The Coming of the Northmen
The central fact of Norman history and the starting event for its true history is the 911 grant of Normandy to Rollo and his northern followers. The history of Normandy, of course began long before that year. The land was there and likewise in large measure the people, that is to say probably the greater part of the elements, which went to make the population of the country at a later day; and the history of the region, can be traced back several centuries. But after all, neither the Celtic place names, the Roman Province of Lugdunensis Secunda, the ecclesiastical province of Rouen, which took its place, nor northwestern Pagi of the Frankish empire were Normandy. That they lacked the name, Normandy, is obvious; they lacked also individuality of character, which is more. They were a part, and not a distinctive part of something else, whereas later Normandy was a separate entity with a life and history of its own. And the dividing line must be drawn when the Northmen were first established permanently in the land and gave it a new name and a new history. The Northmen first invaded Normandy in 841, and their inroads did not cease until about 966.
Under Charlemagne and his successors, raids by Norman pirates began. These Norwegians and Danes landed and entrenched themselves at the mouths of rivers making raid after raid, returning to their point of departure with their booty. All security of the Cotentin was lost. The towns and villages lived in terror because no one could protect them from the Vikings who prowled, pillaged, burned, killed and took captives to sell as slaves.
In 911 A.D., the treaty of Sainte-Clair-sur-Epte, between the Norman Chief Rollo and Charles the Simple, installed the Vikings in Upper Normandy. Thus began the Duchy of Normandy. In 924 AD, the Bishoprics of Man, or Seez and Bayeux were added. When the son of Rollo, William Long Sword, came to power in 927 AD, he allied with Raoul de Bourgogne, claimant to the throne of France, in exchange for Cotentin and Avranche when it was conquered in 930 AD against the resistance of some Bretons and Vikings who refused ducal authority
The origins of Rollo are left to myth and the Norse saga of Harold Fairhair. If the later Norman historian’s accounts relate to the same person, he was known in the north as Hrolf the Ganger, because he was so huge that no horse could carry him and he must gang afoot. A pirate at home, he was driven into exile by the anger of King Harold, whereupon he followed his trade in the Western Isles and in Gaul, and rose to be a great Jarl among his people. The saga makes him Norwegian, but Danish scholars have sought to make him a Dane. It is not important where Rollo originated for the history shows that Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, all contributed to the colonists who settled in Normandy under Rollo and his successors, and the achievements of the Normans thus become the common heritage of the Scandinavian race.
Under Charlemagne and his successors, raids by Norman pirates began. These Norwegians and Danes landed and entrenched themselves at the mouths of rivers making raid after raid, returning to their point of departure with their booty. All security of the Cotentin was lost. The towns and villages lived in terror because no one could protect them from the Vikings who prowled, pillaged, burned, killed and took captives to sell as slaves.
In 911 A.D., the treaty of Sainte-Clair-sur-Epte, between the Norman Chief Rollo and Charles the Simple, installed the Vikings in Upper Normandy. Thus began the Duchy of Normandy. In 924 AD, the Bishoprics of Man, or Seez and Bayeux were added. When the son of Rollo, William Long Sword, came to power in 927 AD, he allied with Raoul de Bourgogne, claimant to the throne of France, in exchange for Cotentin and Avranche when it was conquered in 930 AD against the resistance of some Bretons and Vikings who refused ducal authority
The origins of Rollo are left to myth and the Norse saga of Harold Fairhair. If the later Norman historian’s accounts relate to the same person, he was known in the north as Hrolf the Ganger, because he was so huge that no horse could carry him and he must gang afoot. A pirate at home, he was driven into exile by the anger of King Harold, whereupon he followed his trade in the Western Isles and in Gaul, and rose to be a great Jarl among his people. The saga makes him Norwegian, but Danish scholars have sought to make him a Dane. It is not important where Rollo originated for the history shows that Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, all contributed to the colonists who settled in Normandy under Rollo and his successors, and the achievements of the Normans thus become the common heritage of the Scandinavian race.
The writers of the time could not see the permanent results of Viking settlement, the Northmen were “barbarian pirates without piety or pity, who wept neither for their sins nor for their dead.” These writers were normally monks or priests and it was the church that suffered most severely. In Normandy scarcely a church survives before the tenth century. Not until the beginning of the eleventh century does the Scandinavian immigration come to an end and Normandy stand fully on its own feet. It is also at this time that the history of Normandy moves from legend and tradition to one based on evidence.
"It is generally admitted, says Professor Maitland, that for at least half a century before the battle of Hastings, the Normans were Frenchmen, French in their language, French in their law, proud indeed of their past history, very ready to fight against other Frenchmen if Norman home-rule was endangered, but still Frenchmen who regarded Normandy as a member of states that owed service, we can hardly say obedience to the king at Paris. Their spoken language was French, their written language was Latin, but the Latin of France; the style of their legal documents was the style of the French chancery; very few of the technical terms of the law were of Scandinavian origin."
In the lower valley of the Seine and in the Cotentin are found the only regions of Normandy where Scandinavian place-names are frequent. In the Cotentin we find the endings Bec, Fkeur, Beuf, ham, and dalle; Bolbec, Harfleur, Quillebeuf, Dieppedalle, telling the same story as the terms used in navigation, namely that the Northmen were men of the sea and settled along the coast. The earlier population, however, though reduced by war, pillage and famine, was not extinguished. It survived in sufficient numbers to impose its language on its conquerors, to preserve throughout the greater part of the country its fundamental racial type, and to make these Northmen of the sea into Normans of the land. The history and accomplishment of the Normans is a chronicle that would take too long to tell in this brief history. Instead let us turn to the history of one small town in Lower Normandy, for its story mirrors much of the Cotentin from the time just before the invasion of England in 1066.
"It is generally admitted, says Professor Maitland, that for at least half a century before the battle of Hastings, the Normans were Frenchmen, French in their language, French in their law, proud indeed of their past history, very ready to fight against other Frenchmen if Norman home-rule was endangered, but still Frenchmen who regarded Normandy as a member of states that owed service, we can hardly say obedience to the king at Paris. Their spoken language was French, their written language was Latin, but the Latin of France; the style of their legal documents was the style of the French chancery; very few of the technical terms of the law were of Scandinavian origin."
In the lower valley of the Seine and in the Cotentin are found the only regions of Normandy where Scandinavian place-names are frequent. In the Cotentin we find the endings Bec, Fkeur, Beuf, ham, and dalle; Bolbec, Harfleur, Quillebeuf, Dieppedalle, telling the same story as the terms used in navigation, namely that the Northmen were men of the sea and settled along the coast. The earlier population, however, though reduced by war, pillage and famine, was not extinguished. It survived in sufficient numbers to impose its language on its conquerors, to preserve throughout the greater part of the country its fundamental racial type, and to make these Northmen of the sea into Normans of the land. The history and accomplishment of the Normans is a chronicle that would take too long to tell in this brief history. Instead let us turn to the history of one small town in Lower Normandy, for its story mirrors much of the Cotentin from the time just before the invasion of England in 1066.