times of this first Count of Normandy—so many later traits and customs
date back to Rolf's reign; and all through this story of the Normans
we shall find a likeness to the first leader, and trace his influence.
His own descendants inherited many of his gifts of character—a
readiness of thought and speech; clear, bright minds, and vigor of
action. Even those who were given over to ways of vice and shame, had
a cleverness and attractiveness that made their friends hold to them,
in spite of their sins and treacheries. A great deal was thought of
learning and scholarship among the nobles and gentle folk of [Pg047]
that day, and Rolf had caught eagerly at all such advantages, even
while he trusted most to his Northern traditions of strength and
courage. If he had thought these were enough to win success, and had
brought up his boy as a mere pirate and fighter, it would have made a
great difference in the future of the Norman people and their rulers.
The need of a good education was believed in, and held as a sort of
family doctrine, as long as Rolf's race existed, but you will see in
one after another of these Norman counts the nature of the sea-kings
mixed with their later learning and accomplishments.
We cannot help being a little amused, however, when we find that
young William, the grandson of old Rögnvald, loved his books so well
that he begged his father to let him enter a monastery. The wise,
good man Botho, who was his tutor, had taught him to be proud of his
other grandfather, Count Berenger, who belonged to one of the most
illustrious French families, and taught him also to follow the example
of the good clergymen of Normandy, as well as the great conquerors and
chieftains. By and by we shall see that he loved to do good, and to do
works of mercy, though his people called him William Longsword, and
followed him to the wars.
Normandy was wild enough when Rolf came to rule there, but before he
died the country had changed very much for the better. He was very
careful to protect the farmers, and such laws were made, and kept,
too, that robbery was almost unknown throughout the little kingdom.
The peasants could leave their oxen or their tools in the [Pg048]
field now, and if by chance they were stolen, the duke himself was
responsible for the loss. A pretty story is told of Rolf that has also
been told of other wise rulers. He had gone out hunting one day, and
after the sport, while he and his companions were resting and having
a little feast as they sat on the grass, Rolf said he would prove the
orderliness and trustiness of his people. So he took off the two gold
bracelets which were a badge of his rank, and reached up and hung them
on a tree close by, and there they were, safe and shining, a long time
afterward, when he went to seek them. Perhaps this story is only a
myth, though the tale is echoed in other countries—England, Ireland,
and Lombardy, and others beside. At any rate, it gives an expression
of the public safety and order, and the people's gratitude to their
good kings. Rolf brought to his new home some fine old Scandinavian
customs, for his own people were knit together with close bonds in
Norway. If a farmer's own servants or helpers failed him for any
reason, he could demand the help of his neighbors without paying
them, and they all came and helped him gather his harvest. Besides,
the law punished nothing so severely as the crime of damaging or
stealing from a growing crop. The field was said to be under God's
lock, with heaven for its roof, though there might be only a hedge for
its wall. If a man stole from another man's field, and took the ripe
corn into his own barn, he paid for it with his life. This does not
match very well with the sea-kings' exploits abroad, but they were
very strict rulers, and very honest [Pg049] among themselves at home.
One familiar English word of ours—hurrah,—is said to date from Rolf's
reign. /Rou/ the Frenchmen called our Rolf; and there was a law that
if a man was in danger himself, or caught his enemy doing any damage,
he could raise the cry /Ha Rou!/ and so invoke justice in Duke Rolf's
name. At the sound of the cry, everybody was bound, on the instant, to
give chase to the offender, and whoever failed to respond to the cry
of /Ha Rou!/ must pay a heavy fine to Rolf himself. This began the old
English fashion of "hue and cry," as well as our custom of shouting
Hurrah! when we are pleased and excited.
We cannot help being surprised to see how quickly the Normans became
Frenchmen in their ways of living and even speaking. There is hardly a
trace of their Northern language except a few names of localities left
in Normandy. Once settled in their new possessions, Rolf and all his
followers seem to have been as eager for the welfare of Normandy as
they were ready to devastate it before. They were proud not of being
Norsemen but of being Normans. Otherwise their country could not have
done what it did in the very next reign to Rolf's, nor could Rouen
have become so much like a French city even in his own lifetime. This
was work worthy of his power, to rule a people well, and lift them
up toward better living and better things. His vigor and quickness
made him able to seize upon the best traits and capabilities of his
new countrymen, and enforce them as patterns and examples, with no
tolerance of their faults. [Pg050]
From the viking's ships which had brought Rolf and his confederates,
all equal, from the Hebrides, it is a long step upward to the Norman
landholders and quiet citizens with their powerful duke in his palace
at Rouen. He had shared the lands of Normandy, as we have seen, with
his companions, and there was a true aristocracy among them—a rule of
the best, for that is what aristocracy really means. No doubt there
was sin and harm enough under the new order of things, but we can see
that there was a great advance in its first duke's reign, even if we
cannot believe that all the fine stories are true that his chroniclers
have told.
Rolf died in 927, and was a pious Christian according to his friends,
and had a lingering respect for his heathen idols according to his
enemies. He was an old man, and had been a brave man, and he is
honored to this day for his justice and his courage in that stormy
time when he lived. Some say that he was forty years a pirate before
he came to Normandy, and looking back on these days of seafaring and
robbery and violence must have made him all the more contented with
his pleasant fields and their fruit-trees and waving grain; with his
noble city of Rouen, and his gentle son William, who was the friend of
the priests.
Rolf became very feeble in body and mind, and before his death he gave
up the rule of the duchy to his son. He lingered for several years,
but we hear nothing more of him except that when he lay dying he had
terrible dreams of his old pirate days, and was troubled by visions of
his slaughtered victims [Pg051] and the havoc made by the long-ships.
We are glad to know that he waked from these sorrows long enough to
give rich presents to the church and the poor, which comforted him
greatly and eased his unhappy conscience. He was buried in his city
of Rouen, in the cathedral, and there is his tomb still with a figure
of him in stone—an old tired man with a furrowed brow; the strength
of his fourscore years had become only labor and sorrow, but he looks
like the Norseman that he was in spite of the ducal robes of French
Normandy. There was need enough of bravery in the man who should fill
his place. The wars still went on along the borders, and there must
have been fear of new trouble in the duchy when this old chieftain
Rolf had lain down to die, and his empty armor was hung high in the
palace hall.
[Illustration]
[Pg052]
[Illustration]
III.
WILLIAM LONGSWORD.
"For old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago." —WORDSWORTH.
Before we follow the fortunes of the new duke, young William
Longsword, we must take a look at France and see what traditions and
influences were going to affect our colony of Northmen from that
side, and what relations they had with their neighbors. Perhaps the
best way to make every thing clear is to go back to the reign of the
Emperor Charlemagne, who inherited a great kingdom, and added to it
by his wars and statesmanship until he was crowned at Rome, in the
year 800, emperor not only of Germany and Gaul, but of the larger part
of Italy and the northeastern part of Spain. Much of this territory
had shared in the glories of the Roman Empire and had fallen with it.
But Charlemagne was equal to restoring many lost advantages, being
a man of great power and capacity, who found time, while his great
campaigns were going on, to do a great deal for the schools of his
country. He even founded a sort of normal school, where teachers were
fitted for their work, and his daughters were [Pg053] busy in copying
manuscripts; the emperor himself was fond of being read to when he was
at his meals, and used to get up at midnight to watch the stars. Some
of the interesting stories about him may not be true, but we can be
sure that he was a great general and a masterly governor and lawgiver,
and a good deal of a scholar. Like Rolf, he was one of the men who
mark as well as make a great change in the world's affairs, and in
whose time civilization takes a long step forward. When we know that
it took him between thirty and forty years to completely conquer the
Saxons, who lived in the northern part of his country, and we read the
story of the great battle of Roncesvalles in which the Basque people
won; when we follow Charlemagne (the great Charles, as his people love
to call him) on these campaigns which take up almost all his history,
we cannot help seeing that his enemies fought against the new order
of things that he represented. It was not only that they did not want
Charlemagne for their king, but they did not wish to be Christians
either, or to forsake their own religion and their own ideas for his.
When he died he was master of a great association of countries which
for years yet could not come together except in name, because of their
real unlikeness and jealousy of each other. Charlemagne had managed to
rule them all, for his sons and officers, whom he had put in command
of the various provinces, were all dictated to by him, and were not
in the least independent of his oversight. His fame was widespread.
Embassies came to him from [Pg054] distant Eastern countries, and
no doubt he felt that he was establishing a great empire for his
successors. Thirty years after he died the empire was divided into
three parts, and thirty-four years later it was all broken up in
the foolish reign of his own great-grandson, who was called Charles
also, but instead of Charles the Great became known as Charles the
Fat. From the fragments of the old empire were formed the kingdoms of
France, of Italy, and of Germany, with the less important states of
Lorraine, Burgundy, and Navarre. But although the great empire had
fallen to pieces, each fragment kept something of the new spirit that
had been forced into it by the famous emperor. For this reason there
was no corner of his wide domain that did not for many years after his
death stand in better relation to progress, and to the influence of
religion, the most potent civilizer of men.
All this time the power of the nobles had been increasing, for,
whereas, at first they had been only the officers of the king, and
were appointed to or removed from their posts at the royal pleasure,
they contrived at length to make their positions hereditary and to
establish certain rights and privileges. This was the foundation of
the feudal system, and such a growth was sure to strike deep root.
Every officer could hope to become a ruler in a small way, and to
endow his family with whatever gains and holdings he had managed to
make his own. And as these feudal chiefs soon came to value their
power, they were ready to fight, not only all together for their king
or over-lord, but for themselves; and one [Pg055] petty landholder
with his dependents would go out to fight his next neighbor, each
hoping to make the other his tributary. France proper begins to make
itself heard about in these days.
If you have read "The Story of Rome," and "The Rise and Fall of the
Roman Empire," you can trace the still earlier changes in the old
province of Gaul. The Franks had come westward, a bold association
of German tribes, and in that fifth century when the Roman rule was
overthrown, they swarmed over the frontiers and settled by hundreds
and thousands in the conquered provinces. But, strange to say, as
years went on they disappeared; not because they or their children
went away again and left Gaul to itself, but because they adopted
the ways and fashions of the country. They were still called Franks
and a part of the country was called France even, but the two races
were completely mixed together and the conquerors were as Gallic as
the conquered. They even spoke the new language; it appears like an
increase or strengthening of the Gallic race rather than a subjugation
of it, and the coming of these Franks founded, not a new province of
Germany, but the French nation.
The language was changed a good deal, for of course many Frankish or
German words were added, as Roman (or Romance) words had been added
before, to the old Gallic, and other things were changed too. In
fact we are not a bit surprised when we find that the German kings,
Charlemagne's own descendants, were looked upon as foreigners, and
some of the French leaders, the feudal lords and princes, [Pg056]
opposed themselves to their monarchs. They were brave men and ready to
fight for what they wanted. Charles the Fat could not keep himself on
his unsteady throne, and in Rolf's day France was continually at war,
sometimes at home, and almost always with the neighboring provinces
and kingdoms. Rolf's contemporary, Charles the Simple, lost his
kingship in 922, when his nobles revolted and put another leader in
his place, who was called Hugh the Great, Count of Paris. Charles the
Simple was kept a prisoner until he died, by a Count of Vermandois, of
whom he had claimed protection, and whose daughter William Longsword
had married.
There was a great deal of treachery among the French nobles. Each was
trying to make himself rich and great, and serving whatever cause
could promise most gain. There was diplomacy enough, and talking
and fighting enough, but very little loyalty and care for public
welfare. In Normandy, a movement toward better things showed itself
more and more plainly; instead of wrangling over the fragments of an
old dismembered kingdom, Rolf had been carefully building a strong
new one, and had been making and keeping laws instead of breaking
laws, and trying to make goodness and right prevail, and theft and
treachery impossible. We must not judge those days by our own, for
many things were considered right then that are wrong now; but Rolf
knew that order and bravery were good, and that learning was good, and
so he kept his dukedom quiet, though he was ready enough to fight his
enemies, and he sent his son William [Pg057] Longsword to school, and
made him a good scholar as well as soldier. This was as good training
as a young man could have in those stormy times.
Under Rolf, Normandy had held faithfully to the king, but under
his son's rule we find a long chapter of changes, for William was
constantly transferring his allegiance from king to duke. When he
succeeded his father, Normandy and France were at war—that is, Rolf
would not acknowledge any king but Charles, who was in prison, while
the usurper, Rudolph of Burgundy, was on the French throne. It is
very hard to keep track of the different parties and their leaders.
Everybody constantly changed sides, and it is not very clear what
glory there was in being a king, when the vassals were so powerful
that they could rebel against their sovereign and make war on him as
often as they pleased. Yet they were very decided about having a king,
if only to show how much greater they were by contrast. Duke Hugh of
Paris takes the most prominent place just at this time, and with his
widespread dominions and personal power and high rank, we cannot help
wondering that he did not put himself at the head of the kingdom.
Instead of that he chose to remain a subject, while he controlled
the king's actions and robbed him of his territory and kept him in
personal bondage. He had no objection to transferring his strange
loyalty from one king to another, but he would always have a king over
him, though at three different times there was nothing except his own
plans to hinder him from putting the crown of [Pg058] France upon
his own head. He had a stronger guiding principle than some of his
associates, and seems to have been a better man.
From Charles the Simple had come the lands of Normandy, and to him
the first vow of allegiance had been made, and so both Rolf and
William took his part and were enemies to his usurper and his foes.
When William came into possession of his dukedom, one of his first
acts was to do homage to his father's over-lord, and he never did
homage to Rudolph the usurper until Charles was dead, and even then
waited three years; but Rudolph was evidently glad to be friends, and
presented Longsword with a grant of the sea-coast in Brittany. The
Norman duke was a formidable rival if any trouble should arise, and
the Normans themselves were very independent in their opinions. One of
Rolf's followers had long ago told a Frenchman that his chief, who had
come to Neustria a king without a kingdom, now held his broad lands
from the sun and from God. They kept strange faith with each other in
those days. Each man had his own ambitious plans, and his leagues and
friendships were only for the sake of bringing them about. This was
not being very grateful, but Rolf's men knew that the Breton lands
were the price of peace and alliance, and not a free gift for love's
sake by any means.
As we try to puzzle out a distinct account of William's reign, we
find him sometimes the enemy of Rudolph and in league with Hugh of
Paris, sometimes he was in alliance with Rudolph, though he would not
call him king, and oftener he would have [Pg059] nothing to do with
either. It is very dull reading, except as we trace the characters of
the men themselves.
Most of the Normans had accepted Christianity many years before,
in the time of Rolf, and had been christened, but a certain number
had refused it and clung to the customs of their ancestors. These
people had formed a separate neighborhood or colony near Bayeux, and
after several generations, while they had outwardly conformed to the
prevailing observances, they still remained Northmen at heart. They
were remarkable among the other Normans for their great turbulence and
for an almost incessant opposition to the dukes, and some of them kept
the old pagan devices on their shields, and went into battle shouting
the Northern war-cry of "/Thor aide!/" instead of the pious "/Dieu
aide!/" or "/Dex aide!/" of Normandy.
Whatever relic of paganism may have clung to Rolf himself, it is
pretty certain that his son, half Frenchman by birth, was almost
wholly a Frenchman in feeling. We must remember that he was not the
son of Gisla the king's sister, however, but of Popa of Bayeux. There
was a brother or half-brother of hers called Bernard de Senlis, who
in spite of his father's murder and the unhappy beginning of their
acquaintance with Rolf, seems to have become very friendly with the
Norse chieftain.
The fortunes of war were so familiar in those days and kept so many
men at fierce enmity with each other, that we are half surprised to
come upon this sincere, kindly relationship in the story of the early
[Pg060] Normans. Even Rolf's wife's foolish little nickname, "Popa,"
under cover of which her own name has been forgotten,—this name of
puppet or little doll, gives a hint of affectionateness and a sign of
home-likeness which we should be very sorry to miss. As for Bernard
de Senlis, he protected not only the rights of Rolf's children and
grandchildren, but their very lives, and if it had not been for his
standing between them and their enemies Rolf's successors would never
have been dukes of Normandy.
With all his inherited power and his own personal bravery, William
found himself in a very hard place. He kept steadfastly to his ideas
of right and might, and one thinks that with his half French and
half Northman nature he might have understood both of the parties
that quickly began to oppose each other in Normandy. He ruled as
a French prince, and he and his followers were very eager to hold
their place in the general confederacy of France, and eager too that
Normandy should be French in religion, manners, and customs. Yet they
did not wish Normandy to be absorbed into France in any political
sense. Although there were several men of Danish birth, Rolf's old
companions, who took this view of things, and threw in their lot with
the French party, like Botho, William's old tutor, and Oslac, and
Bernard the Dane, of whom we shall hear again, there was a great body
of the Normans who rebelled and made much trouble.
William's French speech and French friends were all this time making
him distrusted and even disliked by a large portion of his own
subjects. There still [Pg061] remained a strong Northern and pagan
influence in the older parts of the Norman duchy; while in the new
lands of Brittany some of the independent Danish settlements, being
composed chiefly of the descendants of men who had forced their way
into that country before Rolf's time, were less ready for French rule
than even the Normans. Between these new allies and the disaffected
Normans themselves a grand revolt was organized under the leadership
of an independent Danish chief from one of the Breton provinces. The
rebels demanded one concession after another, and frightened Duke
William dreadfully; he even proposed to give up his duchy and to beg
the protection of his French uncle, Bernard de Senlis. We are afraid
that he had left his famous longsword at home on that campaign, until
it appears that his old counsellor, Bernard the Dane, urged him to go
back and meet the insurgents, and that a great victory was won and the
revolt ended for that time. The account of William's wonderful success
is made to sound almost miraculous by the old chronicles.
The two Norman parties held separate territories and were divided
geographically, and each party wished to keep to itself and not be
linked with the other. The Christian duke who liked French speech
and French government might keep Christian Rouen and Evreux where
Frenchmen abounded, but the heathen Danes to the westward would rather
be independent of a leader who had turned his face upon the traditions
and beliefs of his ancestors. For the time being, these rebellious
subjects must keep their grudges and bear their wrongs as best they
might, [Pg062] for their opponents were the masters now, and William
was free to aim at still greater influence in French affairs as his
dominion increased.