THE NORMANS IN FRANCE
[870-923 A.D.]
In Louis’ reign their depredations upon the coast were more incessant, but they did not penetrate into the inland country, till that of Charles the Bald. The wars between that prince and his family, which exhausted France of her noblest blood, the insubordination of the provincial governors, even the instigation of some of Charles’ enemies, laid all open to their inroads. They adopted a uniform plan of warfare both in France and England; sailing up navigable rivers in their vessels of small burden, and fortifying the islands which they occasionally found, they made these intrenchments at once an asylum for their women and children, a repository for their plunder, and a place of retreat from superior force. After pillaging a town, they retired to these strongholds or to their ships; and it was not till 872 that they ventured to keep possession of Angers, which, however, they were compelled to evacuate.
Sixteen years afterwards, they laid siege to Paris, and committed the most ruinous devastations on the neighbouring country. As these Northmen were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries, which had stood harmless amidst the havoc of Christian war, were overwhelmed in the storm. Perhaps they may have endured some irrecoverable losses of ancient learning; but their complaints are of monuments disfigured, bones of saints and kings dispersed, treasures carried away. St. Denis redeemed its abbot from captivity with 685 pounds of gold. All the chief abbeys were stripped about the same time, either by the enemy, or for contributions to the public necessity. So impoverished was the kingdom, that in 860 Charles the Bald had great difficulty in collecting 3000 pounds of silver, to subsidise a body of Northmen against their countrymen. The kings of France, too feeble to prevent or repel these invaders, had recourse to the palliative of buying peace at their hands, or rather precarious armistices, to which reviving thirst of plunder soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded a great province (Neustria), which they had already partly occupied, partly rendered desolate, and which has derived from them the name of Normandy. Ignominious as this appears, it proved no impolitic step. Rollo [Rolf or Hrolf an exile from Norway], the Norman chief, with all his subjects, became Christians and Frenchmen.[d]
France would have only had to congratulate herself upon the assignment she had been compelled to make to the Normans, had the Treaty of Saint-Clair ratified peace forever between the kingdom and this nation of pirates. Unfortunately such was not the case, and for a considerable time the Normans continued to add their ravages to the burden of the many sacrifices France had made, of all the calamities she had experienced.
Some years before, a number of pagans who were independent of Rollo, but of whose adventures but little is known, had established themselves at the mouth of the Loire. Rollo came and attacked them in their retreat, but they defended themselves valiantly, and the conqueror of the shores of the Seine was obliged to return to his domains, and leave the pagans in possession of the mouth of the Loire. Sometime afterwards, both companies united and fought together; this came about in the following manner. There was much indignation in France on account of the deplorable government of Charles the Simple, the last degenerate scion of the Carlovingian race. Rudolf or Ralph, duke of Burgundy, who was considered the only man capable of putting a stop to the anarchy in the kingdom and the ravages of the Normans, was proclaimed king.
Charles entreated the help of the Normans of the Seine, and those of the Loire. Accordingly they all came to join the forces of the fallen king, marched with them towards the Oise, marking their progress by their usual devastations. For the first time, the people of the north interposed in a civil war which did not concern them. Rudolf turned his forces against them, and put them to flight. They revenged themselves by killing the prisoners they had taken. Regnaud, leader of the Normans of the Loire, who had extended his inroads as far as Arras, was forced to retire to his strongholds. Immediately after this retreat, the Burgundians crossed the Epte and put Normandy to fire and sword. Rollo, who evidently had not expected this invasion, made a truce with Rudolf, and gave him hostages, as a guarantee of his peaceable intentions, but, in his turn, set up claims which had to be satisfied. King Charles, he said, whose cause he had followed, had promised him more lands. To do no less than the dethroned monarch, Rudolf, according to Flodoard (or Frodoard),[e] the historian, bestowed upon Rollo, Bessin, and also Maine. The Normans of the Loire were treated in like manner, and it seems that a sum of money was granted to them, and that a tax had to be levied in all parts of France to pay it.
[923-930 A.D.]
The kingdom continued to be very much agitated by political events. Although he twice sold peace to Rudolf and broke it again, the Norman duke embraced Count Heribert’s cause, who, forsaking Rudolf after seconding him ably, had gone over to the dethroned prince, his prisoner, and with the assent of Rollo and Hugh, had again proclaimed the unhappy Charles king. All seemed lost to Rudolf. But Charles was the puppet of his party; scarcely had he reascended the throne, than Heribert once more changed his mind, flung the phantom prince into prison again, and acknowledged Rudolf. Charles died sometime after in the castle of his jailer.
Whilst these events were taking place in the interior of France, the Breton generals, in the vicinity of Normandy, commenced, perhaps in revenge for the incursions of the Scandinavians, ravaging the territory of their neighbours, and invaded the province of Bayeux, but Rollo appeared with his warriors, engaged in battle with the aggressors and conquered them. One of the Breton counts, Beranger, yielded to the Normans; another, Alan, the chief instigator of the war, took refuge in England. The nobles who had fought under these two commanders established themselves in France, in Burgundy, or in Aquitaine; some of them followed Alan to England. All those who remained were obliged to acknowledge the suzerainty of the duke of Normandy. The neighbouring provinces, such as Anjou and Poitou, were henceforth delivered from the hostile irruptions of these turbulent chiefs. Thus, Rollo, in his old age, found himself the peaceful possessor of Normandy, and able to maintain order and peace therein.
It is said that Charles the Simple, while he was still upon the throne, secretly sent emissaries to Rouen to his daughter Gisela who had married Rollo; that this clandestine mission gave umbrage to the Normans, and that Rollo seized and publicly put to death the envoys of his father-in-law. Gisela died sometime afterwards; and Rollo lived as before with Popa, by whom he had two children, a son named William, and a daughter called Gerloc, who later received the Christian name of Adela or Adeline.
When William grew to man’s estate, the Norman nobles requested their duke to appoint his successor. He named his son, and he it was the Normans had in mind, in spite of his illegitimacy. The nobles swore fidelity and obedience to him beforehand. Rollo lived for five years after this important event, and died of old age at Rouen. The precise date of his death, and also his age, are unknown. Everything tends to show that it was about the year 930, that the death of the first and probably octogenarian duke of Normandy took place. His bravery, his steadfastness, the energy of his government are incontestable, but it is permissible to doubt the truth of the eulogies which the Norman monks in their chronicles have bestowed upon his devotion, and his respect for the clergy. It is possible he enriched the churches and convents, that he walked in processions, and with bare feet before the relics of St. Ouen, formerly taken to France, and which he forced his father-in-law to restore; but on the other hand we read in an English chronicle, that he sold or allowed to be sold many relics belonging to the Norman churches, which were acquired by his ally, Athelstan, king of England.
A French historian, Adhémar,[f] even declares that, feeling his end approaching, Rollo caused a hundred Christian prisoners to be sacrificed to the northern idols, and he gave a hundred pounds in gold as a gift to the churches of Normandy in order to propitiate the pagan gods and the Christian deity at the same time. According to another historian it was at the moment that he was about to embrace the Christian faith that Rollo offered a last human sacrifice to the divinities of that worship he was forsaking. Perhaps that massacre of Christian prisoners, which he ordered when Rudolf drove him back from the north of France, was the cause of these strange tales.
Rollo was buried in the church he had built at Rouen; afterwards his remains were placed in a chapel of the cathedral itself. His tomb, facing that of his son, is still to be seen there.[g]