the issue of the treaty of Verdun, various explanations have been given
of it. This distribution of certain peoples of Western Europe into three
distinct and independent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has been
attributed at one time to a diversity of histories and manners; at
another to geographical causes and to what is called the rule of natural
frontiers; and oftener still to a spirit of nationality and to
differences of language. Let none of these causes be gainsaid; they all
exercised some sort of influence, but they are all incomplete in
themselves and far too redolent of theoretical system. It is true that
Germany, France, and Italy began at that time to emerge from the chaos
into which they had been plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquests
of Charlemagne, and to form themselves into quite distinct nations; but
there were, in each of the kingdoms of Lothair, of Louis the Germanic,
and of Charles the Bald, populations widely differing in race, language,
manners, and geographical affinity, and it required many great events
and the lapse of many centuries to bring about the degree of national
unity they now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of individual
and independent forces, which is always considerable, although so many
men of intellect ignore it in the present day, what would have happened,
had any one of the three new kings, Lothair, or Louis the Germanic, or
Charles the Bald, been a second Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been a
second Charles Martel? Who can say that, in such a case, the three
kingdoms would have taken the form they took in 843?
Happily or unhappily, it was not so; none of Charlemagne's successors
was capable of exercising on the events of his time, by virtue of his
brain and his own will, any notable influence.
Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often and in
many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory during the whole duration of the
Carlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused the
population of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne,
even after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, had
foreseen the evils which would be inflicted on France by the most
formidable and most determined of them, the Northmen, coming by sea and
landing on the coast. The most closely contemporaneous and most given to
detail of his chroniclers, the monk of St. Gall, tells in prolix and
pompous but evidently heartfelt and sincere terms the tale of the great
Emperor's farsightedness.
"Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and
unexpectedly in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. While he was at
dinner and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the Northmen
came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were
descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some,
African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but
the gifted monarch, perceiving by the build and lightness of the craft,
that they bare not merchandise but foes, said to his own folk, 'These
vessels be not laden with merchandise, but manned with cruel foes.' At
these words all the Franks, in rivalry one with another, run to their
ships, but uselessly; for the Northmen, indeed, hearing that yonder was
he whom it was still their wont to call Charles the 'Hammer,'[22] feared
lest all their fleet should be taken or destroyed in the port, and they
avoided, by a flight of inconceivable rapidity, not only the glaives,
but even the eyes of those who were pursuing them.
"Pious Charles, however, a prey to well-grounded fear, rose up from
table, stationed himself at a window looking eastward, and there
remained a long while, and his eyes were filled with tears. As none
durst question him, this warlike prince explained to the grandees who
were about his person the cause of his movement and of his tears: 'Know
ye, my lieges, wherefore I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not lest
these fellows should succeed in injuring me by their miserable piracies;
but it grieveth me deeply that, while I live, they should have been nigh
to touching at this shore, and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I
foresee what evils they will heap upon my descendants and their
people.'"
[Footnote 22: After his grandfather, Charles Martel.]
The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It will
be found that there is special mention made, in the chronicles of the
ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France of
Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under the
name of Northmen; and doubtless many other incursions of less gravity
have left no trace in history. "The Northmen," says Fauriel, "descended
from the north to the south by a sort of natural gradation or ladder.
The Scheldt was the first river by the mouth of which they penetrated
inland; the Seine was the second; the Loire the third. The advance was
threatening for the countries traversed by the Garonne; and it was in
844 that vessels freighted with Northmen for the first time ascended
this last river to a considerable distance inland, and there took
immense booty. The following year they pillaged and burnt Saintes. In
846 they got as far as Limoges. The inhabitants, finding themselves
unable to make head against the dauntless pirates, abandoned their
hearths, together with all they had not time to carry away. Encouraged
by these successes the Northmen reappeared next year upon the coasts and
in the rivers of Aquitaine, and they attempted to take Bordeaux, whence
they were valorously repulsed by the inhabitants; but in 848, having
once more laid siege to that city, they were admitted into it at night
by the Jews, who were there in great force; the city was given up to
plunder and conflagration; a portion of the people was scattered abroad,
and the rest put to the sword."
The monasteries and churches, wherein they hoped to find treasures, were
the favorite object of the Northmen's enterprises; in particular, they
plundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St. Germain des Prés and
that of St. Denis, whence they carried off the abbot, who could not
purchase his freedom save by a heavy ransom. They penetrated more than
once into Paris itself, and subjected many of its quarters to
contributions or pillage. The populations grew into the habit of
suffering and fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, made
arrangement sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royal
domains from the ravages, or for having their own share therein. In 850
Pépin, King of Aquitaine, and brother of Charles the Bald, came to an
understanding with the Northmen who had ascended the Garonne and were
threatening Toulouse. "They arrived under his guidance," says Fauriel,
"they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, not halfwise, not
hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but leisurely, with all
security, by virtue of a treaty of alliance with one of the kings of the
country. Throughout Aquitaine there was but one cry of indignation
against Pépin, and the popularity of Charles was increased in proportion
to all the horror inspired by the ineffable misdeed of his adversary.
Charles the Bald himself, if he did not ally himself, as Pépin did, with
the invaders, took scarce any interest in the fate of the populations
and scarcely more trouble to protect them, for Hincmar, archbishop of
Rheims, wrote to him in 859: 'Many folks say that you are incessantly
repeating that it is not for you to mix yourself up with these
depredations and robberies, and that everyone has but to defend himself
as best he may.'"
In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a chief of
the Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, appeared several times over on
the coasts and in the rivers of France, with numerous vessels and a
following. He had also with him, say the chronicles, a young Norwegian
or Danish prince, Bioern, called "Ironsides," whom he had educated, and
who had preferred sharing the fortunes of his governor to living quietly
with the King, his father. After several expeditions into Western
France, Hastings became the theme of terrible and very probably fabulous
stories. He extended his cruises, they say, to the Mediterranean, and,
having arrived at the coasts of Tuscany, within sight of a city which in
his ignorance he took for Rome, he resolved to pillage it; but, not
feeling strong enough to attack it by assault, he sent to the bishop to
say he was very ill, felt a wish to become a Christian, and begged to be
baptized. Some days afterward his comrades spread a report that he was
dead, and claimed for him the honors of a solemn burial. The bishop
consented; the coffin of Hastings was carried into the church, attended
by a large number of his followers, without visible weapons; but, in the
middle of the ceremony, Hastings suddenly leaped up, sword in hand, from
his coffin; his followers displayed the weapons they had concealed,
closed the doors, slew the priests, pillaged the ecclesiastical
treasures, and reëmbarked before the very eyes of the stupefied
population, to go and resume, on the coasts of France, their incursions
and their ravages.
Whether they were true or false, these rumors of bold artifices and
distant expeditions on the part of Hastings aggravated the dismay
inspired by his appearance. He penetrated into the interior of the
country, took possession of Chartres, and appeared before Paris, where
Charles the Bald, intrenched at St. Denis, was deliberating with his
prelates and barons as to how he might resist the Northmen or treat with
them. The chronicle says that the barons advised resistance, but that
the King preferred negotiation, and sent the abbot of St. Denis, "the
which was an exceeding wise man," to Hastings, who, "after long parley
and by reason of large gifts and promises," consented to stop his
cruisings, to become a Christian, and to settle in the countship of
Chartres, "which the King gave him as an hereditary possession, with all
its appurtenances." According to other accounts, it was only some years
later, under the young king Louis III, grandson of Charles the Bald,
that Hastings was induced, either by reverses or by payment of money, to
cease from his piracies and accept in recompense the countship of
Chartres. Whatever may have been the date, he was, it is believed, the
first chieftain of the Northmen who renounced a life of adventure and
plunder, to become, in France, a great landed proprietor and a count of
the King's.
A greater chieftain of the Northmen than Hastings was soon to follow his
example, and found Normandy in France; but before Rolf, that is, Rollo,
came and gave the name of his race to a French province, the piratical
Northmen were again to attempt a greater blow against France and to
suffer a great reverse.
In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after having, for
more than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, they resolved to
unite their forces in order at length to obtain possession of Paris,
whose outskirts they had so often pillaged without having been able to
enter the heart of the place. Two bodies of troops were set in motion:
one, under the command of Rollo, who was already famous among his
comrades, marched on Rouen; the other went right up the course of the
Seine, under the orders of Siegfried, whom the Northmen called their
king. Rollo took Rouen, and pushed on at once for Paris. Duke Renaud,
general of the Gallo-Frankish troops, went to encounter him on the banks
of the Eure, and sent to him, to sound his intentions, Hastings, the
newly made count of Chartres. "Valiant warriors," said Hastings to
Rollo, "whence come ye? What seek ye here? What is the name of your lord
and master? Tell us this; for we be sent unto you by the King of the
Franks." "We be Danes," answered Rollo, "and all be equally masters
among us. We be come to drive out the inhabitants of this land, and to
subject it as our own country. But who art thou, thou who speakest so
glibly?" "Ye have sometime heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuing
forth from among you, came hither with much shipping and made desert a
great part of the kingdom of the Franks?" "Yes," said Rollo, "we have
heard tell of him; Hastings began well and ended ill." "Will ye yield
you to King Charles?" asked Hastings. "We yield," was the answer, "to
none; all that we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Go
and tell this, if thou wilt, to the King, whose envoy thou boastest to
be."
Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and Rollo prepared to
march on Paris. Hastings had gone back somewhat troubled in mind. Now
there was among the Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault), who greatly
coveted the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings: "Why
slumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King Charles doth purpose
thy death by cause of all the Christian blood that thou didst aforetime
unjustly shed? Bethink thee of all the evil thou hast done him, by
reason whereof he purposeth to drive thee from his land. Take heed to
thyself that thou be not smitten unawares." Hastings, dismayed, at once
sold to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that belonged to
him, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, his old course of
life.
On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the Northmen formed a
junction before Paris; seven hundred huge barks covered two leagues of
the Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. The
chieftains were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of the
city, a double wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers,
and in the environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St.
Germain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so well
defended. He demanded to enter alone and have an interview with the
bishop, Gozlin. "Take pity on thyself and thy flock," said he to him;
"let us pass through the city; we will in no wise touch the town; we
will do our best to preserve, for thee and Count Eudes, all your
possessions." "This city," replied the bishop, "hath been confided unto
us by the emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the powers of
the earth. He hath confided it unto us, not that it should cause the
ruin but the salvation of the kingdom. If peradventure these walls had
been confided to thy keeping as they have been to mine, wouldst thou do
as thou biddest me?"
"If ever I do so," answered Siegfried, "may my head be condemned to fall
by the sword and serve as food to the dogs! But if thou yield not to our
prayers, so soon as the sun shall commence his course our armies will
launch upon thee their poisoned arrows; and when the sun shall end his
course, they will give thee over to all the horrors of famine; and this
will they do from year to year."
The bishop, however, persisted, without further discussion; being as
certain of Count Eudes as he was of himself. Eudes, who was young and
but recently made Count of Paris, was the eldest son of Robert the
Strong, Count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and but lately
slain in battle against the Northmen. Paris had for defenders two
heroes, one of the Church and the other of the empire: the faith of the
Christian and the fealty of the vassal; the conscientiousness of the
priest and the honor of the warrior.
The siege lasted thirteen months, whiles pushed vigorously forward with
eight several assaults, whiles maintained by close investment, and with
all the alternations of success and reverse, all the intermixture of
brilliant daring and obscure sufferings that can occur when the
assailants are determined and the defenders devoted. Not only a
contemporary but an eye-witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Près,
has recounted the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid of
talent, adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it is
history itself which gives to Abbo's poem a high degree of interest. We
do not possess, in reference to these continual struggles of the
Northmen with the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other document which
is equally precise and complete, or which could make us so well
acquainted with all the incidents, all the phases of this irregular
warfare between two peoples, one without a government, the other without
a country. The bishop, Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes
quitted Paris for a time to go and beg aid of the Emperor; but the
Parisians soon saw him reappear on the heights of Montmartre with three
battalions of troops, and he reëntered the town, spurring on his horse
and striking right and left with his battle-axe through the ranks of the
dumfounded besiegers. The struggle was prolonged throughout the summer;
and when, in November, 886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before
Paris, "with a large army of all nations," it was to purchase the
retreat of the Northmen at the cost of a heavy ransom, and by allowing
them to go and winter in Burgundy, "whereof the inhabitants obeyed not
the Emperor."
Some months afterward, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, at a diet
held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of Germanic France; and
Arnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the brother of Louis III, was
proclaimed emperor in his stead. At the same time Count Eudes, the
gallant defender of Paris, was elected King at Compiègne, and crowned by
the archbishop of Sens. Guy, Duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne
in the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at Langres
by the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to Italy,
seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his French kingship.
Elsewhere Boso, Duke of Arles, became King of Provence, and the
Burgundian Count Rudolph had himself crowned at St. Maurice, in the
Valais, King of transjuran Burgundy. There was still in France a
legitimate Carlovingian, a son of Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafter
to become Charles the Simple; but being only a child, he had been
rejected or completely forgotten, and, in the interval that was to
elapse ere his time should arrive, kings were being made in all
directions.
In the midst of this confusion the Northmen, though they kept at a
distance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising and
plundering. In Rollo they had a chieftain far superior to his vagabond
predecessors. Though he still led the same life that they had, he
displayed therein other faculties, other inclinations, other views. In
his youth he had made an expedition to England, and had there contracted
a real friendship with the wise king Alfred the Great. During a campaign
in Friesland he had taken prisoner Rainier, Count of Hainault; and
Alberade, Countess of Brabant, made a request to Rollo for her husband's
release, offering in return to set free twelve captains of the Northmen,
her prisoners, and to give up all the gold she possessed. Rollo took
only half the gold, and restored to the countess her husband. When, in
885, he became master of Rouen, instead of devastating the city after
the fashion of his kind, he respected the buildings, had the walls
repaired, and humored the inhabitants. In spite of his violent and
extortionate practices where he met with obstinate resistance, there
were to be discerned in him symptoms of more noble sentiments and of an
instinctive leaning toward order, civilization, and government. After
the deposition of Charles the Fat and during the reign of Eudes, a
lively struggle was maintained between the Frankish King and the
chieftain of the Northmen, who had neither of them forgotten their early
encounters. They strove, one against the other, with varied fortunes;
Eudes succeeded in beating the Northmen at Montfaucon, but was beaten in
Vermandois by another band, commanded, it is said, by the veteran
Hastings, sometime Count of Chartres.
Rollo, too, had his share at one time of success, at another of reverse;
but he made himself master of several important towns, showed a
disposition to treat the quiet populations gently, and made a fresh trip
to England, during which he renewed friendly relations with her King,
Athelstan, the successor of Alfred the Great. He thus became, from day
to day, more reputable as well as more formidable in France, insomuch
that Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, in dealing with him, to
negotiations and presents. When, in 898, Eudes was dead, and Charles the
Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had been recognized sole King
of France, the ascendency of Rollo became such that the necessity of
treating with him was clear. In 911 Charles, by the advice of his
councillors and, among them, of Robert, brother of the late king Eudes,
who had himself become Count of Paris and Duke of France, sent to the
chieftain of the Northmen Franco, Archbishop of Rouen, with orders to
offer him the cession of a considerable portion of Neustria and the hand
of his young daughter Gisèle, on condition that he became a Christian
and acknowledged himself the King's vassal. Rollo, by the advice of his
comrades, received these overtures with a good grace and agreed to a
truce for three months, during which they might treat about peace. On
the day fixed Charles, accompanied by Duke Robert, and Rollo, surrounded
by his warriors, repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the opposite banks
of the river, and exchanged numerous messages. Charles offered Rollo
Flanders, which the Northman refused, considering it too swampy; as to
the maritime portion of Neustria he would not be contented with it; it
was, he said, covered with forests, and had become quite a stranger to
the ploughshare by reason of the Northmen's incessant incursions. He
demanded the addition of territories taken from Brittany, and that the
princes of that province, Bérenger and Alan, lords, respectively, of
Redon and Dol, should take the oath of fidelity to him. When matters had
been arranged on this basis, "the bishops told Rollo that he who
received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy was bound to kiss the
King's foot. 'Never,' quoth Rollo, 'will I bend the knee before the
knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none.' At the solicitation of
the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the King's foot.
The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the King's foot,
raised it to his mouth, and so made the King fall backward, which caused
great bursts of laughter and much disturbance among the throng. Then the
King and all the grandees who were about him, prelates, abbots, dukes,
and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that they would
protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk, and
would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him and
his descendants forever; after which the King, well satisfied, returned
to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the town of
Rouen."
The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied;
but the great political question which, a century before, caused
Charlemagne such lively anxiety was solved; the most dangerous, the most
incessantly renewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen,
ceased to threaten France. The vagabond pirates had a country to
cultivate and defend; the Northmen were becoming French.
CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT
A.D. 871-901
T. HUGHES
J.R. GREEN
(Alfred the Great was the grandson of Egbert, King of the West Saxons,
who during a reign of thirty-seven years consolidated in the Saxon
heptarchy the seven Teutonic kingdoms into which Anglia or England had
been divided, since the expulsion of the Britons by the Saxons about
585. In the latter part of Egbert's reign the Danish Northmen appeared
in the estuaries and rivers of England, sacking and burning the towns
along their banks. Ethelwulf who had been made King of Kent in 828, and
succeeded his father Egbert as King of Anglia in 837, was early occupied
in resisting and repelling attacks along his coasts, and by several
successful pitched battles with the Danish invaders obtained comparative
freedom from their visits for eight years. Ethelwulf had married
Osburga, the daughter of Oslac his cup-bearer, and had a daughter and
five sons, of whom Alfred, the youngest, was born in 849. Part of
Alfred's childhood was spent in Rome. At Compiègne and Verberie among
his playmates were Charles, the boy king of Aquitaine, and Judith,
children of the French king Charles the Bald. Judith at fourteen years
of age became Ethelwulf's second wife, and when the old King died two
years later, to the amazement and scandal of the nation married her
stepson Ethelbald.