Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (Medieval Latin for "Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg") is a historical treatise written between 1073 and 1076 by Adam of Bremen, who made additions (scholia) to the text until his death (possibly 1081; before 1085). It is one of the most important sources of the medieval history of Northern Europe, and the oldest textual source reporting the discovery of coastal North America.
It covers the entire period known as the Viking Age, from the foundation of the bishopric under Willehad in 788 until the rule of prince-bishop Adalbert in Adam's own time (1043–1072). The text focuses on the history of the Hamburg-Bremen diocese and its bishops. As the bishops had jurisdiction over the missions to Scandinavia, it also gives a report of the Norse paganism of the period.
The existence of the work was forgotten in the later medieval period, until it was re-discovered in the late 16th century in the library of Sorø Abbey, Denmark.
The treatise consist of the following parts:
The text is one of the most important sources of Northern German and Scandinavian history and geography in the Viking Age and the beginning High Middle Ages. It covers the relations between Saxons, Wends (West Slavs) and Danes (Vikings). The third book is focused on the biography of archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg. Adam based his works in part on Einhard, Cassiodorus, and other earlier historians, consulting the library of the church of Bremen. The text as presented to bishop Liemar was completed in 1075/1076. [1]
After the death of Bishop Leuderich (838–45), the see was given to Ansgar, it lost its independence, and from that time on was permanently united with the Archdiocese of Hamburg. The Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen was designated the "Mission of the North" and had jurisdiction over all missions in Scandinavia, and the entire scope of Viking expansion in the north (Russia, Iceland, Greenland), throughout the Viking Age, until the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen had a falling-out with the pope, and separate archbishopric for the North was established in Lund in 1105.
Adam is also an important source of Viking Age Norse paganism, including the practice of human sacrifice: [2] The description of the temple at Uppsala is one of the most famous excerpts of the Gesta:
The fourth book describes the geography of Scandinavia and the Baltic region. It mentions numerous episcopal seats and churches, including Meldorf, Schenefeld, Verden (Diocese of Verden ), Pahlen, Ratzeburg, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg in Holstein and Jumne. Beyond this, it gives a description of the coast of Scandinavia and of the "northern isles" including Iceland, Greenland and notably (in chapter 39) Vinland (North America), [note 1] being the oldest extant written record of the Norse discovery of North America. Adam of Bremen had been at the court of Danish king Sven Estridson and was informed about the Viking discoveries in the North Atlantic there.
Adam is believed to have come from Meissen (Latin Misnia) in the Margravate of Meissen. [4] He was probably born before 1050 and died on 12 October of an unknown year (possibly 1081, at the latest 1085). From his chronicles it is apparent that he was familiar with a number of authors. The honorary name of Magister Adam shows that he had passed through all the stages of a higher education. It is probable that he was taught at the Magdeburger Domschule.
In 1066 or 1067 he was invited by archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg to join the Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen. [1] Adam was accepted among the capitulars of Bremen, and by 1069 he appeared as director of the cathedral's school. [1] Soon thereafter he began to write the history of Hamburg-Bremen and of the northern lands in his Gesta. His position and the missionary activity of the church of Hamburg-Bremen allowed him to gather information on the history and the geography of Northern Germany. A stay at the court of Svend Estridson gave him the opportunity to find information about the history and geography of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries. [1]
Adam made use of a variety of sources. He had a preference for biographies over chronicles and annals. He had access to the biographies of the missionary saints Boniface, Ansgar, Liudger, Radbod, Rimbert, Willehad and Willibrord. He also made use of Einhard's Life of Charlemagne . His historical sources include Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum and the Annals of Fulda , which he also calls the Historia Francorum. He had the Regensburg continuation of the latter, perhaps even a copy that had been amplified with other material. He also had an amplified version of the Annals of Corbie . He uses but does not name the Swabian World Chronicle and the Chronicle of Regino of Prüm. Three sources he cites appear to be lost: the Annales Caesarum, Gesta Francorum and Gesta Anglorum. [5]
Among documentary sources, Adam had access to letters and charters, both papal and imperial. He also saw the confraternity book and the donation book of Bremen, begun under Ansgar. He was poor, however, at detecting forgeries. Among ecclesiastical texts, he used the False Decretals, the Decretum of Burchard of Worms and lost work by Abbot Bovo II of Corvey. [5]
According to Schmeidler (1917), Adam created three versions of the text, in the convention of Schmeidler (1917) labelled
None of the three archetypes has been preserved. The most relevant surviving manuscripts are classified into three groups, labelled A, B and C.
The best manuscript is of group A, labelled A1 (National Library Vienna, cod. 521), dated to the first half of the 13th century. Parts of book 2, book 4 and some scholia are also preserved in a ms. dated c. 1100 (Leiden University Library, Codex Vossianus Latinus, VLQ 123).
Manuscripts in the B and C groups are derived from version X. They contain independent additions of scholia. The best ms. in group B was the so-called Codex z, written 1161/2, which was however lost in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728. Some copies of this ms. are extant. The best ms. in group C, labelled C1, is at the Copenhagen Royal Library, Old Royal Collection, No. 2296 quarto (dated c. 1230).
The editio princeps was printed in 1595 after the now-lost ms. C2 by Erpold Lindenberg. It was reprinted as Scriptores rerum septentrionalium in 1609 and 1630. The fourth book was edited by Johannes Messinus in Stockholm in 1615, and by Stephanus Johannes Stephanius in Leiden in 1629. A revised edition by Joachim Johannes Mader appeared in Helmstedt in 1670, reprinted 1706 by J. A. Fabricius in Hamburg.
The first critical edition, based on ms. A1, is due to Johann Martin Lappenberg, published 1846. It was included in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica series, appearing in a revised edition by Georg Waitz in 1876, and edited by Migne in 1884 (PL 146). The edition by Bernhard Schmeidler (1917, reprinted 1977, 1993) remains current.
Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. Adam is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. He was "one of the foremost historians and early ethnographers of the medieval period".
Birka, on the island of Björkö in present-day Sweden, was an important Viking Age trading center which handled goods from Scandinavia as well as many parts of Continental Europe and the Orient. Björkö is located in Lake Mälaren, 30 kilometers west of contemporary Stockholm, in the municipality of Ekerö.
Johann Martin Lappenberg was a German diplomat, groundbreaking medievalist, and historian with a focus on the early Holy Roman Empire, the Hanseatic League, and Saxon England.
The Temple at Uppsala was long held to be a religious center in the Norse religion once located at what is now Gamla Uppsala, Sweden attested in Adam of Bremen's 11th-century work Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and in Heimskringla, written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century. Uppsala has for long been exposed to fanciful theories about the implications of these descriptions of the temple and of the findings of archaeological excavations in the area, now including recent findings of extensive wooden structures and log lines from the 5th century which allegedly played a supporting role to activities at the site, including ritual sacrifice. According to sources from the later middle ages the temple was destroyed by King Inge the Elder in the 1080s, but there are no contemporary sources to support that.
Skálholt is a historical site in the south of Iceland, at the river Hvítá.
Emund Eriksson, , was a Swedish king whose historicity is only known from a single source, the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum which was written by Adam of Bremen in c. 1075.
Erik Ringsson was a Swedish king and the son of Ring, according to the German ecclesiastic chronicler Adam of Bremen. He is said to have ruled together with his father and his brother Emund in about 936, and later presumably reigned in his own name.
Emund the Old was King of Sweden from c. 1050 to c. 1060. His short reign was characterised by disputes with the Archbishopric of Bremen over church policies, and a historically debated delimitation of the Swedish-Danish border.
Haakon Sigurdsson, known as Haakon Jarl, was the de facto ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995. Sometimes he is styled as Haakon the Powerful, though the Ágrip and Historia Norwegiæ give the less flattering name Hákon Illi, that is, Haakon the Bad.
The Archbishop of Uppsala has been the primate of Sweden in an unbroken succession since 1164, first during the Catholic era, and from the 1530s and onward under the Lutheran church.
Egino was the only bishop of Dalby in Scania, from 1060 to 1066. He was ordained by archbishop Adalbert of the Archbishopric of Bremen. The bishopric was separated from Roskilde in 1060, when the church in Denmark was reorganized in nine episcopal sees, but practically united with the see of Lund in 1066, after the death of bishop Henry of Lund. Thereby all of Terra Scania was subordinated to Hamburg-Bremen.
Harthacnut or Cnut I was a semi-legendary King of Denmark. The old Norse story Ragnarssona þáttr makes Harthacnut son of the semi-mythic viking chieftain Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, himself one of the sons of the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok. The saga in turn makes Harthacnut the father of the historical king, Gorm. It has been suggested he is to be identified with the Hardegon of Northmannia whose early-10th century conquest of Denmark was related by Adam of Bremen.
Saint Sigfrid of Sweden (Swedish: Sigfrid, Latin: Sigafridus, Old Norse: Sigurðr, Old English: Sigefrið/Sigeferð) was a missionary-bishop in Scandinavia during the first half of the 11th century. Originally from England, Saint Sigfrid is credited in late medieval king-lists and hagiography with performing the baptism of the first steadfastly Christian monarch of Sweden, Olof Skötkonung. He most likely arrived in Sweden soon after the year 1000 and conducted extensive missions in Götaland and Svealand. For some years after 1014, following his return to England, Sigfrid was based in Trondheim, Norway. However, his position there became untenable after the defeat of Olaf Haraldsson.
Terra feminarum is a name for an area in Medieval Northern Europe that appears in Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum by Adam of Bremen 1075 AD.
Osmund or Asmund was a missionary bishop in Sweden in the mid-11th century.
Thorulf or Torulf was medieval prelate, a Bishop of Orkney. Although probably a native Scandinavian, he is known only from the account of the German writer Adam of Bremen. Adam reported that he was appointed bishop by Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg, the first Orcadian appointee under Hamburg overlordship. Thorulf's period of appointment coincided with the reign of Earl Thorfinn Sigurdsson, alleged builder of the Birsay church and founder of the bishopric of Orkney.
John was an 11th-century prelate. According to the Saxon writer Adam of Bremen, historian of the archbishops of Hamburg, John was sent to Orkney by Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg, to succeed Thorulf as Bishop of Orkney. According to Adam, he had previously been consecrated as a bishop in "Scotland".
Adalbert was an 11th-century prelate. Having been consecrated elsewhere, he is said by the Saxon writer Adam of Bremen to have been sent to become Bishop of Orkney by his namesake, Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg. He is mentioned as the successor of Bishop John.
The Battle of Norditi, Battle of Nordendi or Battle of Hilgenried Bay was a battle between a Frisian army under Archbishop Rimbert of Bremen-Hamburg and an army of Danish Vikings in 884, which resulted in the complete withdrawal of the Vikings from East Frisia.
Liudger was the younger brother of the Saxon Duke Bernhard I of the Billung dynasty. In the historical sources Liudger is called Graf (count). There he appears almost only at the side of his older brother.