The year in which Rollo arrived in the south is not very clearly established. Schoning has 995; but this will not bear the test of scrutiny, for the French and Norman writers assert that he was occupied above thirty years in his subjugation of Normandy, and we know that he was recognised its duke in 912. Asser of St. David’s—a contemporary—has the year 876, and he is confirmed by the writers nearest to the period; yet there are some chronological difficulties which we cannot remove. Harald of Norway did not undertake the voyage to the Orkneys before the year 895; and the banishment of Rollo is assigned to the year following. The only way to reconcile this anachronism is by the conjecture that Rollo, being exiled for piracy in 876, joined his countrymen and the Danes, who were ravaging England and France; that he established himself at Rouen, but frequently extended his devastations to the north and east of that city; that he was more than once in England, and perhaps in the north, before his recognition as duke of Normandy. But let us follow his footsteps. Landing at Walcheren, he defeated the count of Hainault, whom he captured, and exacted a heavy sum by way of ransom. Repairing to Rouen, he was not so ruthless as to destroy it: he accepted from the archbishop a sum of money, fortified it, and made it the basis of his operations against the French king. His arrival threw France into consternation; and Hastings was sent to learn his object, which he coolly replied was—conquest. But whether at this period he proceeded far in his operations may well be doubted. His name does not appear in the siege of Paris, which took place in 886, nor in many other enterprises which from 876 to 896—that is, twenty years—afflicted France. Yet the names of other chiefs are specified. As we have already conjectured, he was probably for some years in England, or in the north. Certainly he could not have entered on that splendid career which led to his elevation, before the year 890, or later still. Yet it is possible that he might be joined with the other chiefs in the devastations which, from 876,—during full thirty years,—afflicted the whole of France. However this be, in ten years after his first disembarkation, siege was laid to Paris. It is described by a contemporary poet,—by an eye-witness, Abbo, monk of Fleury. It was of considerable duration, and many were the desperate assaults which were made upon the city; but they were as bravely repelled; and the siege was raised. Yet the Northmen did not retire further than the abbey of St. Germain’s, where they continued for some time to despatch their destructive hordes. As no great enemy was before them, they split into two bodies; and while one was collecting booty and burning villages, another laid siege to Chartres. In this attempt, however, they failed,—a result which Wace ascribes to the virtue of a certain relic.[[288]] A new attack was made on Paris, but with as little effect. At this juncture arrived the emperor Charles the Fat, to succour the capital; and the expulsion of the pirates seemed inevitable. But far different was the result: without striking a blow, he negotiated, and agreed to give the pirates seven hundred pounds of gold, with permission to ravage the two sides of the Seine into Burgundy, provided they would then leave—not France, but the central provinces. They received the money, and ravaged Burgundy; but they had no intention to forsake the fertile plains of the interior for the dreary maritime coast.[[289]]
|888 to 896.|
Though Eudes defeated the pirates, this was merely a temporary check,—so temporary as scarcely to arrest their progress. Meaux was besieged and taken; Champagne, Lorraine, and Burgundy were ravaged; Troyes, Chalons, Toul, Verdun were occupied; Picardy and Artois, to the borders of the sea, were laid waste. Contemporaneously with these rapid successes were the depredations of the pirates who were still entrenched on the Loire. There was no rest for France; no hope of expelling her daring intruders. Though Eudes had triumphed over the pirates, the next time they assailed that capital he was glad to purchase their retreat. Descending the river to its mouth, they next assailed the fortress of St. Loo. It was compelled to capitulate; but no conditions were binding on these wretches, who regarded oaths as vain formalities: instead of security for their lives, the inhabitants found a grave. Bretagne was now ravaged; but duke Alan was braver and more, fortunate than Eudes. Though the invaders were 15,000 in number, he assailed them, at a moment, too, when they were flushed with victory over a rival duke. His success was splendid; thousands were left dead on the field; the rest were put to flight. But even this success was scarcely a check to these wild sons of the deep. Driven from England by the genius of Alfred, they came in fearful numbers to France. They occupied both the coasts and the centre; and they traversed every part of the kingdom with an impunity surprising to posterity.[[290]]
|896 to 909.|
In how many of these embassies Rollo was an actor, we shall not venture to decide. Whether he was not much in England, as well as in France; whether he was not alternately engaged in both kingdoms, must be left to the reader’s own inference. This, at least, is certain, that from the year 896 his name and exploits fill the page of French history, to the exclusion of many other names which had before occupied it. From that year, too, must be dated those rapid and decisive successes which insured his future greatness. The banishment of so many pirates from the north by Harald Harfager now sent larger swarms to the south. The first care of Rollo was to strengthen the fortifications of Rouen, which had been destroyed in his absence (whether that absence were in England, or the interior of France, we will not decide), and which he now made formidable. Next, both sides of the Seine felt the vigour of his genius. The forces which were sent to oppose him he defeated. But we cannot follow his steps. Let it be sufficient to observe, that he was almost uniformly successful; that in several battles he was the victor; that Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, and many places of inferior note were taken by him; that he partitioned the lands which he subdued among his warriors, to be held of him as the liege head, under the usual feudal conditions. From this policy and this success, we should infer that he was in one respect the counterpart of his countrymen—that he protected, instead of destroying, the peasantry—that he encouraged, instead of abolishing, Christianity. Probably much of his moderation was owing to the councils of Franco, archbishop of Rouen, his chief vassal. Alarmed at the progress of his arms, Charles the Simple applied through Franco for a truce, which was readily granted. There can, indeed, be little doubt that the success of Hastings was before the eyes of Rollo, and that he aspired to a lordship much more ample than Chartres,—one which he should compel the French king to cede to him, and thereby give him a proud seat amongst the princes of Europe. Hence the readiness with which he listened to Franco, especially when assured that Charles had already contemplated his investiture with some portion of his new conquests. The truce, indeed, was not agreeable to some of the French peers, and hostilities were recommenced, much to the injury of France. There was not a province which some of his bands did not traverse; there was scarcely one which he did not plunder; and though frequently repulsed, they always returned to the charge. The French began to murmur, and Charles to apply himself still more seriously to a permanent understanding with Rollo. Hostilities had availed nothing; France had lost many thousands of her bravest defenders, and hundreds of thousands of her peaceful inhabitants; and if the invaders had also lost many considerable detachments, their ranks were speedily replenished by new immigrations from the north.[[291]]
|910 to 912.|
About the year 910, or perhaps the year following, Franco, at the command of Charles, opened the important negotiation with this adventurer. The offers were—Neuctria with the ducal title, and the hand of Gisele, a natural daughter of the king, provided he would embrace Christianity, and become the liege vassal of the French crown. This prelate was an eloquent, persuasive man, and had already considerable influence over the mind of Rollo. But that chief objected to one of the conditions as not sufficiently liberal. Neuctria he had already; and there was no great generosity in recognising his title to that which nobody could wrest from him. Besides, it was, he alleged, barren and half-peopled; but he forgot that this result was his own work and that of his countrymen. Franco then offered a portion of Bretagne—perhaps the whole—as an arriere-fief; and Rollo no longer hesitated. He had a wife already, Popa, the daughter of a French count; and her he repudiated,—on what ground is matter of dispute; but surely there need be none. Rollo was not yet a Christian; he had not been married in any Christian church; how then could the church recognise the union? Gisele, therefore, was to become the bride of the chief. A meeting of Rollo and of Charles was appointed at St. Clair-sur-Epte, a place on the frontier of Normandy. In 912, both repaired to that town,—Charles with a splendid retinue of nobles and prelates, by whose advice he had entered into a treaty with the new vassal. Here the investiture took place; Rollo did homage to the sovereign, and both acts were witnessed by the French nobles. To kneel before the monarch, hold up his hands between those of the superior, and repeat a certain formula called an oath, were no great acts of degradation; and to these Rollo had no objection. But the homage was not complete until the regal foot was kissed. To this humiliation he would not stoop, and he was allowed to perform it by deputy. A warrior of his suite was accordingly brought forward; but he was no less proud than his master; and on the royal foot being somewhat raised, he raised it still higher, and threw the poor monarch on his back, amidst the suppressed laughter of the assembly.[[292]]
|912.|
Thus was a fierce, an obscure pirate invested with one of the most important fiefs in Europe. His successors were, like him, valiant and politic; and by their means the duchy was raised to a height of power that rendered it a rival at once to the French and English kings. By what degrees, however, this progressive greatness was achieved, must be left to the historian of France. It is sufficient for us to observe that the new state became a successful barrier against the pagans of Scandinavia. Not that, both in Bretagne and Gascony, new armaments did not arrive and do some mischief; but it was transient, and no fear was entertained that the most powerful cities of France would ever again be assailed by them. When they did appear in any district, they were soon repulsed. The policy, therefore, of erecting Neustria into a state, and confiding it to the government of a race of heroes, was a wise one. A successor of Charles the Simple endeavoured to dethrone a grandson of Rollo; but, as we have already seen, Harald of Denmark sailed to the aid of the young duke, took the French king prisoner, and restored the relation between duke and monarch to the state in which it was on the death of Rollo.[[293]]
3. Ireland. At what period the Northmen first commenced their depredations in Ireland is, like many other points of northern history, impossible to be established. The Irish annals themselves contain no record of such transactions prior to the eighth century; yet they must have happened before. If little reliance is to be placed on the statement of Saxo, that Fridleif I. and Frode III. conquered and plundered Dublin, it would be rash to affirm that there was not a very ancient intercourse between that island and Scandinavia. Whether the Lochlans, or Dwellers of the Lakes, were Scandinavians, or the Scottish Highlanders, has been matter of great dispute. We know, however, that, in the ninth century, the Danes were expressly called Lochlans by the Irish, and that the term was used at an earlier period to designate some maritime people with whom the natives had a frequent intercourse. The term, however, might be applied to both the Gael and the Northmen,—to all maritime nations. On this subject let us hear the last and most eloquent of Irish historians:—