Before narrating Harold's adventures in Normandy, and the oath which he is said to have sworn to William there, it may be well to give an account of the rise of the formidable power of which William was now the ruler. The Normans, or Northmen, were, when they first come within the ken of history, bands of piratical adventurers, and were practically identical with the Danes, the term being loosely used for the inhabitants of what we now call the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In the previous chapters, a description has been given of the invasions and settlements of these barbarians in England; but England was by no means the only country which they vexed by their depredations, and the northern coast of France afforded an equally suitable place of debarkation for their hordes.

Upon the French, as upon the English, the enemy at first contented themselves with inflicting yearly raids, without any intention of occupying the land; but in 912, Rollo the Ganger, or Walker, so called because he was too tall to ride, a leader after the stamp of Guthrum, seized from Charles the Simple, king of the West Franks—for France was not as yet a united kingdom—land on both sides of the Seine, with Rouen for its capital, and an arrangement was made between the two at Clair-sur-Epte, which has been compared to the treaty of Wedmore. By it Rollo promised to embrace Christianity, and to do homage to Charles. The well-known story has it that he was too proud to go through the ceremony, which consisted in kissing the king's feet, but deputed it to one of his soldiers, who, by raising the royal foot to his mouth, instead of stooping towards it, well-nigh upset his Frankish majesty. Despite his promise, Rollo speedily relapsed into heathendom, and, together with his son, William Longsword, proceeded to add to his territories. A large district passed into the hands of the Normans by conquest, including Avranches, Lisieux, and Caen.

It was some time before the Normans became French, but they were gradually assimilated to the people round them, even as the Danes had been in England. The change was accomplished in the reign of the third duke, Richard the Fearless (943-996), when the whole race embraced Christianity, and adopted the French language, Norse being the speech, however, of the people who dwelt round Bayeux. The Normans were a very receptive race, and wherever they wandered throughout Europe they adopted whatever customs were best in the people with whom they came in contact. They learned new modes of fighting; they acquired new weapons, the shield, the hauberk, the lance, and the long-bow; they became masterly horsemen. Further, they developed that impressive style of architecture which is still called by their name, and built churches and monasteries, important among which is the Abbey of Bec, whence came both Lanfranc and St. Anselm in aftertimes; they founded bishoprics. In a word, they transformed themselves with remarkable swiftness from a race of depredators into one of the most cultivated of the peoples of Europe. It was during the reign of Richard the Fearless that Hugh Capet, on the death of the last of the descendants of Charles the Great, founded the French monarchy by a process of conquest, and made Paris his capital. In this great achievement he would never have succeeded had it not been for the assistance of Richard, who was his brother-in-law. In return, the Duke of Normandy ceased to be called by his neighbours "Dux Piratarum" ("the Duke of the Pirates"), and became the loyal vassal of the King of the French. Normandy formed one of the noblest territories dependent on the Capetian dynasty, but its dukes took care that their liberties were in no degree infringed.

The next duke, Richard the Good, Ethelred's contemporary, has been already mentioned in this work (see p. [58]). His reign is chiefly remarkable for the fact that in it we begin to hear of those noble families which afterwards played so great a part in English history. The marriage between Emma and Ethelred was the first link in the chain of events which led to the conquest of England, and it was at the Norman court that Edward the Confessor acquired his foreign sympathies. After a reign of about thirty years, Richard died in 1026.

HAROLD TAKEN PRISONER BY THE COUNT OF PONTHIEU. (See p. [77.])

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On his death the kingdom was distributed between the rival brothers, Richard the Third and Robert. Richard, however, was regarded as duke during the two ensuing years, and on his death, in 1028, was succeeded by Robert. He is known to history as "the Devil," though it is very difficult to tell why, and after a somewhat brief reign he died, in 1035, on his way back from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

On the death of Robert, his son William was about eight years old; moreover, of illegitimate birth, his mother being the daughter of a tanner at Falaise. But Robert, before his departure, had caused his nobles to swear allegiance to William, and the law of hereditary descent was far more strictly regarded in France than in England. These facts, joined to the consideration that possible successors of the line of Rollo were not easily to be found, caused William's accession to be undisputed. Nevertheless, the period of his minority was one of much confusion, during which the boy-duke's life was in perpetual danger, and his position was the more precarious because the King of the French began to show signs of animosity towards the great semi-independent state to the north of his dominions. In 1047 William began to act for himself, and when an attempt was made by the nobles to wrest the western part of his dominions from him, he overthrew the rebels, with the grudgingly offered aid of Henry of France, at Val-ès-Dunes. After this crushing triumph, his power was secure. He surrounded himself with a splendid nobility, of whom William Fitz-Osbern and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, his two half-brothers by his mother's marriage with Baldwin of Conteville, and Robert of Mortain, were to make themselves feared on the other side of the channel. The Church was munificently rewarded for its support, and among his most magnificent buildings was the Abbé aux Hommes at Caen. Not only did he recover all the dominions that the Norman dukes had ever held, but he twice defeated the French king, Henry, when he invaded his dominions, and in 1063 made his great Continental acquisition in the conquest of Maine. Despite the Papal inhibition, he took to wife Matilda, the daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, in 1052, and endured the ban without much inconvenience until 1060. His visit to England, and the claim, worthless though it was, that he built upon it, have already been mentioned (see p. [70]). In the last years of the reign of the Confessor (the exact date is unknown) the hazard of fortune placed his rival, Harold, in his power for the time being, and he made excellent use of the opportunity.