' Epochs of Modern History EDITED BY DWARD E. MORRIS, M.A., J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, B.C.L. AND C. COLBECK, M.A. THE NORMANS IN EUROPE REV. A. H. JOHNSON Epochs of Modern History THE NORMANS IN EUROPE EY THE REV.. M III JOHNSON, M.A. ti LATE FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD .HISTORICAL LECTURER TO TRINITY, ST. JOHN's, PEMBROKE, AND WADHAM COLLEGES WITH MAPS BOSTON ESTES AND LAURIAT CHICAGO JANSEN, McCLURG, & CO. SAN FRANCISCO PAYOT, UPHAM, & CO. 1877 «6 PREFACE. The history of the Scandinavian Exodus which began in the ninth century falls conveniently into two periods. During the first, (800 circ. — 912) the people of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway harassed Europe with their inroads, and formed definite settlements in the British Isles, Russia, and France. During the second, (1029-1066) France itself became the starting-place for a new series of incur- sions, led by men of Scandinavian descent, who had by that time adopted French customs and language. To this period belong the settlements in Spain and Italy, and the Norman conquest of England. The aim of this book is to present a connected view of these incursions, and to bring clearly before the reader the important fact, that the Norman Con- quest was only the last of this long series of settle- ments and conquests. The narrow limits required by the character of the series have necessitated much compression. Taking, therefore, the Norman Conquest as the centre of the book, I have contented myself with the briefest sketch of those settlements which do not inti- mately affect that event ; and concentrating attention on that of the Seine, have sketched its fortunes in some detail, and traced the growing connection be- vi Preface. tween Normandy. J bcandina- though no doubt severe, led to no permanent vian inva- results till a much later date, while in Cer- En"k°ndi many and France their annals are rendered ]}^^y^ irremediably defective through the insuffi- Germanjr, ciency of contemporary authorities. From ^ance. the death of the chronicler Nithard, grandson of Charles the Great, a Count of Ponthieu, who fell fighting against the Northmen, and left a fragment abruptly ended by his death, the authorities are very scant and the information confused. The frequent repetition of particular names running over a period longer than that generally covered by the deeds of one man, renders it probable that the terror of a name lasted after the hero's death, and led the ecclesiastical chroniclers, never very well informed of events unconnected with their own district, to attribute to one the deeds of many. All that we can feel certain of, all at least which it is in any way important to remember, is the frequency and enormous area of the attacks, and this cannot be put in better words than those of Sir Francis quency of Palgrave : — ' Take,' he says, ' the map, and ^"^^^^ ''^^'^^• cover with vermilion the provinces, districts, and shores which the Northmen visited, as a record of each invasion, the colouring will have to be repeated more than ninety times successively before you arrive at the conclusion of the dynasty of Charles the Great. Furthermore, mark by the usual symbol of war, two crossed swords, the localities where battles were fought by the pirates, where they were defeated or triumphant, or where they pillaged, burned, or destroyed, and the valleys and the banks of the Elbe, Rhine and Moselle, Scheldt, Meuse, Somme and Seine, Loire, Garonne and Adour, and all the coasts 1 6 TJie Nonnans in Europe. a.d. and coast-lands between\ estuary and estuary, all the countries between river and streams will appear bristling as with chevaux de frise.' This will give us some idea of the invasions as far as Gaul and Germany are concerned ; but it should be repeated for England, Scotland, and the islands which surround their coasts to give any adequate conception of the misery they caused. Confining, then, our attention more particularly to the second period, let us briefly consider the appearance and characteristic qualities of these Northmen. The outward look of the Norse, the Dane, the Norse- man was much the same. Broad-shouldered, deep- Outward chested, long-limbed, yet with slender waist ^-^ii- and small hands and feet, their figures told of strength; and so necessary was strength considered that puny infants were exposed and left to die, the healthy children being alone preserved. Their complexion — their hair and eyes, were fair — and the fair alone could pass for beautiful or well-born. A dark complexion was considered the mark of an alien race, and dishonourable. Thus Baldr, the noblest of the gods, was fair, and the outward appearance of the slave was thus contrasted with that of the freeman. Black and ugly they are. Their forefather. Thrall, had a broad face, bent back, long heels, bhstered hands, stiff, slow joints, and clumsy figure. His wife. Thy, is bandy-legged, flat-nosed, and her arms are brown with toiling in the sun. Their children are like them. The ordinary dress of both sexes was nearly the same. A shirt, loose drawers, long hose, high shoes with thongs twisted up the ankle. A short kirtle girt at the waist served for coat or gown ; an armless cloak, with a low-crowned, broad brimmed hat, completed the dress of the man. The woman, instead of the hat, wore a wimple of linen, and over that a high twisted cap, sometimes bent at the top into the shape of a horn, but 855912. 'The In vasions of the Northmen. 1 7 otherwise dressed much as the men. The under-clothing of both sexes was of linen ; their outer of coarse, woollen homespun — of grey, or black, or blue, or red, the most prized of all. To this the chiefs added in the time of war a helm and shirt of mail, and all were armed with a long shield, protecting the whole body — white in time of 1 . . r T • 1 Their arms. peace, red m time of war — covered with leather, with iron rim and boss ; spears of ashen shaft and iron point ; axes ; and, above all, the sword, the dar- ling of the Northmen. Their ships were long half-decked galleys, propelled by oars and sail. The waist, where the rowers sat, was low, that the oars might have free play. The bow and stern were high, and ended, the ^^^ ^ ^^^' former in a beak or jaw, the latter in the tail of some beast. Dragons were the most commonly represented, and thus the ship looked hke a huge monster on the sea, whose gaping jaws were held to bewitch the foe. The sails were gay with stripes of blue or green or red. In the prow stood the warriors, and the vessel was driven stem on against the enemy: in the stern the chief, and behind him the helmsman, his helm inscribed with magic runes to charm away all evil. In action the rowers were protected by planks set up along the bulwarks, and all round the vessel ran a gangway, from whence they boarded the enemy's ship. The character of these hardy Northmen was well suited to their future destiny. The daily struggle for existence in an inhospitable climate had taught them fearlessness and ready wit in danger. From the absence of all aristocracy or other privileged class they had acquired a of th?'^*^^ spirit of independence, a haughty and unbend- Northmen ing character which prepared them for their future con- M. H. C The Normans in Etn^ope. A.D. quests. Set face to face with the mysteries of nature and of their self-taught rehgion, they had gained an heroic fanciful- ness, a thoughtful sternness which lit up the darker tints. These features were the natural result of the free and independent life of their forefathers. To these we must add a cold-blooded ferocity, contracted in the long civil disturbances which had torn their country since the end of the eighth century. All these are the qualities common in early times to successful conquerors ; but, as we follow the history of their settlements, another more important feature appears, namely, their extraordinary assimUa° versatility and power of adapting themselves I tion. ^Q varied forms and states of society. The Northmen never seem to have been original, never to have invented anything ; rather they readily assumed the language, religion, ideas of their adopted country, and soon became absorbed in the society around them. This will be found to be invariably the case, except with regard to Iceland, where the previous occupation was too insig- nificant to affect the new settlers. In Russia, they became Russians ; in France, Frenchmen ; in Italy, Itahans ; in England twice over Englishmen, first in the case of the Danes, and secondly, in that of the later Normans. Everywhere they became fused in the surrounding nationality. /Their individuality is lost, and their presence is traced only in the nomenclature of the country, that fossil remnant of denationalised races, as it has been called. Not so their influence. They fell on stirring times, and in every case they took the lead, and deeply t affected the nations with which they came in contact. > Europe at that date was in a fluid state, and the North- men seem to have acted as a crystallising power ; to have formed a nucleus round which political society might grow. / In Iceland they formed a free republic, in Russia they first organised a kingdom ; in England they, 855-912. The Invasions of the Northmen. 19 by their pressure, first consolidated the kingdom of Wessex, then conquered it under Canute and William I. ; in the West-Frankish country they finally put an end to the long struggle for supremacy, sounded the death- knell of the Karolings of Laon, and aided to form modern France. Nor is this all ; they borrow everything and make it their own, and their presence is chiefly felt in increased activity and more rapid development of institu- tions, literature, and art. ^ Thus, while they invent no- thing, they perfect, they organise everything, and every- where appear the master-spirits of their age. We have hitherto treated the Norwegians, Swedes and Danes under the common appellation of Northmen ;• and this is in many ways the most convenient, for it is often impossible to decide the nationality of the indi- vidual settlement. Indeed, it would appear probable that the devastating bands were often composed indiscrimi- nately of the several nationalities. Still, in tracing the history of their conquests, we may lay it down as. a general rule that England was the exclusive prey of the Danes • that Scotland and the islands to the north as far as Ice- land, and to the south as far as Anglesea and Ireland fell to the Norwegians, and Russia to the Swedes ; while Gaul and Germany were equally the spoil of the Norwegians and the Danes. The last will claim our more careful atten- tion. At the former we can only cast a cursory glance. I. In England, the Danish inroads beginning about the year 787, had assumed their second phase o 1 T o 11 becond about the year855, and destroyed the nascent period of unity of the kingdom then partially attained nWn' con- by Egbert, king of the West- Saxons. The T^^^' Danes had easily occupied the more northern Danish con- kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East England, Anglia ; peopled as they were by the Angles, ^ss-SyS. a race more nearly akin to their own than the Saxons c 2 20 The Normans in Europe. a.d, and disorganised by the late struggles for supremacy. But as they drew near to the more thoroughly organised kingdom of Wessex, the opposition became more resolute, and the struggle more severe. Led by their great hero, Alfred, the Saxons maintained the struggle for seven years, until the peace of Wedmore, Wcdmore, 878, obtained for Wessex a respite ^7^- from her harassing foe. By that peace Eng- land was divided into two nearly equal parts ; Alfred holding all south of the Thames, Lea, and Watling Street ; that is Kent, Sussex, Wessex, and part of Mercia ; while he ceded all north of this to the Danes, and Guthrum, their leader, acknowledging his over-lordship, embraced Christianity as a condition of the peace, ^■■"^hus England was again divided, and her premature attempt at unity to all appearance indefinitely post- poned. Yet in trudi the loss was apparent rather than real. By this peace the limits between the two people were fixed, and the Danes no longer continued their Danish aggrcssious. Confined behind their self-con- invasions stituted boundary, they soon began to amalga- mate with the conquered people. Their leader having embraced Christianity, they gradually followed his ex ample, and the northern Church, overthrown in the earlier days of the Danish invasions, was speedily revived. Meanwhile, although temporarily a loss to England, the result of the Scandinavian invasions had been to consolidate Wessex. During the struggle she had been looked upon as the national leader of the EngHsh, and common perils and victories had fused the various Saxon tribes more completely than they had ever been before. The part of Mercia which remained to Wessex became completely incorporated with her, while the organisation of the country was systematised and perfected by the wise S78-958. T^h^ Invasions of the Northmen. 2 1 measures of Alfred and his successors. When the re- action came, Wessex stepped boldly forth and encroached upon the Danish districts. During the reigns of Alfred's powerful sons and grandsons the advance was rapid. The Danes themselves crushed out the local independence, and the Saxons inherited the results of their labours. ^ ^ g When a hundred years are past, England, Edgar the under Edgar the Peaceful, came forth more king of all really united than ever before. The Danes England. had done their work, perhaps revived the institutions com- mon to the North German race, breathed new life into the social and political condition of the country, and then, assimilating themselves rapidly to the conquered people, dropped into the common mass of Englishmen. A few traces of their presence alone remained in the modifi- cation of some official titles, in a few privileges and laws, and other local peculiarities which lasted in Danelagu (the land of Dane law) till the Norman conquest, and in the nomenclature of certain localities and towns. ^ II. While England had been overcome by the Danes, the Norwegians had turned their attention Norwegian chiefly to the north of the British Isles and invasions of the islands of the West. Their settlements and the naturally fell into three divisions, which tally ^^^^^• with their geographical position, i. The Orkneys and Shetlands, lying to the N.E of Scotland. 2. The isles to the west as far south as Ireland. 3. Iceland and the Faroe Isles. The Orkneys and Shetlands. Here the Northmen first appear as early as the end of the eighth century, and a few peaceful settlements were made by those 1 . , ... Orkneys who were anxious to escape from the noisy and scenes which distracted their northern country. Shetlands. In the reign of Harald Harfagr they assume new impor- tance, and their character is changed. Many of those 22 The Normans in Europe^ a.d. driven out by Harald sought a Tefuge here, and betaking themselves to piracy periodically infested the Norwegian coast in revenge for th-eir defeat and expulsion. These ravages seriously disturbing the peace of his newly acquired kingdom, Harald fitted out an expedition and devoted a whole summer to conquering the Vikings and extirpating the brood of pirates. The country being gained, he offered it to his chief adviser, Rognwald, Jarl of Mori in Norway, father of Rollo of Normandy, who, though refusing to go himself, held it during his life as a family possession, and sent Sigurd, his brother, there, Sigurd, having organised his kingdom, crossed to the mainland ,^and overran Caithness and Sutherland, .then, in com- mon with the Orkneys and the Shetlands, ia;ihabited by the North Picts, a tribe of Gaelic extraction. Sigurd's death was characteristic of his life. While carrying the head of a victim, Malbrede ' the bucktooth ' swung at his saddlebow, he was wounded in the leg by the pro- minent teeth of his lifeless foe, and died from the effects. Although his ally, Thorstein Olaveson, gained Caithness Establish- ^^^ Sutherland, on the direct failure of his ment of issue, authority was again in abeyance and the Orkney. Vikiugs again commenccd their ravages. Rogn- ^75- wald next sent his son Einar, and from, his time we may date the final establishment of the Jarls of Orkney, who henceforth owe a nominal allegiance to the King of Norway. In the eleventh century the leading Jarl accepte^d Christianity at the peremptory demand of his brace Chris- Sovereign, and soon after they finally con- tianity. quered Caithness and Sutherland, and wrested a recognition of their claim from Malcolm 11. of Scotland. Their influence was continually felt in the dynastic and other quarrels of Scotland ; the defeat of Duncan, in 1040, by the Jarl of Orkney, contributing not a little to Duncan's subsequent overthrow by Macbeth. They 800-1469. The Invasions of the Northmen. 2^ Ssfostered the independence of the north of Scotland against the southern king, and held their kingdom until, in 1355, it passed by the female line to the house of Sinclair. The Sinclairs now transferred their allegiance to their natural master, the King Orkneys of Scotland ; and finally the kingdom of the farf^s^wkh Orkneys was handed over to James III. as Scotland, the dowry of his bride, Margaret of Norway. ^"^ ^' III. The close of the eighth century also saw the com- mencement of the' incursions of the Northmen in the west of Scotland, and the Western Isles soon became Hebrides a favourite resort of the Vikings. In the colsM^f'^ Keltic annals these unwelcome visitors had Scotland. gained the name of Fingall, ' the white strangers,' from the fairness of their "Complexion ; and Dugall, the black strangers, probably from the iron coats of mail worn by their chiefs. From the intermixture of the Kelts and Northmen sprang a race called the Gall- Gael, who joined the Northmen in their raids, or plun- dered on their own account. In the year 795 plundered, we find them sacking the monastery of lona, 795- once the centre of religious vitality in the North. By the end of the ninth century a sort of naval empire had arisen, consisting of the Hebrides, Naval parts of the western coasts of Scotland, espe- g^J* ^7 '\i cially the modern Argyllshire, Man, Anglesea, century. and the eastern shores of Ireland. This empire was under a line of sovereigns who called themselves the Hy-Ivar (grandsons of Ivar), and lived now in Man, now in Dublin. Thence they often joined their kinsmen in their attacks on England, and at times aspired to the position of Jarls of the Danish Northumbria. It may seem strange that a kingdom so widely scattered should have held together ; but the sea was their highway, and by it communication was far 24 The Normans in Europe. a.d. easier at that date than by land. Moreover, it is pro- bable that the independence of the several isles was greater than the scanty records which we have allow. At the close of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century the battles of Taja and Clontarf overthrew the ■J Battles of powcr of these Norsemen (or Ostmen as they arTd^Ckm- Were Called) in Ireland, and restored the tarf, 1014. authority of the native Irish sovereign. About this time they became Christians, and in the year 1066 we find one of their princes joining Harald Hardrada \ of Norway in his invasion of England, which ended so dis- astrously in the battle of Stamford Bridge. Magnus of Norway, thirty-two years later, after subduing the inde- pendent Jarls of Shetland and the Orkneys, attempted to reassert his supremacy along the western coast. But after conquering Anglesea, whence he drove out the Nor- Attempt of nians who had just made a settlement there, Magnus of j^g crosscd to Ireland to meet his death in JNorway to . restore the battle. The Sovereignty of the I sles was then Norvvayy restored to its original owners, but soon after 1098. split into two parts — the Suderies and Nor- deries (whence the term Sodor and Man), north and south of Ardnamurchan Point. The next glimpse we have of these dominions is at the close of the twelfth century, when we find them under Somarled; a chief named Somarled, who exercised twelfth'^^^ authority in the islands and Argyleshire, and century. from him the clans of the Highlands and the Western Isles love to trace their ancestry. After his