An Anglo-Saxon trail in Russian-Byzantine treaties?
Some non-Slavonic names in the Russian-Byzantine treaties of 911 and 945 have been claimed to be unidentifiable, and one of the most notorious is the name Aktevu. However, virtually all researchers who ever attempted to interpret it overlooked the possibility that it might have been Anglo-Saxon. If read from an Old English perspective, it is likely a regular Anglo-Saxon compound name Actheow. While this name is not directly attested in Old English sources, both
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of its components are well attested in Anglo-Saxon personal names. Moreover, further reconsideration of the name lists in the treaties raises the question whether some other names (up to three more) can be Anglo-Saxon too. The most obvious case is Ingeld which can be, rather than the distorted ON Ingjald, the regular OE form of this name.
Before 2017, detailed linguistic analysis of the name lists in the treaties had been scarce. The year 2017 saw a paper by Sergei L. Nikolayev who undertook this task. Unfortunately, due to the multiple flaws in methodology, he jumped to a conclusion that the Germanic names in the treaties represent some long-lost North Germanic dialect or even a distinct language which somehow has remained unidentified by generations of linguists. A closer look at Nikolayev’s arguments can reveal his flaws: all of the supposed discrepancies between the known ON names and the names from the Russian-Byzantine treaties can be explained either by inaccuracies of transliteration or by the possibility that some of the names in the treaties are actually West Germanic, belonging to known languages (such as OE). There is no reason to infer the existence of an unknown North Germanic language or dialect.
However, some points made by Nikolayev remain valid, and one of them is the question of writing system in which the names were originally recorded. The self-evident idea that it was Greek alphabet faces at least some difficulties, such as the distinction between labials and labiodentals. The distribution of labials / labiodentals in the name lists corresponds more to their actual Germanic pronunciation that to the conventions of Greek writing which by the 10th century had no means to represent the distinction between [b] and [v]. Yet the solution offered by Nikolayev (and by some earlier scholars) — that the chronicle text was edited by somebody who had good knowledge of Scandinavian languages and was able to correct the transliteration in the Slavonic version — seems implausible.
The idea that there had been at least one Anglo-Saxon member in each embassy opens many new possibilities. The most haunting issue related to the treaties is one of literacy, since by the mid-10th century presumably neither Scandinavians nor East Slavs mastered writing on regular basis. On the contrary, Anglo-Saxons by that time were quite used to writing, not only in Latin but in vernacular as well. A high-status Anglo-Saxon from Danelaw would make a perfect secretary for any Viking chieftain planning to make policy with men of letters, such as Greeks. This clarifies the puzzling phrase in the source which seems to state that the Russian ambassadors actually signed the 911 treaty ‘by our own hand’. A single Anglo-Saxon able to put a collective signature in Latin script is the solution which renders unnecessary any conjectures about erroneous readings.
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