Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (18 page)

Bornholmers speak a language,
Bornholmsk
, that differs both from standard Danish and Swedish; its grammatical features such as triple genders are similar to those in Norwegian or Icelandic and its phonetic patterns similar to south-Swedish Scanian.
³
An organization called
Bevar Bornholmsk
is devoted to the language’s preservation, and several successful folk groups perform the island’s music and songs.
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Danes from Copenhagen can sometimes be seen consulting a Danish-Bornholmsk dictionary. In medical circles, the name of Bornholm is linked incongruously to a viral infection called
epidemic pleurodynia
, otherwise known as the ‘Devil’s Grip’, the ‘Grasp of the Phantom’ or, more prosaically, Bornholm disease. The malady was first described in 1933.
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Nonetheless, tourist publicity eulogizes this ‘paradise for simple souls’, where all manner of open-air pursuits flourish. The brochures talk of the
Østersøens Perle
(‘Pearl of the Baltic’),
Solopgangens Land
(‘Sunrise Land’),
maleriske fiskelejer
(‘quaint fishing hamlet’),
Pelle Erobreren
(
Pelle the Conqueror
– the title of a popular novel
⁶
) and, of course,
Velkommen til Bornholm
. Biking, golfing, fishing, beach-walking, kite-flying, wind-surfing and a visit to one of the nature parks are all strongly recommended. There is a Birds of Prey Show and a Butterfly Park, and, in the long June days, festivals for rock-climbers and for the enthusiasts of the modern sport of ultra-running.
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Every year, the harbour at Tejn hosts the Bornholm Trolling Master competition, which involves sea-fishing in speedboats.
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Since bathing or sunbathing in the nude is legal throughout Denmark, Bornholm offers infinite opportunites for naturists.
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The area west of the lighthouse on Dueodde Strand is an old-established location. Bornholm also advertises itself as the ‘Bright Green Island’. Thirty per cent of the island’s energy is already generated by wind turbines in a project which aims to replace all petrol-driven cars with electric vehicles by 2011.
¹⁰

Holiday-makers are encouraged to explore Bornholm’s historical legacy, or at least parts of it. Topics not widely advertised include the lengthy refusal of the Red Army to leave after the Liberation of 1945, and the elaborate radio intercept stations which were installed by NATO during the Cold War. The main emphasis nowadays is on the enigmatic ‘round churches’, which the Knights Templar built in the late medieval period,
¹¹
and on the local patriots who fought for the island’s freedom from the Swedes in the mid-seventeenth century. Many visitors make for the spectacular cliff-top ruins of Hammershus Castle, the largest fortified building in northern Europe, which was built by a Danish king, Valdemar the Victorious, early in the thirteenth century and commands stunning views over the water to Sweden. An annual jousting tournament is held there, yet the view alone is sufficient reason to visit. On a fine summer’s morning, the shimmering light that hovers over the waves below the battlements produces magical moments. Time and space can merge; the imagination races. Viewed from the cliff top of ‘today’, the cliff foot becomes ‘yesterday’, the advancing lines of sea horses the centuries of history, and the far shore, barely visible, the Age of the
Völkerwanderung
.

Investigations into Bornholm’s earliest history are no less rewarding. Local archaeologists have established that the sequence of prehistoric graves came to a sudden end, strongly suggesting that the inhabitants had either been wiped out by a natural disaster, like the plague, or had departed en masse. Here, the Old Norse form of the island’s name,
Burgundarholm
, is relevant. Alfred the Great, composing his translation of Orosius in the Viking Age, called it
Burgenda Land
.

Of course, when searching for origins, there is no need to assign one homeland to one people. Primitive tribes were mobile; they were all to some degree migrants or nomads. Even those who practised agriculture would stop for a season somewhere, and then move on. Their season might last for a couple of summers, a couple of generations, or even a couple of centuries. It came to an end when arable land was exhausted, when the climate changed, or when the next warlike tribe arrived to replace them. All in all, therefore, the traditional identification of Bornholm with the prehistoric wanderings of the Burgundians is entirely credible: by no means proven, but more than a mere possibility. Nor does it imply that Bornholm was the Burgundians’ only significant stop, or that other peoples did not stop there also. But the Burgundians must have been present for long enough and in sufficient numbers for early geographers to make a lasting connection.
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It would be idle to suppose, however, that the average visitor worries about such matters. Only historical enthusiasts follow every turn in the fortunes of an island tossed around between successive Baltic powers. The Danes, when they think about the past, have their own priorities. They dream about Viking exploits; and they remember the time, not too long ago, when the far shore beyond Bornholm, now in Sweden, belonged to Denmark. Part of the action of the much celebrated Norse
Jomsvikingesaga
, which chronicles the wars of Vikings and Slavs, takes place on the island. Known history, the guidebook declares, began when Bornholm was the property of the medieval bishops of Lund. In modern times, the island was captured by Denmark in 1523, placed in pawn to the city of Lübeck, recovered by the Danes, occupied by the Swedes until 1648, visited by Peter the Great of Russia in 1716, seized by the Germans in 1940–45, and liberated by the Red Army.
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Aware, perhaps, of fragments of this story, the carefree tourists paddle in the seawater or take off their clothes, ride their bikes, fly their kites and sail their boats.

In December 2010, hit by the severest of the snowstorms that paralysed much of northern Europe, Bornholm was declared a disaster area. The Danish Metereological Institute measured a minimum snowfall of 55 inches (140 centimetres) across the island, though some parts were blocked by drifts up to 20 feet (6 metres). After a week of vainly trying to dig themselves out, the inhabitants called for help. They had to rely on military vehicles to deliver supplies, and to dump mountains of snow into the sea.
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Apart from the news that this was the coldest December since records were first kept in 1874, they had no time whatsoever to think about history.

II

Few subjects in European history have created more havoc than that summarized by the phrase ‘all the Burgundies’. Conflicting information is supplied by almost every historical or reference work one cares to consult. As long ago as 1862, James Bryce, Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, was sufficiently worried to include a special note ‘On the Burgundies’ in his pioneering study of the Holy Roman Empire. ‘It would be hard to mention any geographical name’, he wrote, ‘which… has caused, and continues to cause, more confusion …’
¹⁵

Bryce was a man of indefatigable stamina. He was a Glaswegian, an Alpinist, a Gladstonian liberal, an ambassador to the United States, and a meticulous fact-checker. (He once climbed Mount Ararat to check where Noah’s Ark had rested.) His once famous ‘Note A’ lists the ten entities which, by his calculation, had borne the name of Burgundy ‘at different times and in different districts’:

I. The
Regnum Burgundionum
(Kingdom of the Burgundians), ad 406–534.

II. The
Regnum Burgundiae
(Kingdom of Burgundy), under the Merovingians.

III. The
Regnum Provinciae seu Burgundiae
(Kingdom of Provence or of Burgundy), founded 877, ‘less accurately called Cis-Jurane Burgundy’.

IV. The
Regnum Iurense
,
or Burgundia Transiurensis
(Kingdom of the Jura, or of ‘Trans-Jurane Burgundy’), founded in 888.

V. The
Regnum Burgundiae
, or
Regnum Arelatense
(Kingdom of Burgundy or of Arles), formed in 937 by the union of III and IV.

VI.
Burgundia Minor
(the Lesser Duchy,
Klein Burgund
).

VII. The Free County or Palatinate of Burgundy (Franche-Comté, Freigrafschaft).

VIII. The
Landgrafschaft
or Landgravate of Burgundy, part of VI.

IX. The Imperial Circle of Burgundy,
Kreis Burgund
, established 1548.

X. The Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne), which was ‘always a fief of the Crown of France’.
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The complexities are self-evident; one need not delve into Bryce’s Note too deeply before doubts arise. Yet it is one of the few attempts to see the Burgundian problem as a whole. It naturally invites further exploration.

The Kingdom of the Burgundians (No. I on Bryce’s list) was a short-lived affair. It was set up by a tribal chief or warleader, Gundahar, on the west bank of the middle Rhine in the first decade of the fifth century. He and his father Gibica had brought their people over the river into the Roman Empire, probably during the great barbarian irruption in the winter of 406–7, and then helped elevate a local usurper, Jovinus, who was proclaimed ‘anti-emperor’ at Moguntiacum (Mainz); Jovinus in his turn pronounced the Burgundians to be imperial ‘allies’. In Rome’s opinion, the whole arrangement was deeply irregular.

Where exactly the Burgundian horde had come from is the subject of much learned speculation.
¹⁷
Their presence in the late fourth century on the River Main (immediately to the east of the Roman
limes
) is documented in Roman sources, as are their wars with the Alemanni. A memorial inscription in Augusta Treverorum (Trier), attests to the Roman service of one Hanulfus, a member of the Burgundian royal family. Earlier stages of the Burgundian itinerary are less certain. One hypothesis proposes a four-stage trek,
¹⁸
the first part of which would have taken them from Scandinavia to the lower Vistula by the first century ad. The second stage sees them moving to the Oder, the third to the middle Elbe by the third century, and the fourth to the Main.

The Burgundians spoke a Germanic language similar to that of the Goths, who also hailed from Scandinavia. Like the Goths, they had adopted the Arian form of Christianity, and may well have been familiar with the Gothic Bible (as translated by Wulfila, a converted Goth from northern Bulgaria).
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Furthermore, through interaction with various non-Germanic tribes, they had acquired the Hunnic practice of female head-binding, which was applied to girls during infancy and elongated their skulls for life. This has had the unintended consequence of making their graves instantly recognizable to archaeologists.