and that is one-third water and one-third mountain, and where winter lasts six months of the year, had bred in them endurance, ingenuity, and daring. In the course of the ninth century the people seem to have grown too numerous for the resources of the scant coast-lands, and the more enterprising spirits set out to seek their fortunes in the richer realms to the south. The results of that exodus were mo- Johnson, mentous. We have seen how the Danes possessed them- PP. 15-31. selves of northern England. In like manner Swedish war-bands ravaged the coasts of the Baltic, and, making their way inland to Novgorod and to Kiev, founded the ancient dynasty of Russia.1 The Norwegians, on the other hand, pushed westward and possessed themselves of the outlying islands of the Atlantic. The Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the north coast of Scotland formed a Viking kingdom that was held in fief of Norway until the fourteenth century. Farther west, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Anglesea, and the neighboring Scotch and Irish shores were united in a maritime empire whose valiant princes held their own until, in 1281, their dominions were annexed to Scotland. Continental Settlements. Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, France and Germany were ravaged by Norse pirates. The Rhine, the Elbe, the Scheldt, the Seine, and the Loire were the open highways by which the black keels of the barbarians made their way to the rich farm lands and populous cities of the interior. Smoking houses and bloody Johnson, battlefields marked their track. Legend records that the PP. 32-35. great Charlemagne gazed ruefully upon their swift craft and predicted the ruin of his empire. In the Litany service the terrified clergy inserted a special prayer, "From the fury of the Northmen, save us, Lord.” Normandy. As in England, so on the Continent, the war-bands, coming at first for booty, soon sought permanent Green, homes. Numerous scattered settlements along the rivers PP. 71–74. of Gaul may still be traced in local terminology. The most 1 Rurik, the Varangian, was chosen king by the Muscovites in 862. 2 The Lords of the Isles. 8 So the monk of St. Gall. 41-43. important conquest made on the Continent, and the only one where the Norse retained race integrity, was the domain of Rollo the Ganger, on the west coast. This Johnson, mighty warrior succeeded in wresting from Charles the PP. 35-37, Simple, the degenerate descendant of Charlemagne and king of the West Franks, a grant of the strip of territory at the mouth of the Seine called thereafter Normandy. As duke of the Normans, the conqueror swore fealty to the Frankish king and became his trusty vassal. Once recognized as a peer of France, Rollo accepted Christianity, married a French princess, and set about governing his new subjects with such discretion that the whilom pirate became known as the father of his people. The lands were divided among his followers as spoils of conquest. Thus the warriors became vassals of the duke, holding their estates under obligation to military service, while the natives, being regarded as a subject race, were treated as serfs. At first Johnson, the Norse Vikings despised the Romanized and degenerate P. 37. See Duruy, Franks. Absorbed in hunting and feasting, in making war Middle Ages, upon a neighboring lord to extend a boundary or upon the duke to resist a claim, they contemptuously declined to concern themselves with such slave's business as agriculture and the arts. Yet gradually the superior civilization gained influence over the conquerors. They married Frankish Richard II, the Good, 996-1026 Emma, m. Ethelred of England 2 Peers (pares) were vassals of the same suzerain, holding fiefs of land in his domain of equal rank. 3 Literally "roped out." p. 158. Green, Bright, I, women and adopted Frankish customs, they learned the Franco-Latin language with such facility that the grandson of Rollo could be taught to speak Scandinavian only at Bayeux. Entering the awe-inspiring Christian churches, they forswore the fierce gods of their ancestors. They came under the sway of the clergy and received at their hands not only a purer religion and a higher morality than Norse mythology taught them, but the conceptions of right and order preserved in the Roman law, the traditions of learning and literature treasured in the monasteries. So it followed that within the century after the conquest, the wild Northmen became essentially French. While losing nothing of their original valor and energy, they assimilated with marvellous readiness the best elements in the civilization of the conquered race. The Danes in England. Meantime, across the Channel, other Norse Vikings were mastering a kingdom. The renewal of the Danish invasions began in 981 with an attack on Southampton. For the next thirty years "armies" from the north harried the English coast, burning the towns and slaughtering the inhabitants. Not infrequently the Northmen forced the terrified people to provide them with horses, and sweeping far into the interior, plundered and killed and Anglo-Saxon did "unspeakable evil." They met with little concerted Chronicle. resistance. The good days of Alfred and Edward were Ethelred the past. Ethelred the Unready,' the degenerate son of Edgar, Unready. was not equal to the emergency. He could not rally the English to unite against the foe. Each shire preferred to fight its own battle, and the national force, the fyrd, was with difficulty induced to remain under arms over the harvest. The ealdormen who should have led their troops to the defence of the realm were jealous of each other and disloyal to the king. Again and again did a commander Source-Book, pp. 30-34. betray his trust on the very eve of battle. The Chronicle "And forces were often gathered against the Danes, but as soon as they should have joined 1 The old English term is "reckless," i.e. lacking in counsel. |