon sent his fleet to brace for assaults and start a few of their own. (See the background here.)

Stormy weather struck the Norwegian fleet on the night of 30 September 1263; the next morning (1 October) found several ships driven aground on the Scottish mainland. Scottish archers found them and started shooting at the crews. The Norwegians rallied and fought back, reinforced with more men from other ships; joined by King Haakon, they camped ashore for the night.

On 2 October, Alexander's forces arrived and the Battle of Largs began. Although there is a brief mention in the Chronicle of Melrose and more detail in Hakonar saga Hakonarsonar ["The Saga of Hakon Hakonarson"] by Snorri Sturluson, it is impossible to know exactly how many men were on each side and how the battle was fought. Local records show that the Earl of Menteith maintained 120 sergeants, which gives a clue to how many soldiers might come from an area. The Saga says Haakon, with a force of 700+ men, stayed on the beach while about 200 men took the high ground a short way inland.

Supposedly, Alexander's approach prompted the men on the high ground to descend, fearing that they would be cut off from the main Norwegian force. Their hasty rush down from the high ground looked like a necessary retreat to the Norwegians on the beach, and they fled to their ships. In the chaos of the retreat, they took heavy casualties from the Scottish, who used cavalry with armored horses, archers, and some form of catapult.

The Norwegians returned to collect their dead; Alexander allowed them. They then sailed to the Hebrides and later to Orkney, where Haakon died in December (he was 59 years old). Negotiations between Alexander and the Norwegians over the disputed territories continued, but slowly. Alexander built up his forces on land while Hakon's fleet suffered over the winter. Although the Battle of Largs was not decisive in any way, ultimately the aftermath led to a wearing down of Norwegian morale. In 1266, the Treaty of Perth created peace between the two countries, and gave the Hebrides and the Isle of Mann back to Scotland.

Norway vs. Scotland

If you look at the top of the globe, you realize how seafarers from Norway could easily dip south to Scotland on their way to colonize Iceland. In fact, Scotland was a frequently harassed target of Vikings from Norway in the Middle Ages. By the 9th century there was a Scandinavian settlement on the western shores of Scotland and in several of their island chains. This long-standing presence was one of the reasons that Harald Hardrada felt he had a claim to England after the death of Edward the Confessor.

Various groups of islands around Scotland paid allegiance to the kings of Norway up through the 13th century. In 1249, King Alexander II of Scotland tried to gain back some territory; he offered to buy Argyll and the Hebrides from King Hakon Hakonarson; being rebuffed, Alexander launched a military campaign to take them, but died before he could fulfill his purpose. His son, Alexander III, was not even 10 years old, and so his attempt to free Scottish lands from Norwegian occupation would not come until much later.

It came in 1262: Alexander tried (unsuccessfully) purchasing the Hebrides again, and then attacked Skye. Hakon responded with what the Icelandic Annals considered the largest force to set sail from Norway. When he reached Scotland, the Norwegian locals were not exactly happy to see him: self-rule had been the norm for years. There was a failed attempt to negotiate between the two nations over possession of some islands, after which Hakon split his fleet up to harass different parts of Scotland.

What happened next will be a subject for tomorrow.

Battle of Stamford Bridge, Part 2

The first part is here.

Death of Harald Hardrada, illustration from Matthew Paris

King Harold Godwinson of England, hearing that King Harald Hardrada of Norway had invaded the north of England and, with Harold's brother Tostig Godwinson, had captured York, marched quickly to meet him, covering over 180 miles in four days. On 25 September 1066, the two armies met at Stamford Bridge.

The presence of an actual Stamford Bridge has been disputed. Stamford does not appear in the Domesday Book, compiled 20 years later to tally all of the king's possessions in England. It is, however, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. We just don't know where it was. The River Derwent (by which the battle took place) must have had a crossing, and there may have been a bridge then of which now we can find no trace, but there must have been something somewhere along the Derwent that allowed the English to cross it and engage the Norwegian army.

Hardrada's forces were completely unaware that the English army was so near. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that a single axe-man ran to the bridge to hold off the crossing English at a narrow point, killing two score English until one passed under the bridge in a boat and stabbed upward with a spear. The delay allowed the invaders to hastily pull themselves into a defensive circle and put up a shield wall—but not enough time to put on their armor. Harold was able to surround them and attack the shield wall in several places. The battle lasted hours, but the lack of preparation among the Norwegians wore them down. Despite the arrival of reinforcements who had been left guarding their ships, Tostig was slain, and an arrow to Hardrada's windpipe brought him down, putting his army into disarray. They were wiped out by the English. It is said that, 50 years later, the field was still littered with bleached bones of the slain.

Harold took pledges from Hardrada's son Olaf, that he would never attack England again. Of the 300 ships they brought to attack England, only 24 were needed to return the survivors. It was a definitive defeat that sent a signal to all the Scandinavian countries. Harold had a right to be proud.

Three days after the battle, on 28 September, William of Normandy arrived on the southern coast with an army from Normandy. But that story has been told before.

Vikings - Art Imitates Life

A new TV show started in 2013 and has proven popular enough that it has been renewed for a couple more seasons. It is called "The Vikings." Its historicity would not be very satisfying to scholars, but it is very popular with audiences.

It centers on the character of Ragnar Lodbrok (in Old Norse that would look like Ragnarr Loðbrók). The saga of Ragnar is attached to the Norse Völsunga Saga ["Saga of the Volsungs," a clan that included Sigurd and therefore inspired the Nibelungenlied, the "Song of the Nibelungs"]. It tells us of Ragnar's quest for a wife, then for another wife, and of the deeds of their sons.

Ragnar actually had three marriages (in legend, that is: the exact truthfulness of the details of his existence cannot be proven). His first was to Lagertha, a Danish shield maiden. In the history written by Saxo Grammaticus, Lagertha got Ragnar's attention when she dressed as a man to fight against the Swedes who had killed King Siward of Norway. They married and had a son and two daughters.

Ragnar divorced her, however, so that he could marry Thora Borgarhjortr, the daughter of King Herraudr of Sweden. Despite that betrayal, Lagertha came to his aid when he dealt with a civil war in Denmark.*

Even later, Ragnar supposedly married Aslaug, who was the daughter of Sigurd (who killed Fafnir the Dragon in the Nibelungenlied) and Brunhild the Valkyrie. (It gets a little more mythical than usual here.)

Ragnar became a scourge of England and France. The invasion and pillaging of Paris on 28 March 845 is attributed to him.

King Aelle of Northumbria (who died on 21 March 867) was one of the English that Ragnar annoyed.  Aelle captured Ragnar and threw him in a pit of snakes. This would have happened prior to 865: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 865 states that the Great Heathen Army that invaded England was led by Ragnar's sons to avenge their father.

*On the TV show, the marriage between Ragnar and Lagertha didn't survive the first season; the writers had him take up directly with the seductive Aslaug, skipping over the more likely marriage to Thora.

Margaret of Sweden

Retrieving an object from boiling water without
suffering burns would prove innocence.

Margaret (or Margareta) Eriksdottir of Sweden (c.1155 - 1209) is only briefly mentioned in the histories of the time, but one incident in her life underscores the flaws of the medieval justice system.

She was the daughter of King Eric IX of Sweden (d.1160) and was married to King Sverre of Norway  (c.1151 - 1202) in 1189. Sverre fell ill and died on 9 March on his return from a military expedition. Margaret returned to Sweden after his funeral, but her daughter, Kristina, was not allowed to return with her. Sverre's successor (King Haakon III, a son from a previous marriage) kept Kristina at his court. This, presumably, caused some hostility between Margaret and Haakon.

Two years later, Margaret decided to return to Norway. Unfortunately for Margaret, Haakon died very shortly after her return, and accusations of poison were made against her.

Margaret invoked Trial by Ordeal* to prove her innocence, and had a man undergo the ritual in her place. Sadly, he was badly burned—not surprising to a modern audience, but proof of guilt to the law court of the time. The man was drowned, and Margaret had to flee for her life back to Sweden.

Haakon died without a son, so Guttorm (a grandson of Sverre) was named king, even though he was only four years old. No one was around to carry a grudge against Margaret, so in 1209 she returned to Norway for the wedding of Kristina to one of the regents for Guttorm. Sadly, she became ill and died a few weeks after the wedding.


*See the post on Trial by Combat.

Harald Tangle Hair

Praise the northern tribes of Europe and their tendency to give descriptive names to significant people, so that we can remember them in our history lessons!

Harald (already showing unkempt hair in this depiction)
receiving the kingdom from his father.

When Halfdan the Black (so-called because of his hair color, not for any defect of character) died c.860, he left to his son, Harald, a very small territory called Vestfold, mostly on the southern coast of what is now Norway. Norway at the time was divided into several small areas, each ruled over by different tribes. Harald, with the help of his uncle Guthorm, established firm rule over Vestfold. With this, he may have been content, but then...

According to the Heimskringla,* Harald proposed marriage to Gyda, the princess of a neighboring kingdom, Hordaland. Although Hordaland was no larger than Vestfold, Gyda thought it fitting to demand that she marry no less than the king of all Norway. The fact that there had never been a "King of all Norway" did not deter her ambitions—or Harald's. He took a vow never to cut or comb his hair until he achieved the title "King of Norway." This, of course, immediately gave him a new title anyway, and he was called "Harald Tangle Hair" or "Harald Shockhead" in the following years.

He fought a large battle c.900 in which he defeated two of his most prominent rivals in Norway, after which there was so little resistance to his goal of conquest that he could rightly be called King of Norway.

The tangle of his hair was matched, however, by the untamed nature of his lust. He is believed to have fathered many children with different mothers (he never married Gyda, that we know of), including between 10 and 20 sons, many of whom wanted to rule the kingdom (or, at least, part of it) after his death or even before. Rule of Norway passed to his youngest son, Hakon the Good (called so because of his Christian faith), but another son, Erik Bloodaxe (called so because of his Norse faith) spent 15 years trying unsuccessfully to take the crown away.

It is likely that you have never heard of "Harald Tangle Hair" before—at least, not by that name. It took much of his life to unite Norway and be proclaimed king, but he did achieve his goal, and therefore he could reverse his earlier vow. When he started cutting and combing his hair again, he was rewarded with the epithet "Fair hair" (Norse harfagr). "Harald Fairhair" is how we call him these days, forgetting his youthful vow.


*Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (1178/79–1241) ca. 1230. The name Heimskringla was first used in the 17th century, derived from the first two words of one of the manuscripts (kringla heimsins - the circle of the world). [Wikipedia]

The Chronicle of Melrose

Melrose Abbey, on the Scottish border, mentioned in connection with St. Cuthbert, is historically significant for other reasons. Many Scottish kings are buried there, and a stone coffin found in 1812 under an aisle in the south of the abbey was speculated to be that of the "wizard" Michael Scot. And although Robert Bruce was said to have been buried in Dunfermline Abbey, his embalmed heart was supposedly buried on the grounds of Melrose, encased in lead.

The Abbey had a checkered history. Long after Cuthbert's time, it was damaged in 839. King David I of Scotland (1084-1153) wanted it rebuilt, but the Cistercians who would populate it picked a different site with more fertile land for farming. It was rebuilt and its church dedicated in 1146. In 1322, much of the Abbey was destroyed by Edward II of England (1284-1327). It was rebuilt by Robert the Bruce. In 1385 it was burned by the forces of Richard II of England (although he did grant them some money in 1389 in compensation). Rebuilding began again, but stalled. At the beginning of the 16th century, it still wasn't complete. That was probably just as well, since in 1544 the Abbey was again damaged by English forces attempting to force the marriage between Mary Queen of Scots and the son of Henry VIII. And of course, Oliver Cromwell felt the need to bombard it with cannon fire in the 1640s, even though it hadn't held a monk since 1590.

As well as majestic ruins and burial legends (and the ghostly monks said to walk the grounds), Melrose left us something else. Not directly though: it was found in the Cotton Library as Faustina B.x, and investigation traced its origin to Melrose.

Page for 1246, 1247, 1248

The Chronicle of Melrose has two sections. The first, covering from 735 until 1140 (the new founding), is a summary of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other works, including that of Roger of Hoveden. It adds nothing new to our knowledge. The second section, from 1140 until 1270, is unique. The handwriting changes over time, suggesting that it was added to contemporaneously by eyewitnesses, rather than compiled all at once like the first section.

As a singular Scottish viewpoint on events, it is invaluable. A 1263 battle between Norway and Scotland is part of a saga written by Icelandic historian Sturla Thordarson (1218-1284). The Chronicle of Melrose offers a second viewpoint from the Scottish side, confirming the fact of the conflict—if not precisely the same details. A series of mis-steps caused the Norwegian forces to cede valuable ground and, in deteriorating weather, they retreated. The monks' Chronicle puts it a little differently:

A.D.1263.  ... it was not man's power which drove him away, but the power of God which crushed his ships, and sent a pestilence among his troops. Such of them as mustered to engage on the third day after the feast of Michaelmas, God defeated and slew by means of the foot-men of the country. Thus they were compelled to carry off their wounded and slain to their ships, and to return home in more disgraceful plight than they had left it.

The Chronicle also gives us a list of deaths and promotions of abbots and lords and high-ranking laymen, radical weather and the appearance of comets, the ups and downs of political figures in Scotland and the northern English shires, and the earliest list extant of Scottish kings. It's another valuable tool in piecing together the complex history of the Middle Ages.

Medieval Bluetooth

The symbol shown here is used for the modern wireless communications protocol called "Bluetooth," created by the telcommunications company Ericsson. If you are at all familiar with the Runic system, it might look familiar in a different way because of its straight lines and angles. That is because it is a combination of the Runes Hagall ("h") and Bjarkan ("b"). And the reason for using the letters B and H is because they are the initials of the 10th century King of Denmark and Norway, Harald Bluetooth.

Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (c.935-986) was the son of the first historically recognized King of Denmark. Harald created the largest of the Jelling Stones (his father had set up the first). These commemorative stones carry inscriptions that include the earliest reference to Denmark as a nation. He also conducted important building projects, including a half-dozen massive stone ring forts and the oldest known bridge in southern Scandinavia, the half-mile long stone Ravninge Bridge (no longer extant).

He seemed to prefer negotiating over fighting, and managed to join and keep Danish tribes together, and briefly ruled Norway (okay, that was by force, after their king was assassinated). Perhaps it was his less-aggressive nature that made him amenable to Christianity, although the stories of his conversion are varied. One says he converted on a dare, when a monk named Poppa "proved" the power of God by carrying a heavy brand from the fire without being harmed. One story says he was converted against his will when he had been defeated by Otto I (founder of the Holy Roman Empire). Another account (written centuries after Harald's death) says it was Otto II who forced him to convert. Whatever the case, Harald converted in the 960s, and took it seriously: he transferred his father's body from a pagan-style grave in an ancient mound to a church.

This commemorates Harald's conversion.

But how did this all turn into a modern wireless protocol being named after Harald's nickname? And where did the nickname come from? The commonly repeated legend is that Harald loved and ate blueberries so much that his teeth were stained blue. A different (and not as attractive) story is that at least one of his teeth was diseased and took on a dark tinge, looking "blue" to some. This ties into one of the many legends of his Christian conversion: that he suffered from toothache and converted because Christian prayer was the only thing that took the pain away.

Whatever! What we can document is that one of the developers of the Bluetooth technology was reading a historical novel about Harald on the side. He felt that his protocol would unite different devices in a way analogous to Harald uniting different tribes in Denmark, instead of having them conflict with each other. He proposed calling the protocol Blåtand, Harald's nickname in Scandinavian. Although early Ericsson documents use this name, it formally became the English word "Bluetooth™"; I have read that folk in Scandinavian countries frequently use Blåtand instead of the official English name.

Medieval Warm Period

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) existed from 950/1000 to 1200/1250 CE (estimates vary because of the difficulty in collecting accurate data and the desire to allow some leeway for natural change in climate trends). It was followed by cooler temperatures and something called the Little Ice Age (LIA) which lasted from about 1500 until about 1850. (The span is also referred to as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, if you want to Google it.)
Some medieval records indicate weather (drought years, particularly bad storms, et cetera), but they didn't have the organizational longevity (or the interest) to record long-term climate trends. Besides tree rings and ice cores, is there any "anecdotal" evidence from the Middle Ages itself that suggests long-term changes in average temperature?

Erik the Red

Let us look at Erik Thorvaldsson (950-c.1003), aka Erik the Red. Erik's father wasn't the most easygoing guy, and was exiled from Norway, whereupon he took his family to Iceland. Around 982, Erik himself got into trouble for killing some people (poor anger management was apparently a family issue). He sailed from Iceland to Greenland, where legend says he created the first settlement. It is likely that there was already a Norse presence, but Erik can probably claim credit for the first permanent habitation.

If we can believe the sagas and records, then even though life was very harsh, in the 1120s there were sustainable settlements on the eastern shore that held 2000-4000 people. One modern scholar reports "190 small farms, 12 parish churches, a cathedral, an Augustinian monastery, and a Benedictine nunnery." On the western shore were "90 farms and four churches."

Why the Norse settlements ultimately failed is a target for speculation–one theory is that rising amounts of sea ice made navigation, and therefore trade that was necessary to keep their society going, difficult–but here's the thing: excavations of those early settlements have found quite a bit of evidence of their way of life—but they have to dig under "permanently" frozen ground to do so.

It is clear that those settlements existed—could only exist—at a time that was significantly warmer than Greenland's climate is today.

Who Will Rule?

In 1051, when King Edward the Confessor was inviting more friendly Normans to join him in England, Duke William of Normandy visited. According to records made after 1066 but before William's death in 1087, William reported that Edward (who was celibate and would have no heirs of his own) told William that William would be his heir to the throne of England.

In 1064 (two years before Edward the Confessor's death), Harold Godwinson (the most powerful lord in England after the king; his sister was married to Edward) was shipwrecked off the coast of Normandy and held captive by Count Guy of Ponthieu.* Duke William of Normandy told Guy to release him; this was done, and Harold was returned to England, but only after swearing on holy relics that he would recognize William as his king in the future. (This is according to reports written long after the fact by William's chroniclers.)

When Edward died in 1066, Harold claimed that Edward had made a deathbed pronouncement, naming Harold his heir.

There was also a third claimant to the throne, although the least convincing. King Harald Hardrada of Norway and Denmark believed that he was the proper heir, because Danes had conquered England so many times in the past. A tenuous claim, but strengthened by the fact that he was supported by Tostig, the brother of Harold Godwinson! (Ahh, the days when sibling rivalry had higher stakes!)

The problem with all these claims?

In primarily Anglo-Saxon England, the next king was chosen by the witenagemot, the meeting of wise men. Kings might name a successor, but the Witan was needed to approve a ruler.

So who pressed their claim?

All of them.

I'll tell you the unhappy (for Harold) result tomorrow.

*Note: This is about the only reason why anyone studying history cares about Guy of Ponthieu. Feel free to forget the name.