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, 11th Century German writer.
It is a history of the see of Hamburg and of Christian missions in northern Europe from the late eighth to the late eleventh century and is the primary source of our knowledge of the history, geography, and ethnography of the Scandinavian and Baltic regions and their peoples before the thirteenth century. Arriving in Bremen in 1066 and soon falling under the tutelage of Archbishop Adalbert, who figures prominently in the narrative, Adam recorded the centuries-long campaign by his church to convert Slavic and Scandinavian peoples. His History vividly reflects the firsthand accounts he received from travelers, traders, and missionaries on the peripheries of medieval Europe.
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.
How do we actually know about history? Voices of the Past is a channel dedicated to recreating the original accounts from the people who lived through events, or who lived far closer to them than we do today. We do this word for word, with an accompanying soundtrack of rousing music and images.
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Here, if you please, the fourth book will begin.
The country of the Danes, as one also reads in the Gesta of St. Agnes, is almost all spread
out over islands.
Now, this Danish land is separated from our Nordalbingians by the river Ida, which rises
in the densely wooded highlands of the pagans, called Isharno, which they say extends along
the Barbarian Ocean as far as the Schlei Sea.
The Ida flows into the Frisian Ocean, which the Romans in their writings called the British
Ocean.
The principal part of Denmark, called Jutland, extends lengthwise from the Ida River toward
the north.
It is a journey of three days if you turn aside in the direction of the island of Finn.
But if you measure the distance direct from Schleswig to Aalborg, it is a matter of five
to seven days' travel.
That is the highway of the Caesar Otto unto the farthermost sea at Vendilla, which sea
is to this day called the Ottingsund from the King's Victory.
At the Ida, Jutland is fairly wide, but thereafter it narrows little by little like a tongue
to the point called Vendilla, where Jutland comes to an end.
Thence it is a very short passage to Norway.
The soil in Jutland is sterile, except for places close to a river, nearly everything
looks like a desert.
It is a salt land and a vast wilderness.
Furthermore, if Germany as a whole is frightful for its densely wooded highlands, Jutland
itself is more frightful in other respects.
The land is avoided because of the scarcity of crops and the sea because it is infested
by pirates.
Hardly a cultivated spot is to be found anywhere, scarcely a place fit for human habitation.
But wherever there is an arm of the sea, it has very large cities.
This region, the Caesar Otto, at one time subjected to tribute and divided into three
bishoprics.
Once he established at Slesvig, which also is called Hadeby and is situated on the arm
of the Barbarian Sea, named by the inhabitants the Schlei, whence also the city derives its
name.
From this port, ships usually proceed to Slavia, or to Sweden, or to Samland, even to Greece.
The second bishopric he founded at Reib, a city encompassed by another waterway that
flows in from the ocean and over which one sails for Frisia, for England or for our Saxony.
The third bishopric he planned to fix at Arhos, separated from Finn by a very narrow channel
that reaches in from the Eastern Sea and extends in a long, winding course between Finn and
Jutland northward up to this city of Arhos.
Then one sails to Finn, or Zealand, or Scania, or even to Norway.
Now the archbishop consecrated from among his own clerics Rudolf for Slesvig, Wilhelm
for Zealand, and Egilbert for Finn.
The latter, a convert from Piracy, is said to have been the first to find the island
Helgoland, which lies hidden in a deep recess of the ocean in the mouth of the Elbe River,
and having built a monastery there, to have made it habitable.
The island lies across from Hadeln.
It is barely 8 miles long by 4 miles wide, and its people use straw and the wreckage
of ships for fuel.
Report has it that whenever pirates plunder there, be the booty ever so slight, they never
return home unpunished, either perishing soon after in shipwreck or getting killed by someone.
For this reason they are accustomed with great devotion to offer the hermits who live there
tithes of their booty.
This island produces crops in the greatest abundance and is an exceedingly rich foster
mother for birds and cattle.
On there is but one hill and not a single tree.
It is hemmed in on all sides by very precipitous crags that prohibit access except in one place,
where also the water is sweet.
All sailors hold the place in awe, especially, however, pirates.
Hence it got the name by which it is called Heiligland, now Helgoland.
From the vita of St. Willebrord we learn that it was called Fossetisland, and that it is
situated on the boundary between the Danes and the Frisians.
There also are many other islands off Frisia and Denmark, but none of them is noteworthy.
Finn is a fairly important island, lying back of that called Vendilla in the entrance of
the Barbarian Gulf.
It is close to the region named Jutland, from every part of which the passage to Finn is
very short.
There is the great city of Odense.
Small islands encircle it, all abounding in crops, and it is to be observed that if you
pass through Jutland into Finn, your route is a straight way to the north, but your course
faces east in going through Finn into Zeeland.
There are two passages to Zeeland, one from Finn, the other from Aarhus.
Each place is an equal distance from Zeeland.
The sea is naturally tempestuous and full of two kinds of danger, so that even if you
have a fair wind, you can hardly escape the hands of pirates.
