Read the incredinble story of how a brawl in the grand bazaar of 18th-century Constantinople (now Istanbul) indirectly ignited a scholarly renaissance in Viking studies, revealing crucial Arabic insights into Norse rituals and cultures.
On August 27 1761, a Danish explorer started a small riot in the grand bazaar of Constantinople. Frederik Christian von Haven had been buying Arabic and Persian manuscripts for the Danish royal library as part of an expedition sent to the Middle East by Danish king Frederik V.
This article was originally written by the University of London鈥檚 , and first published by our friends at . It is republished here with kind permission.
Von Haven was confident 鈥� perhaps overly so 鈥� in his abilities as a book collector. But on this particular day, things went wrong.
When a Turkish bookseller offered him a book he didn鈥檛 like the look of, Von Haven tossed it aside dismissively.
At this, the booksellers at the bazaar and came together to physically remove him from the area 鈥� trampling his hat in the process. The indignant explorer was left feeling disgruntled about the treatment he had endured.
The incident at the bazaar is a dramatic interlude in the diary kept by Von Haven throughout his journey with the other members of Denmark鈥檚 royal expedition.
It showcases Von Haven鈥檚 arrogance, both as a book collector and as a European in Constantinople. But what does it have to do with the study of the Viking Age?
The Study of Vikings
The sources that inform our knowledge of the Vikings come in many forms and languages. Among them are a series of geographical and eyewitness texts written in Arabic which discuss aspects of the Viking world.
They describe not only the Vikings at home in Scandinavia or聽raiding the coastline of al-Andalus, but also Viking traders and settlers across what is now Ukraine and Russia,聽.
Arguably the most famous Arabic source on the Rus is the travel account of Ahmad ibn Fadlan, a diplomat of sorts dispatched from Baghdad to Russia鈥檚 Volga river in AD921.
Read more: Miklagard: When the Vikings Reached Constantinople
Immortalised by the actor Antonio Banderas in聽The 13th Warrior聽(1999), Ibn Fadlan encountered a band of Rus slavetraders during his journey, and observed a funeral ceremony on the banks of the Volga.
of the Rus and their funerary rituals has secured his reputation as an important source for the study of ritual and belief across the Viking world.
Nowhere else do we encounter into this kind of Viking funerary ritual.
The fullest surviving manuscript copy of Ibn Fadlan鈥檚 travel account was by the historian .
Before that, European orientalists and Viking historians had spent just over a century piecing together this travelogue from the work of other geographers who had quoted him.
Using geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi鈥檚 13th-century Arabic encyclopedia , which contained excerpts of Ibn Fadlan鈥檚 travel account, a Danish orientalist which outlined a series of Arabic and Persian descriptions of medieval Scandinavia and Russia.
The author, Jens Lassen Rasmussen, had used manuscripts in Copenhagen鈥檚 royal library to introduce Ibn Fadlan to Europe.
As a Dane writing about historic accounts of people he saw as his 鈥渇orefathers鈥�, Rasmussen understood Ibn Fadlan鈥檚 Rus to be Scandinavian rather than Slavic.
While other researchers, then and since, have argued the opposite in terms of the identity of the Rus, cultural parallels and trade networks have led Viking historians to consider the Rus to have Scandinavian connections.
Von Haven鈥檚 Role
In the wake of Von Haven鈥檚 book-buying brawl in 1761, his Arabic teacher, a Syrian man named Fran莽ois Barout, persuaded him that it would be wiser to stay at home and let books come to him, rather than risk a repeat experience.
Under Barout鈥檚 supervision, booksellers visited the Dane with curated selections of manuscripts for him to browse.
This was how Al-Hamawi鈥檚 13th-century encyclopedia made its way into Von Haven鈥檚 possession 鈥� he bought it in a two-volume set for a relatively low price.
Al-Hamawi鈥檚 Dictionary of Countries did not immediately stand out as an important acquisition for the Danish royal library.
Indeed, Von Haven only bought the manuscripts because he knew Leiden University had a copy, and felt Copenhagen should follow suit.
But half a century later, it was these manuscripts which allowed Rasmussen to encounter Ibn Fadlan, and present him as a source which might interest Norse antiquarians.
Ibn Fadlan鈥檚 account was quickly translated into other European languages, and as antiquarians in the Vikings, Ibn Fadlan gained a reputation as the .
Viking scholarship after the interest sparked by Rasmussen鈥檚 initial essay. The Copenhagen manuscripts purchased by Von Haven were soon forgotten in favour of other, more useful manuscript copies and more up-to-date research.
But without the boorish behaviour of a Danish visitor to Constantinople鈥檚 grand bazaar, Ibn Fadlan鈥檚 account of Rus on the Volga would not have surfaced in Denmark in time for a surge in interest in Arabic sources on the Vikings.
This article was originally written by the University of London鈥檚 , and first published by our friends at . It is republished here with kind permission.
