FOOTNOTES:
[5] This phrase is used repeatedly in the Chronicle in connexion with such towns as Bedford, Cambridge, Derby, Leicester and Northampton, and there can be no question that these groups represent the shires which now take their names from these towns. For purposes of convenience we shall henceforward speak of such groups as 'shires.'
[6] See Tennyson's translation.
[7] See Freeman's Old English History for Children for a translation of this poem.
CHAPTER IV
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 Hrœrekr 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.