THE VIKINGS IN THE FRANKISH EMPIRE TO THE FOUNDING OF NORMANDY (911)
The years from 850-865 were perhaps the most unhappy in the whole
history of the sufferings of the Frankish empire under Viking attack.
The Danes now took up more or less permanent quarters, often strongly
fortified, on the Scheldt, the Somme, the Seine, the Loire and the
Garonne, while Utrecht, Ghent, Amiens, Paris, Chartres, Tours, Blois,
Orléans, Poitiers, Limoges, Bordeaux and many other towns and cities
were sacked, often more than once. When Hroerekr obtained from the
young Hárekr of Denmark a concession of certain districts between the
Eider and the sea, he gave trouble in that direction and sailed up
the Elbe and the Weser alike. His nephew Guðröðr was in occupation of
Flanders and the lower valley of the Scheldt.
Besides these Viking leaders, who were active in the Low Countries, we
have the names of several others who were busy in France itself. The
most famous of these were the sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók. Berno, who first
appeared on the Seine in 855, was Björn Ironside, while it is quite
possible that the Sidroc who accompanied him was Sigurd Snake-eye,
another son of that famous leader. With Björn, at least according to
Norman tradition, came Hastingus (O.N. Hásteinn), his foster-father.
Hásteinn was destined to a long and active career. We first hear of him
in the annals in 866 when he appeared on the Loire, and it was he who
was one of the chief leaders in the great Danish invasion of England in
892-4. The sudden appearance of these leaders was undoubtedly due, as
suggested in the previous chapter, to the turn of events in Denmark at
this time. During the year of the revolution--854--no attacks were made
on France at all and then immediately after came a flood of invaders.
The Seine was never free from 855-62 and the Loire district was little
better off. The troubled and desolate condition of the country may be
judged from the numerous royal decrees commending those who had been
driven from their land to the protection of those with whom they had
taken refuge and exempting them from payment of the usual taxes. Many
even deserted their Christian faith and became worshippers of the gods
of the heathen. The difficulties of Charles the Bald were greatly
increased by succession troubles both in Brittany and Aquitaine.
Now one, now another claimant allied himself with the Northmen, and
Charles himself was often an offender in this respect. He initiated the
disastrous policy of buying off attack by the payment of large sums of
what in England would have been called Danegeld. In 859 occurred an
incident which throws a curious light on the condition of the country.
The peasants between the Seine and the Loire rose of their own accord
and attacked the Danes in the Seine valley. It is not quite clear what
followed, but the rising was a failure, and possibly it was crushed by
the Frankish nobles themselves who feared anything in the nature of a
popular rising made without reference to their own authority. In any
case the incident bears witness to a lack of proper leadership by the
nobles.
After the year 865 the tide of invasion set from France towards
England. These were the years of Alfred's great struggle, and Danish
efforts were concentrated on the attempt to reduce that monarch to
submission. The Franks themselves had begun to realise the necessity
of more carefully organised resistance. They began building fortified
bridges across the rivers at certain points in order to stop the
passage of Viking ships, and they also fortified several of their towns
and cities, thus giving perhaps a hint for the policy later adopted
in England by Edward the Elder. Probably the Franks were not above
taking lessons from their enemies in the matter of fortification, for
the latter had already shown themselves approved masters of the art in
such fortified camps as that at Jeufosse on the Seine. In another way
also had the Danes showed themselves ready to adapt themselves to new
fighting conditions. Not only did they build forts, but we hear of them
as mounted, and henceforward horses played an important part in their
equipment both in France and England.
During these years the Vikings made one notable expedition far beyond
the ordinary range of their activity. Starting from the Seine in 859
under the leadership of Björn and Hásteinn, they sailed round the
Iberian Peninsula through the Straits of Gibraltar. They landed in
Morocco and carried off prisoners many of the Moors or 'Blue-men' as
they called them. Some of these found their way to Ireland and are
mentioned in certain Irish annals of the period. After fresh attacks
on Spain they sailed to the Balearic Isles, and Roussillon, which
they penetrated as far as Arles-sur-Tech. They wintered in the island
of Camargue in the Rhone delta and then raided the old Roman cities
of Provence and sailed up the Rhone itself as far as Valence. In the
spring of the next year they sailed to Italy. They captured Pisa and
Luna (at the mouth of the Magra), the latter being taken by a clever
stratagem. Hásteinn feigned himself sick unto death and was baptised
by the bishop of Luna during a truce. Then news came that Hásteinn
was dead and the Vikings asked Christian burial for him. Permission
was given and a mock funeral procession entered the city. It was in
reality a band of armed men in disguise and the city was soon captured.
The real aim of the Vikings in this campaign was the capture of Rome
with its mighty treasures, but, for some reason unknown, they made no
advance further south. Scandinavian tradition said it was because they
mistook Luna for Rome and thought their work already done! Sailing back
through the Straits of Gibraltar they returned to Brittany in 862.
The Vikings had now almost encircled Europe with their attacks, for
it was in the year 865 that the Swedish Rhôs (Russians) laid siege to
Constantinople.
When Alfred secured a definite peace with the Danes in 878, those who
were averse to settling permanently returned to their old roving life.
They made their way up the Somme and the Scheldt and their progress
was not stopped by a brilliant victory gained by the young Lewis III
in June 881 at Saucourt, near the Somme, a victory which is celebrated
in the famous _Ludwigslied_. During the same years, another Viking
host invaded Saxony winning a decisive victory over Duke Bruno on the
Lüneburg Heath. After their defeat at Saucourt the main body of the
Danes made their way to Elsloo on the Meuse whence they ravaged the
Meuse, Rhine and Moselle districts plundering Cologne, Bonn, Coblentz,
Aachen, Trèves and Metz. So alarmed was the emperor Charles the Fat
that he entered into negotiations with the Danish king Guðröðr who
was with the forces at Elsloo. He secured Guðröðr's acceptance of
Christianity and the promise of security from further attack at the
price of a large payment of Danegeld and the concession to Guðröðr of
the province once held by Hroerekr, with large additions. The exact
extent of the grant is uncertain, but it included the district of
Kinnem (round Alkmaar and Haarlem) and probably covered the greater
part of Modern Holland from the Vlie to the Scheldt. Here Guðröðr
lived in semi-independence and might perhaps have established another
Normandy within the empire had he not been ruined by too great
ambition. He entirely failed to defend his province from attacks,
indeed he probably gave them covert support; he intrigued with Hugo,
the bastard son of Lothair II, against the emperor, married his sister
Gisla, and then asked for additional territories on the Rhine and the
Moselle, on the plea that his own province included no vine-growing
districts. Guðröðr had now overstepped all reasonable limits: the
emperor entered into negotiations with him but secured his death by
treachery when a meeting was arranged near Cleves. With the fall of
Guðröðr Danish rule in Frisia came to an end, and though we hear of
isolated attacks even during the early years of the 10th century, there
was no more serious trouble in that district.
In the autumn of 882, encouraged doubtless by the news of the death of
Lewis III, the Danes returned from the Meuse to Flanders and during the
next three years ravaged Flanders, Brabant and Picardy, establishing
themselves strongly at Louvain. In 885 they abandoned these districts
and sailed up the Seine, after a nine years' absence. In November they
reached Paris with a fighting force of some 30,000 men and a fleet of
700 vessels. The passage up the river was stopped by fortified bridges
and the besiegers were fortunate in having as leaders two men of great
ability and courage, first Gauzlin, Abbot of St Germain's, and, later,
Count Odo of Paris. The position of Paris was at times desperate. The
Danes were exasperated by the stout defence and in their eagerness
to plunder further up the river dragged many of their ships some two
miles overland past Paris, and so reached the upper waters of the
Seine. Later, as the result of peaceful negotiations, they obtained
permission to pass the bridges on condition that they only ravaged
Burgundy, leaving the Seine and Marne districts untouched; thus had
the provinces of the Frankish empire lost all sense of corporate union.
The Danes soon made their way as far west as Verdun. Here however they
were disastrously defeated by Odo, now king of the West Franks (June
888), and in the next year they finally abandoned the siege of Paris
making their way to Brittany.
In Brittany they found another army already busy. The Bretons had won
a great victory in the autumn of 888 when only 400 out of some 15,000
Danes made their way back to their fleet. The great _here_ from the
Seine now joined forces with the remnants of this army, but proved
powerless against Duke Alan, and some returned to Flanders in 890,
while Hásteinn with the rest sailed to the Somme. The Danes in Flanders
were defeated by Arnulf (afterwards emperor) on the Dyle, near Louvain,
in 891, but it had no great effect for soon after we find them again as
far east as Bonn. A bad harvest in the summer of 892 brought famine in
its train and this was more effective in ridding the land of invaders.
In the autumn of the year the whole army, horses and all, crossed in
one passage in some 250 ships from Boulogne to the mouth of the Limen
in Kent and, shortly after, Hásteinn with a fleet of 80 ships left the
Somme and sailed to Milton in North Kent. The story of the campaigns
there has already been told. For the first time since 840 the Frankish
empire was free from invaders. Grievous as were the losses of the
Franks, it is well to remember that those of the Danes had been great
also. Their fleet had been reduced from 700 to 250 ships, and as the
whole army could still go to England in one crossing, that must also
have been reduced from thirty to ten or fifteen thousand men.
When the English invasion had failed, those who could not settle in
England returned to their French haunts once more. A small force of
eight ships and some 200 men sailed up the Seine under one 'Huncdeus'
and gradually their numbers were increased by fresh arrivals from
abroad. They made their way north to the Meuse, south to the Loire, and
east to Burgundy, but their head quarters were on the lower waters of
the Seine. In 903 other invaders appeared on the Loire under leaders
named Baret (O.N. Bárðr) and Heric (O.N. Eiríkr). The name of Bárðr is
mentioned more than once in the contemporary history of the Norsemen
in Ireland, and as the Norsemen were driven from Dublin in 902 it is
probable that these invaders came from there. The expedition was not
a success and the Vikings soon sailed away again. Of the history of
the settlers on the Seine after 900 we unfortunately know practically
nothing. The Norman historian Dudo attempted in the 11th century to
give a connected account but his narrative is confused and unreliable.
Odo was dead and Charles the Simple was more interested in conquering
Lorraine than defending Neustria. The clergy were weary of the
ceaseless spoiling of the monasteries and anxious for the conversion
of the heathen, while the nobles were, as usual, selfish and careless
of the interests of the country at large. The Northmen made no great
expeditions between 900 and 910, but maintained a steady hold on the
Lower Seine and the districts of Bessin and Cotentin. They could not
extend their territories and the Franks could not drive them from the
Seine. At length, largely through the intervention of the clergy, a
meeting was arranged between Charles and the Viking leader Rollo at St
Clair-sur-Epte, before the end of 911. Here the province later known
as Normandy (including the counties of Rouen, Lisieux, Evreux and the
district between the rivers Bresle and Epte and the sea) was given
to Rollo and his followers as a _beneficium_, on condition that he
defended the kingdom against attack, and himself accepted Christianity.
The Danes now formed a definite part of the Frankish kingdom and
occupied a position analogous to that of their countrymen in East
Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia in England, except that the latter after
a period of freedom had in course of time to pass definitely under
English rule.
The story of the foundation of Normandy is obscure: still more obscure
is the origin and history of the leader of the Northmen at this time.
Norse tradition, as given by Snorri Sturluson, makes Rollo to be
one Hrólfr, son of Rögnvaldr earl of Möre, who was exiled by Harold
Fairhair and led a Viking life in the west. Norman tradition, as found
in Dudo, made him out the son of a great noble in Denmark, who was
expelled by the king and later went to England, Frisia and Northern
France. Dudo's account of the founding of Normandy is so full of errors
clearly proven that little reliance can be placed on his story of
the origin of Rollo. The _Heimskringla_ tradition was recorded much
later, but is probably more trustworthy, and it would be no strange
thing to find a man of Norse birth leading a Danish host. Ragnarr
Loðbrók and his sons were Norsemen by family but they appear for the
most part as leaders of Danes. How Rollo came to be the leader of the
Danes in France and what his previous career had been must remain an
unsolved mystery. His name is not mentioned apart from the settlement
of Normandy.
The Normans continued to ravage Brittany without any interruption and
they were soon granted the further districts of Bayeux, Seez, Avranches
and Coutances, which made Brittany and Normandy conterminous.