Restoration of

Alan. 936.

men of the Loire.

CHAP. IV. refuge. At a later date, when the influence of Ethelstan on French affairs was specially great, Alan and his companions were allowed to return.1 He received a large part of Britanny as a vassal of the Norman Duke; he appears to have remained steady in his allegiance, and he is henceforth constantly mentioned among the chief His strug peers of the Norman state. But he could recover the gles with the North- actual possession of his dominions only by hard fighting against the independent Normans of the Loire. These pirates, even after Rudolf's victory at Limoges, held many points of the country, and they were hardly more inclined to submit to the Norman Duke at Rouen than to the Breton Court at Vannes.3 Alan restored the ruined city of Nantes, and did much for his recovered dominions in various ways. The relations between Normandy and Britanny were now definitely settled, as far as anything could be said ever to be settled in that age.

The

It is curious to compare the different ways in which the return of the Bretons is told by Flodoard and by Dudo. Flodoard (A. 936) is willing to magnify even an Englishman in comparison with a Norman. William is not named. "Brittones à transmarinis regionibus Alstani Regis præsidio revertentes terram suam repetunt." Dudo mixes up their return with the return of King Lewis, which in Flodoard follows it, and he makes Æthelstan something like a suppliant to William (95 D, see below, p. 210). He calls Æthelstan "Anglorum Rex pacificus." Was he thinking of Eadgar, who may have come within his own memory?

2 Dudo, 98 A. "Ipseque Alanus postea Willelmi mandatis indesinenter inhæsit." Cf. 102 B. C. 113 D. 117 D.

* Flodoard seems to imply that some of these independent Normans entered Britanny, about the same time as this suppression of the Breton revolt, perhaps even in concert with Duke William (A. 931). "Incon Nortmannus, qui morabatur in Ligeri, cum suis Britanniam pervadit, victisque et cæsis vel ejectis Brittonibus regione potitur." Of the return of the Bretons he has two notices. The first is under the year 937. "Brittones ad sua loca post diutinam regressi peregrinationem, cum Nortmannis, qui terram ipsorum contiguam sibi pervaserant, frequentibus dimicant præliis, superiores pluribus existentes, et loca pervasa recipientes." The second is in the next year, 938. 'Brittones cum Nortmannis confli gentes victoriâ potiuntur, et quoddam Nortmannorum castellum cepisse feruntur." See Palgrave, ii. 178–182.

THE COTENTIN BECOMES NORMAN.

tin be

comes

211

Norman.

boundary between the suzerain and the vassal state was CHAP. IV. fixed by the cession of the Côtentin to Normandy. It The Côtenis probable that the cession was accompanied by a considerable migration of the inhabitants. The language of thoroughly our authorities1 seems to imply that Alan neither fled nor returned alone, but that he was followed by a considerable portion of his countrymen. In his return he is not unlikely to have been accompanied by some of his insular kinsmen, and we may perhaps be tempted to look on this settlement as a second Armorican migration. When such a process was going on, the Breton inhabitants of the ceded territory would be strongly tempted to join in the migration, and so to escape the hated Norman dominion. At all events the Côtentin, the last won part of Normandy, was one of the districts which became most thoroughly Norman. It now stood open for colonization, and we shall presently see that colonization was allowed, perhaps invited, not only from the settled parts of Normandy, but even directly from the heathen North itself.

3

Along with the peninsula of Coutances the Norman Dukes obtained a possession which was afterwards to form a bond of connexion of a singular kind between Normandy and England. In comparing the extent of the WestFrankish Kingdom at this age with that of modern France in our own day, while mentioning many points in which the French frontier has advanced, I had to mention three points where it has fallen back. The France Normandy acquires of the tenth century, or more strictly the country whose the Chanprinces acknowledged at least a nominal superior in the nel Islands. West-Frankish King, included Flanders, Barcelona, and the Channel Islands. Those islands, hitherto Breton,

1 See the passages from Flodoard quoted above.

2 The general line of thought in this paragraph is suggested by Palgrave, i. 106.

3 See above, p. 173.

Treaty of Troyes. 1420.

CHAP. IV. now became Norman. When continental Normandy was lost by John, the insular part of the Duchy was still retained, and it has ever since remained a possession of the English Crown. That Crown might be said to hold it as a part of the ancient Duchy which had never been lost; or, if the Duchy was held to be merged in the Kingdom won by Henry the Fifth, it might be held to be a portion of that Kingdom retained after Bourdeaux and Calais were lost. As long as the English Kings retained the title either of Duke of Normandy or of King of France, here was a portion of the Duchy or of the Kingdom whose actual possession might be said to make good their claim to the rest. This insular Normandy remains to this day French in speech and history, but deeply attached, and with good reason, to the English connexion. The Islands form distinct commonwealths, the Islands dependent on the British Crown, but not incorporated with the United Kingdom. This condition of a dependency is perhaps that which best suits a community which has a distinct existence of its own, but which could not possibly maintain its independence as a distinct and sovereign state. Retaining their ancient constitutions, and enjoying the protection of the power of England, the Norman Islands unite the safety of a great Kingdom with the local independence

Peculiar

relation of

to Eng

land.

1 It may however be doubted whether either Calais or Bourdeaux could be called parts of the Kingdom of France settled on Henry the Fifth by the Treaty of Troyes. Calais, ceded to Edward the Third by the Treaty of Bretigny (1360), was rather an outlying part of England. Aquitaine, held up to the time of that Treaty as a fief of France, became, by virtue of that Treaty, a perfectly independent state. It would seem then that, in strictness, Henry the Fifth and Sixth reigned at Calais strictly as Kings of England, at Bourdeaux strictly as Sovereign Dukes of Aquitaine ; but when, by the Treaty of Troyes, Henry, already Duke of Normandy, became King of France, it would seem that the Channel Islands, like the rest of Normandy, became part of the domain of the French Crown. Had the impossible connexion between England and France lasted, it would have been curious to see what would have become of these various titles.

THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.

213

of a small commonwealth. How much they would lose by CHAP. IV. becoming a French Department I need not stop to point out. But they would also lose, not nearly so much, but still considerably, by becoming an English County. The right of sending one or two members to the British Parliament, where, among so many greater interests, their voice could hardly be heard, would be a poor exchange for their present legislative independence. Parliament can indeed, on any emergency which may need its interference, legislate for the Norman Islands. But it must legislate specially for them, after special consideration of the circumstances of the case. The Islands cannot find themselves unexpectedly bound by some piece of general legislation, passed without their knowledge and possibly contrary to their interests. Thus the dependent condition of the Islands secures a greater consideration of their interests than they could receive if they formed an integral portion of the Kingdom. We occasionally hear of internal abuses. in the Channel Islands, which are held to need the intervention of Parliament, but we never hear of external grievances laid to the charge of Parliament itself. The Norman CompariIslands seem to be far more contented as dependencies than Orkney. those Norwegian Islands which, as having been organized as a Scottish County, form an integral portion of the Kingdom. The ancient Jarldom of Orkney, represented in Parliament by a single member, has its wrongs, or at least its grievances; of the wrongs or grievances of Jersey or Guernsey no one ever heard. And this singular and beneficial relation in which these interesting little communities stand at this day to the English Crown is connected by a direct chain of cause and effect with the revolt of the Bretons against Norman supremacy nine hundred and forty years ago.

William, thus become the conqueror of the Bretons, ruled for the present as a French Prince. As such, his

son with

party in Nor

mandy. 932.

details of

pression.

CHAP. IV. French speech, French connexions, and French religion, caused him to be hated and dreaded by a large portion of his subjects. A strong Danish and heathen party still survived within the older limits of the Duchy, and the new cessions probably contained some of those independent Danish settlements by which Britanny in general Revolt of was so infested. Out of these two elements a Danish the Danish and heathen revolt was organized. Its leader was Riulf, seemingly an independent Danish chief settled in the Côtentin peninsula. The story, as we have it,' reads like Legendary a romance. The rebels rise in arms; they demand one the revolt concession after another; the panic-stricken Duke is ready and its sup- to yield everything; he even proposes to resign his Duchy and to flee to his French uncle at Senlis. But he is recalled to a better mind by his veteran counsellor, the Danish-born Bernard. He then wins an almost miraculous victory over the rebels, and, for the time at least, crushes all signs of revolt. These details cannot be accepted as historical; but one or two points in the story are instructive. The rebels are made to demand the cession of all the country west of the river Risle. This boundary nearly answers to the original grant to Rolf, excluding the later acquisitions of Bayeux and Coutances. The demand, like everything else in the history, shows how thoroughly the Norman parties were geographical parties. The Christian and French-speaking Duke might keep Christian and French-speaking Rouen and Evreux; but the heathen and Danish land to the west must be independent of a prince who had cast away the creed and speech of his forefathers. On the other hand, we see that there were men of Danish birth, old companions of Rolf, men who retained a strong national feeling, who still distinctly threw in their lot by a party with the French party. They wished Normandy to re

Geographical character of

the two parties.

Christi

anity and French manners

supported

1 Dudo, 94 et seqq.