SETTLEMENTS OF THE NORTHMEN IN GAUL. 881. as the 185 settle and French. and, for the moment, important victories over the in- CHAP. IV. vaders, and the triumph of Lewis is commemorated in of Lewis, one of the earliest surviving efforts of Teutonic poetry.1 The great siege of Paris and its defence by Odo have been already spoken of as among the determining causes which led in the end to the change of dynasty. But such victories were, after all, mere momentary checks; they delivered one part of the country at the expense of another; and the evil went on till it was gradually cured by various indirect means. As in England, the The raNorthmen gradually changed from mere plunderers into ages cease conquerors and settlers. Instead of ravaging the whole Northmen country, they occupied portions of it. They thus gra- become dually changed, not only into members of the general commonwealth of Christendom, but into Frenchmen, distinguished from other Frenchmen only by the large share of their inborn Scandinavian vigour which they still retained. As the North became more settled and Chris- No attempt at political tianized, as it began to form a political system of its conquest, own, the mere piratical incursions ceased, and no de- as in England. liberate attempt was ever made, as was made in England, on the part of a King of all Denmark or all Norway, to displace a King of the West-Franks, and to reign in his stead. The insular position of Britain, the original kindred between Danes and English, the actual Danish occupation of so large a portion of the country, all helped to make such a design possible in England, while even the powers of a Swend or a Cnut could hardly have succeeded in carrying out such a scheme in France. settlements The Northmen settled largely in France, but they no- Scattered where occupied any such large continuous sweep of terri- of the tory as that which became the Denalagu in England. in France. 1 The Ludwigslied will be found in Max Müller's German Classics, P. 37. Northmen CHAP. IV. No such large extent of coast lay so invitingly open to them, and it does not appear that there was any one Danish invasion of Gaul on so great a scale as the great Danish invasion of England under Ingwar and Hubba. The Danish settlements in Gaul were therefore scattered, while in England they were continuous. The Danes in England therefore, though they gradually became Englishmen, still retained a distinct local existence and local feelings, and they continued to form a distinct and important element in the country. But the Danish settlers in France, holding a county here and a county there, sank much more completely into the general mass of the inhabitants. Some of these settlements were a good way inland, like Hasting's settlement at Chartres. Ragnald too occupied, at least for a while, the country at the mouth of the Loire. But these settlements led to no permanent results. One settlement alone was destined to play a real part in history, the settlement of Rolf or Rollo at Rouen. This settlement, the kernel of the great Norman Duchy, settlement; had, I need hardly say, results and an importance of its own of quite another sort from any which belong to any of the other Danish colonies in France. But it is well to bear in mind that it was only one among several, and that, when the cession was made, it was probably not expected to be more lasting or more important than the others. But, while the others soon lost any distinctive character, the Rouen settlement lasted, grew, became a power in Europe, and in France became even a determining power. It is perhaps the unexpected developement of the Rouen settlement, together with the peculiar turn which Norman policy soon took, which accounts for the bitterness of hatred with which the Northmen of Rouen are spoken of by the French writers The Rouen its excep tional importance. 1 See Benoit de Ste. More, p. 76, and M. Michel's note. Cf. Dudo, p. 66. 2 See Flod. A. 923, 930 (Pertz, iii. 379), et pass. THE NORTHMEN AT ROUEN. 187 at least down to the end of the tenth century. By that CHAP. IV. time they had long been Christian in faith and French in speech, and yet the most truly French writer of the age can never bring himself to speak of them by any other name than that of the Pirates. To this feeling we see nothing at all analogous in English history. We see traces of strong local diversities, sometimes rising into local animosities, between the Danes in England and their Anglian and Saxon neighbours; but there is nothing to compare with the full bitterness of hatred which breathes alike in the hostile rhetoric of Richer, and in the ominous silence of the discreet Flodoard. Rollo the the settle ment. The lasting character of his work at once proves that Rolf or the founder of the Rouen colony was a great man, but founder of he is a great man who must be content to be judged in the main by the results of his actions. The authentic history of Hrolfr, Rolf, Rollo, or Rou,2 may be summed up in a very short space. We have no really contemporary narrative of his actions, unless a few meagre and uncertain entries in some of the Frankish annals may be thought to deserve that name. I cannot look on the narrative of our one Norman writer, put together, from tradition and under courtly influence, a hundred years after the settlement, as at all entitled to implicit belief. Even less faith is due to Northern Sagas put together at a still later time. The French authors again are themselves 1 "Richardus pyratarum dux apoplexiâ minore periit" is one of the last entries in the history of Richer (t. ii. p. 308, Guadet). 2 The genuine name is Hrolfr, Rolf, in various spellings. The French form is Rou; the Latin is Rollo, like Cnuto, Sveno, &c. From this Latin form modern French writers have, oddly enough, made a form Rollon. The strangest form is Rodla, which occurs in a late manuscript of the English Chronicles (A. 876. Thorpe's ed.). This was clearly meant to be an English form of Rollo. The English masculine ending a was substituted for the Latin o, just as in Odo, Oda, &c. The writer also thought that Rollo was a name of the same type as Robert and others, and thought that by putting in a d he was restoring it to its genuine Teutonic shape. Earlier exploits of Rolf. 876-911 CHAP. IV. not contemporary,' and their notices are exceedingly brief. I therefore do not feel myself at all called upon to narrate in detail the exploits which are attributed to Rolf in the time before his final settlement. He is described as having been engaged in the calling of a Wiking both in Gaul and in Britain for nearly forty years before his final occupation of Rouen,2 and he is said to have entered into friendly relations with a King Æthelstan in England. This Athelstan has been confounded, in the teeth of all chronology, with our great Æthelstan, but it is clear that the person intended is Guthrum- Æthelstan of East-Anglia.3 In all this there is nothing improbable, but we can hardly look upon it as certain. And the exploits attributed to Rolf are spread over so many years,* that we cannot help concluding that the deeds of other chieftains have been attributed to him, perhaps that two leaders of the same name have been confounded. Among countless expeditions in Gaul, England, and Germany, we find attributed to Rolf an earlier visit to Rouen," a share in the great siege of Paris, and an occupation or destruction of Bayeux. But it is not till we have got some way into the reign of Charles the Simple, not till we have passed several years of the tenth century, that Rolf begins clearly Rolf in to stand out as a personal historic reality. He now appears of Rouen. in possession of Rouen, or of whatever vestiges of the city 911. had survived his former ravages, and from that startingDefeat of point he assaulted Chartres. Beneath the walls of that Chartres. city he underwent a defeat at the hands of the Dukes possession Rolf at 911. 1 Flodoard was perhaps contemporary with the settlement, but we have no narrative of those years from his hand. Richer, if he was very old when he died, may have been an infant at the time of the settlement, but that is all. 2 Dudo, 75 C. 3 Lappenberg (Thorpe), ii. 60. In some accounts he seems to appear even earlier than 876. Duchesne, 25 D. 5 Dudo, 75 D. 6 Ib. 77 C. Ib. C, D. CESSION BY CHARLES TO ROLF. 189 Clair-on Compari the Peace Rudolf of Burgundy and Robert of Paris, which was at- CHAP. IV. tributed to the miraculous powers of the great local relic, the under-garment of the Virgin. But this victory, like most victories over the Northmen, had no lasting effect. Rolf was not dislodged from Rouen, nor was his career of devastation and conquest at all seriously checked. But, precisely as in the case of Guthrum in England, advantage was taken of his evident disposition to settle in the country to make an attempt to change him from a devastating enemy into a peaceable neighbour. The Peace of Clair- Peace of on-Epte was the duplicate of the Peace of Wedmore, Epte. and King Charles and Duke Robert of Paris most 912. likely had the Peace of Wedmore before their eyes. A son with definite district was ceded to Rolf, for which he became of Wedthe King's vassal; he was admitted to baptism, and more. received the King's natural daughter in marriage. And, just as in the English case, the territory ceded was not part of the King's immediate dominions. No part of Wessex was ceded to Guthrum; he was merely confirmed in the possession of the lands which he had already conquered at the expense of the other English Kingdoms. Ælfred, as I have already shown,2 though Advantage he lost as a suzerain lord, gained as an immediate sion to the sovereign by the closer incorporation of a large part of Crown. Mercia with his own Kingdom. Charles also gained by the settlement of Rolf, though certainly not in the same direct way. His immediate territories were not increased, but they were at least not diminished; the grant to Rolf was made at the cost not of the King of the Franks at Laôn but of the Duke of the French at Paris. The great The cession Neustrian Mark was not so utterly broken up as were the Kingdoms of Northumberland, East-Anglia, and Mercia; therefore the King had no opportunity of annexing any part of Paris. of the ces made at the ex pense of the Duchy 1 Dudo, 80 B. Cf. Duchesne, 34 B, 25 A. 2 See above, p. 55. |