If you’re watching this when it’s
being uploaded, then it means that season 2 of Vinland Saga is out and currently airing—about
to end, but currently airing nonetheless. And a while ago, I made a quick little video
about a few of my favorite tiny historical details in Vinland Saga's prologue arc, and I had fun
making that, so I thought, hey, y’know what? It would be fun to make another one, but for the farm
arc, aka… the season 2 arc. Those of you who’ve already read the manga
know just how important this arc is, and how it takes the series in a totally new direction,
but for those of you who haven’t, well, you can read it on this video’s sponsor,
BookWalker—a site-slash-app where you can read a bunch of your favorite manga and light
novels, including Vinland Saga! You can use the coupon code redbard for 600 yen off of your first purchase, and there’s a link in the description and in the pinned comment. And even if you’re not particularly interested
in getting into Vinland Saga, or maybe if you’re just already up-to-date in Vinland Saga and just looking for something else, there’s still plenty of other titles worth checking
out on BookWalker. As for me, aside from, y’know, Vinland Saga, lately I’ve been using BookWalker to read the Inuyashiki manga, and I haven’t started it quite yet, but I also recently
got the first volume of Witch Hat Atelier and I’m looking really forward to giving
it a try—I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. But anyways, to go ahead and get back on track, this video is pretty self-explanatory, especially if you saw the other one I did like this, so without any further ado, let me tell you all
about it. Just kidding, there’s a bit of further ado.
Because before I get started on the actual historical details themselves, I first need
to make sure that we’re on the same page about a couple of things. Right off the bat, although
I do have my masters in medieval history, and I do find viking history and sagas to
be interesting, a viking specialist I am not. Which is why, just like last time, I’ve
consulted with Dr. Roderick Dale, who designed the runes for the covers and the book plate
inside of Vinland Saga, and whose website is linked in the description, just to make sure that
everything here looks correct. Moving on, I want to make sure that we’re on the
same page about historical accuracy. If you want more detailed clarity on what I mean
by historical accuracy relative to Vinland Saga, I talk about this a lot more in my first video like this, so if you want that groundwork laid out for you… y’know, it’s there
and available. But the long and short of it is that full historical accuracy for something
in this time period simply is not possible, and there is a bit of a difference between
being accurate to what we know about history, and being accurate to the Icelandic sagas.
Nonetheless, all things considered, I think the Vinland Saga manga usually strikes a pretty good
balance between fact and fiction. Next up, this video is just gonna be about fun little historical details that I’ve noticed in Vinland Saga’s Farm
Arc, also sometimes called the Slave Arc. In the manga, this encompasses volumes 4–7,
whereas in the anime this means season 2. And when I say little historical details,
I do mean exactly that. Just little details that I think really highlight that Makoto Yukimura
and/or the others working on Vinland Saga really did their homework. And finally, once
again, I wanna emphasize that this is 100% not meant to be an exhaustive list of tiny
historical details in this arc of Vinland Saga; these are just some of the ones that
I picked up on, and thought would be fun to talk about. Alright, so now that we’ve got that all
outta the way, let’s go ahead and talk about some little historical details in the farm
arc of Vinland Saga: OH WOW—so, uh, this is really neat. So, the cover of this book that we see both Cnut and Snake with is the John cross-carpet page from the Lindisfarne Gospels.
…Yea, okay, uh, so there was a lot in that sentence, so, let’s go ahead and start with the Lindisfarne Gospels. There’s actually a chance you might’ve seen pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels around;
because it’s pretty famous and for good reason, it’s widely considered to be one of the
biggest masterpieces of Insular artwork. But aside from being, well, gorgeous, the
Lindisfarne Gospels is a very lavishly decorated manuscript containing the biblical books of
the Evangelists—and that's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Specifically, it uses the Latin text
from the Vulgate. It’s believed to have been made in the early 8th century, though
an Old English translation and colophon—and that’s essentially just a little note—about
the book’s creators was added in the 10th century by a scribe named Aldred. Incidentally,
that translation is the oldest surviving translation of the gospels in an English language so, the more you know. But anyways, as the name implies, this book was originally made in Lindisfarne, but it also lived in Durham for a while in the aftermath of the
viking raids. Today, however, it’s housed in the British Library in London. Per that
aforementioned colophon, it was originally made by a bishop of Lindisfarne named Eadfrith,
and it was covered and bounded by another Lindisfarne bishop named Æthilwald. Also,
an anchorite named Billfrith bedazzled it. You might be wondering why the Lindisfarne
gospels only contains 4 books of the bible, and not, well, the whole thing. And the answer
is very simple: back then, full bibles were extremely expensive and very time consuming to
make. Also, they were absolutely enormous. See example, this absolute Big Mac of a book,
the Codex Amiatinus. But anyways, to go ahead and get back on track, a carpet page is a highly decorative, full-page illustration that, well, kinda resembles a carpet. And
a big part of the Lindisfarne Gospel’s fame comes from its gorgeous carpet pages, of which
there are 5. But yea, this is to say that a carpet page, well, it’s exactly that.
It’s a page, and not the cover. The current cover of the Lindisfarne Gospel was made in the 19th century. More specifically, we don’t know precisely what happened to the original
cover of the Lindisfarne Gospels, let alone when it happened, though it’s widely believed
to have been done away with either during the viking raids, or the dissolution of the
monasteries. Long before the 19th century, suffice to say. And so a fancy rebinding was
commissioned by Edward Maltby, the then-Bishop of Durham, in 1852. This 19th century cover
is still on the Lindisfarne Gospels today, and per the British Library’s website, “The
design is based on motifs drawn from the decoration of the manuscript itself.” While I’m on the topic of books, this one right here
is a little bit different since this one is just in the anime and not in the manga, but these
books you see right here on Cnut’s desk, their covers are all the cover of the St.
Cuthbert gospel, also sometimes called the Stonyhurst Gospel, which is the oldest intact
book from England. It’s actually a really funny and interesting story how this book
has survived, like honest to god this is one of my favorite historical fun facts to tell
people about and when I saw this in the anime, I got so excited because I just knew that I would have to mention it in this video. So with that being said, what is the St.Cuthbert gospel? Well, to answer that, first we gotta talk
a little bit about St.Cuthbert. And the short answer is that before Edward the Confessor and Thomas
Beckett, he was the big English saint. He was a hermit and Bishop of Lindisfarne who
lived in the 7th century, and he’s commonly depicted as holding the severed head of St.Oswald.
And normally, y’know, I’m trying to stay on topic here, but this tangent is honestly kinda fun
and I think I can get through it pretty quick, so I’ll at least give you the overview:
Okay, so on that note, uh, he’s commonly depicted as holding the severed head of St.Oswald, because
he was buried with what’s believed to be the head of St.Oswald. There’s a handful
of other places that’ve claimed to have the head of St.Oswald, though the most notable
is definitely Hildesheim in Germany, as that head is housed in a very gorgeous reliquary, that
today is at the Hildesheim Cathedral Museum. All that being said though, the one in Durham
is widely considered to be the likeliest candidate for the actual head among them. Oh, and also, I know the idea that there’s like, y'know, multiple heads of St.Oswald running around out there might
sound kinda weird, but by the standards of medieval saint relics, trust me, this is honestly not as
as unusual as you might think; see example, the many heads of St.John the Baptist. But anyways, so, St.Cuthbert would’ve been a
child when St.Oswald died, so it’s highly unlikely that the two ever met while they
were alive. So why are they buried together, you may be wondering? Well, there’s not
exactly a full consensus on this, but perhaps the most common answer you’ll hear around
is that St.Oswald’s skull was probably put in St.Cuthbert’s tomb to save space while
the monks of Lindisfarne were wandering around in the advent in the viking raids. That being
said, I can’t not mention how in the 12th century, Reginald of Durham wrote that, essentially,
that the skull got there by way of the spirit of St.Cuthbert telling one of his followers to
go to Bamburgh to bring it to him for some reason. The follower does this, and the tomb of
St.Cuthbert opens by itself, kinda Kirby absorbs St.Oswald’s skull, and then suddenly closes.
So, y’know, think some kinda medieval, and saintly version of, well, [insert the food
delivery app of your choice here]. …God, I love studying medieval history so much. Alright, so, uh, getting back on track, like
I was saying, St.Cuthbert was a 7th century hermit and Bishop of Lindisfarne, and today,
his biggest claim to fame is probably his corpse, which was believed for a long time
to have been, and I’m gonna quote J. A. Giles’ English translation of Bede’s Life
and Miracles of St.Cuthbert here, “as if he were still alive, and his joints were still
flexible, as if he were not dead, but sleeping. His clothes, also, were still undecayed, and
seemed to retain their original freshness and colour.” To use the Church’s language
to describe the state that St.Cuthbert’s body was found in, his corpse was incorrupt.
The precise definition and hallmarks of an incorrupt body or body part can be kinda confusing,
so I’m not gonna sit here and even try to explain it at the risk of completely derailing this video, but Caitlin Doughty of Ask A Mortician has a really great bite-sized video explaining this if you wanna learn more.
I’ll leave a link in the description. But for the sake of this video, all you really
need to know is that especially at the time of St.Cuthbert’s death, incorruptibility
was considered to be miraculous, and by extension of that, it was a sign of sainthood. So that St.Curthbert’s body was, reportedly, so fresh even years after his death, was a really big deal. That his corpse was incorrupt is a narrative
that would be echoed in later occasions where people saw and wrote about the state of his
body as well. As a matter of fact, it was during one such occasion in 1104 that the book was discovered,
removed, and kept at the Cathedral for a while. Or rather, it was probably there until the
dissolution, but the details of what, precisely, happened to it in the immediate aftermath
of the dissolution are unclear. The British Library’s full catalog info for it doesn’t
list another owner til the early 17th century. It then spent some time trading hands until
1769, when it was donated to the, “English community of the Society of Jesus in Liège.
It was subsequently kept at the Jesuit college of Stonyhurst.” Hence why it’s sometimes
called the Stonyhurst Gospel. Then in 1979, it was placed on loan to the British Library,
who eventually just purchased it in 2012. So, y'know, that’s cool and all, sure, and I guess
if we’re strictly talking about the St.Cuthbert Gospel, the story more or less ends here.
But when I talk about this story, I definitely do not end it here, because the St.Cuthbert
Gospel was definitely not the last historically significant item taken from St.Cuthbert’s
grave. The year is now 1827. St.Cuthbert’s tomb
hasn’t been opened since the dissolution of the monasteries, which at this point, was
about 300 years ago. Enter Durham Cathedral librarian James Raine, who without bothering
to get permission from the Dean or Bishop, cracked open the tomb of St.Cuthbert and then
wrote a book about it: Saint Cuthbert: With an Account of the State in Which His Remains Were Found—yea, I know, the name is pretty on the nose. But anyways, based on the way and frequency
that he writes about it, one can’t help but feel that Raine was doing this mostly—arguably
even entirely—to prove whether or not St.Cuthbert was, or perhaps was still, incorrupt or not. In any case, in doing this, Raine discovered
that St.Cuthbert was indeed a skeleton now. But also, he discovered and removed a number
of remarkably well-preserved goods that’d been buried with him and not yet stolen or
otherwise removed: a very lavish pectoral cross, a portable altar, vestments, and a
comb. These objects were soon put on display in the Cathedral library, and St.Cuthbert
was put into a new coffin and re-buried. But lest you think that Raine’s examination was
nothing but good news, the tomb would be opened yet again in 1899, and writing about it, J.T.Fowler
called Raine’s examination, “hurried.” That he, “precluded careful notes” and
that the “so-called coffin” St.Cuthbert’s corpse was moved to in 1827 was a, “frail
and shabby packing-case.” The so-called coffin quickly disintegrated, causing lots
of bones and shavings to get everywhere. To quote the Durham Cathedral’s official blog
on a post that they made about it, “As soon as the first marble slab was lifted, the lack
of care and time that Raine and his team put into the first investigation became blatantly
obvious.” That being said, the silver lining to this was that it gave Fowler and everyone
else involved a golden opportunity to finally examine the bones in detail. If you’re curious
about em, you can read the results in Fowler’s, On an Examination of the Grave of St. Cuthbert
in Durham Cathedral Church, in March, 1899. As for today, St. Cuthbert is still buried in the Durham Cathedral. His grave goods and the honestly really cool remains of his late 7th century coffin, are on display at the Durham Cathedral as well, except for the St.Cuthbert gospel which—like the
Lindisfarne Gospels—is housed in the British Library. So I don’t know if there were any panels of
people eating in the prologue arc, but it was during this arc that it really started
to hit me that—oh hey, there has been nary a fork to be seen in Vinland Saga, which,
yea, historically accurate. Now, I could be wrong about this—again, I’m
not a viking expert—but as far as I’ve been able to see, while there has been a lot
of viking-era eating/drinking/cooking vessels and utensils to have survived, we can’t
say the same for any specific, written viking-era recipes. But even so, we can still craft a
pretty decent idea of how food could’ve been prepared and eaten back then thanks to
mentions of food in certain sagas and poems such as the Poetic Edda’s Rígsþula, surviving
cooking materials, of which there are plenty, and in some cases, residues that can still
be found on those materials. And yea, plenty of stuff like spoons, knives, bowls, pans,
and cauldrons, but forks weren’t really around in northwestern Europe. But this prompts the question: okay, so uh,
what did the Scandanavians eat then? Because even if we don’t have recipes, it’s not
like we don’t have any clues about what they ate whatsoever. That being said, it’s
honestly really hard to speak with much certainty regarding specifically what they ate, because
there’s still so much that we don’t know about this. A lot of writing and major projects
have been dedicated to understanding viking-era food, and there definitely seems to be debate
in some areas of it—like regarding vegetables, for example. But we do know that there were
some foods and drinks with broad appeal—beer beer and fish, for example. Granted, more money
means more resources to have better beer and better fish, but still. Again, it’s just really hard to speak with any certainty
regarding viking-era food, and it’s even harder when you’re trying to make a video
less than 5 hours long. For the same reason, it’s really hard to even hyper-condense
it; y’know, there’s a reason—well, there’s a lot of reasons—why so much ink has been
spilled over this topic, and it’s really hard to do it justice in just a few minutes.
I know in the last video I mentioned the Jorvik Viking Centre in York and how it’s kinda
cheesy, sure, but at the end of the day it’s still a really interesting museum of viking-era-goods.
And definitely one of their more… let's say, interesting items is… well, the fancy word is "coprolite", but in plain English, it’s fossilized viking-era poop. And a very big one at that; per the Jorvik Viking Centre companion guide, “It is thought to be the largest complete
example of preserved human excrement ever found.” But the importance of understanding
viking-era food is exactly why this poop, against all odds, is such an important find worthy of being in
a museum and getting its own page in the companion guide despite, y’know, being a very literal
poop; because it sheds light on diet and health in Jorvik. …By the way, in case you were
wondering, per the companion guide and the museum’s plaque on it, the poop reveals
that its, let's say creator was infested with whipworms and maw-worms. Also, they ate cereal bran. So with all that being said, I guess the most
effective thing I can tell you about Scandinavian food during the viking-era is that, well, the good news is that
there’s a lot of writing on the topic if you're interested in learning more. The better news is that there’s plenty of archaeological finds that you’ll find pretty interesting, as well. Perhaps more
than anything else I’ve mentioned in this or the previous Vinland Saga video, you’ll
have plenty of information to work with, and major projects to keep tabs on. So to go ahead and get back to viking-era
eating and cooking utensils, y'know like I said, a lot of them have survived, and not unlike
combs which I talked about in my previous video like this, there’s enough of em around
that if you go to just about any museum with even a decent collection of viking-era goods,
there’s a pretty good chance that you're gonna see some spoons, some cups, pots, knives, and so on.
Now, I haven’t exactly been to a ton of museums with viking-era goods, so take this with a
grain of salt, but at least anecdotally I think spoons are the ones I’ve seen around
the most. But again, take that with a grain of salt. Dr. Roderick Dale told me that soapstone
vessels are also pretty common, and even just skimming around online, you can quickly get a sense
of how true that is. So yea, there’s a few more fun, little historical
details that I’ve noticed throughout Vinland Saga’s Farm Arc. If you’d like to see
me do yet another video like this for the next Vinland Saga arc, please do not hesitate to
let me know. Y'know I said it before and I’ll say it again: working on these videos is really
fun, and I’m definitely not opposed to making more. And if you wanna catch up on the Vinland Saga manga in the meantime, again, you can read the series on BookWalker, and you can
use the coupon code Redbard for 600 yen off of your first purchase. There's links in the description, and in the pinned comment. So on that note, uh, I think I've said everything
I wanted to say, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but I’m not super awesome
at writing conclusions for videos like this one, so uh… god, y’know what. I’m not even
gonna overthink this. I still think the Heavener Runestone is hilarious, so honestly, I’m just gonna show y’all the Heavener Runestone again. I’m not even sorry about it. It is honestly so whacky that I did this much
talking about history and the Durham Cathedral and it somehow never came up that it’s also
where Bede’s tomb is.
