VII.
THE NORMANS IN ITALY.
"And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come."—Marvell.
[TOC], [INDX] There is a famous old story about Hasting, the viking captain. Once he went adventuring along the shores of the Mediterranean, and when he came in sight of one of the Tuscan cities, he mistook it for Rome. Evidently he had enough learning to furnish him with generous ideas about the wealth of the Roman churches, but he had brought only a handful of men, and the city looked large and strong from his narrow ship. There was no use to think of such a thing as laying siege to the town; such a measure would do hardly more than tease and provoke it: so he planned a sharp stroke at its very heart.
Presently word was carried from the harbor side, by a long-faced and tearful sailor, to the pious priests of the chief church, that Hasting, a Northman, lay sick unto death aboard his ship, and was desirous to repent him of his sins and be baptized. This was promising better things of the vikings, and the good bishop visited Hasting readily, and ministered eagerly to his soul's distress. Next day word came that the robber was dead, and his men brought him early [Pg131] to the church in his coffin, following him in a defenceless, miserable group. They gathered about the coffin, and the service began; the priests stood in order to chant and pray, their faces bowed low or lifted heavenward. Suddenly up goes the coffin-lid, out jumps Hasting, and his men clutch at the shining knives hidden under their cloaks. They strip the jewelled vestments from the priests' backs; they shut the church doors and murder the poor men like sheep; they climb the high altar, and rob it of its decorations and sacred cups and candlesticks, and load themselves with wealth. The city has hardly time to see them dash by to the harbor side, to hear the news and give them angry chase, before the evil ships are standing out to sea again, and the pirates laugh and shout as they tug at the flashing oars. No more such crafty converts! the people cry, and lift their dead and dying priests sorrowfully from the blood-stained floor. This was the fashion of Italy's early acquaintance with the Northmen, whose grandchildren were to conquer wide dominions in Apulia, in Sicily, and all that pleasant country between the inland seas of Italy and Greece.
It must have seemed almost as bad to the Romans to suffer invasion of this sort as it would to us to have a horde of furious Esquimaux come down to attack our coasts. We only need to remember the luxury of the Italian cities, to recall the great names of the day in literature and art, in order to contrast the civilization and appearance of the invader and the invaded. Yet war was a constant presence then, and every nation had its bitter enemies born of race [Pg132] prejudice and the resentment of conquest. To be a great soldier was to be great indeed, and by the time of the third of the Norman dukes the relation of the Northmen and Italians was much changed.
Yet there was not such a long time between the time of Hasting the pirate, and that of Tancred de Hauteville and Robert Guiscard. Normandy had taken her place as one of the formidable, respectable European powers. The most powerful of the fiefs of France, she was an enemy to be feared and honored, not despised. She was loyal to the See of Rome; very pious and charitable toward all religious establishments; no part of Southern Europe had been more diligent in building churches, in going on pilgrimage, in maintaining the honor of God and her own honor. Her knights prayed before they fought, and they were praised already in chronicle and song. The troubadours sung their noble deeds from hall to hall. The world looked on to see their bravery and valor, and when they grew restless and went a-roving and showed an increasing desire to extend their possessions and make themselves lords of new acres, the rest of the world looked on with envy and approval. Unless the Normans happened to come their way; that of course was quite a different thing.
We cannot help thinking that the readiness of the Englishman of to-day to form colonies and to adapt himself to every sort of climate and condition of foreign life, was anticipated and foreboded in those Norman settlements along the shores of the Mediterranean sea. Perhaps we should say again that the Northmen of a much earlier date were the true [Pg133] ancestors of all English colonists with their roving spirit and love of adventure, but the Normandy of the early part of the eleventh century was a type of the England of to-day. Its power was consolidated and the territory became too narrow for so much energy to be pent up in. The population increased enormously, and the familiar love of conquest and of seeking new fortunes was waked again. The bees send out new swarms when summer comes, and, like the bees, both Normans and Englishmen must have a leader and centralization of the general spirit, else there is scattering and waste of the common force.
We might go on with this homely illustration of the bees to explain the way in which smaller or larger groups of pilgrims, and adventurers of a less pious inclination, had wandered southward and eastward, toward the holy shrines of Jerusalem, or the rich harvest of Oriental wealth and luxury. Not much result came from these enterprises, though as early as 1026, we find the Duke of Naples allowing a company of Norman wanderers to settle at Aversa, and even helping them to build and fortify the town, and to hold it as a kind of out-post garrison against his enemies in Capua. They were understood to be ready for all sorts of enterprises, and the bitter flowers of strategy and revolt appeared to yield the sweetest honey that any country-side could offer. They loved a fight, and so they were often called in by the different Italian princes and proved themselves most formidable and trustworthy allies in case of sudden troubles. This is what an historian of that time says about them: [Pg134]
"The Normans are a cunning and revengeful people; eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary qualities. They can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed by the restraint of law they indulge the licentiousness of nature and passion, and in their eager search for wealth and dominion they despise whatever they possess and hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress, the exercises of hawking and hunting, are the delight of the Normans; but on pressing occasions they can endure with incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil and abstinence of a military life."