524 



NORTHMEN 



nowadays should call them pirates : they called them- 

 M 'Ive* sea-king*, viking, and believed that these 

 evpi-ditioii- were the iioMeBt and most honourable 

 \vnrk they could put their hands to. They Iwlieved 

 too that the best title, in the legal sense, to land 

 and other (movable) property wasp veil by winning 

 it with the sword : this gained them the highest 

 respect anil influence, and wan the su rest guarantee 

 of political power. There were likewise powerful 

 economic and political causes co-operating with 

 these to semi forth, from the middle of the 8th 

 century to the 13th, and even Inter, these thronging 

 swarms of Northmen. The natural resources of 

 the lands they dwelt in were very inadequate to 

 the support of the relatively large populations. 

 The system of land tenure, based on the indivisi- 

 bility and alisolute ownership of the family estate, 

 whilst fortifying the sense of family attachment 

 and fostering family pride, frequently imposed gall- 

 ing restraints upon the younger sons, especially the 

 more restless and high-spirited among them. Hence 

 they spent the summer in quest of fame and lmty 

 in distant lands; but generally came home again in 

 the autumn, to pass the winter in the enjoyment of 

 the good things they hod earned. Still stronger 

 impulses were given to these expeditions when the 

 more powerful chiefs (kings) at home began to 

 subdue their weaker contemporaries and rivals, and 

 the separate kingdoms ( Norway, Denmark, Sweden ) 

 began to take definite shape, under such strong 

 rulers as Harold Kairlmir ( Haarfager) and Canute. 

 Many of the free odal proprietors, rather than 

 submit to become the feudal vassals of the con- 

 querors, preferred to al>andon their homes, and go 

 and conquer new lands for themselves elsewhere. 

 These strong rulers moreover sternly put down the 

 intestine conflicts in which the Northmen delighted ; 

 consequently to get their till of fighting they were 

 obliged to (jo abroad. 



A favourite plan of the weaker viking chiefs was 

 to He in wait up some small creek or river mouth, 

 or behind the shelter of some island, and thence 

 suddenly dart out upon a passing vessel. The 

 larger fleets hoMIr invaded a district, plundered 

 the inhabitants, slew them if they ottered resist- 

 ance, or carried them oil' as slaves if they did not, 

 harried the open country, rifled the churches and 

 monasteries which always yielded the greatest 

 stores of gold and silver and not infrequently 

 burned them to the ground, as thev did the strong 

 cities they took and socked. firing heathens, 

 worshippers of Thor ami Odin, they had no qualms 

 of conscience as to sacrilege, and stood in no awe of 

 the threatening* of the church. One viking fleet 

 would even challenge another to fight it for light- 

 ing's sake only. The vessels t hey sailed in were com- 

 paratively small and light of draught, so that they 

 were able to penetrate a long way up the rivers, 

 sometimes into the heart of a country ; and as the 

 Northmen were resistless in arms and unrelenting 

 in their wrath, their mere apj>earance was often 

 sufficient to paralyse n entire district with panic 

 terror. In many churches a six-eial petition, 'From 

 the fury iif the Northmen, C) Lord, deliver us," was 

 recited in the litany, lint these sea-rovers were 

 also keen trailers : on many occasions they first 

 requested permission to land and trade peacefully 

 with the inhabitants, and only when their trailing 

 wan done did they begin to plunder. There were 

 several recognised trading places along the shores 

 of the Baltic, and some on the North Sea, which 

 were visited not only by legitimate merchants from 

 England, Flanders, Italy, the East, but also by 

 vikings who hail slaves, and gold and silver, ana 

 other less valuable Uxity to diH|iose of. 



The viking age is <livisible into two periods: 

 during the first adventure and plunder were the 

 chief incitements this lasted until the middle of 



the 9th century ; the second was the period of per- 

 in.-iiieiit conquests, in Ireland, France, England, 

 South Italy. The sea rovers made their first re- 

 corded attack upon England, upon \\esscx, in 7N7, 

 and first began to raid along the shores of Frisia, 

 Flanders, and France towards the end of the cen- 

 tury. These bands came from Denmark, but may 

 nevertheless have been Norwegians. During the 

 first half of the next century the depredations of 

 the Northmen were more terrible than ever, et-| 

 ally in Frisia and Flanders, during the periods 834- 

 837 and 845-X50. They boil also gone farther 

 south : in 820 a band reached Aquitainc ; fifteen 

 years later another bund plundered the French 

 island of Noirmoutier ; in 843-844 a fleet sailed up 

 the Loire and Gironde, visited Galicia ( Spain ), and 

 steered up the Guoilalquivir and fought i he Minus. 

 From about the middle of the century bodies of 

 Northmen established themselves in permanent 

 camps at the months of the French rivers, and 

 repeatedly ascended them on their errands of 

 plunder and slaughter. Three times in quick suc- 

 cession they took 1'uris and stripped it of its wealth 

 (845, 867, 861); but the most famous siege took 

 place in 885-886. In 859 and 800 an exceptionally 

 adventurous fleet entered the Mediterranean, 

 ravaged the coasts of Spain and Mauretauia, and 

 Majorca, spent the winter at the mouth of the 

 Rhone, and in the following summer laid their 

 ruthless hand on the coast towns of Italy, especi- 

 ally on Luna (near Carrara), thinking it was 

 Home. Yet Flanders and the north of France 

 suffered most during the thirty six years from 

 876 to 912. During all this period a large army, 

 or even armies, dominated the coast districts from 

 the Rhine to Brittany, quartering themselves in 

 entrenched camps, and not only routing time 

 after time the armies of the weak kings of 

 Australia and Neustria, and their still weaker 

 vassals, but even making disastrous raids far into 

 the interior to Coblentz, Soissons, Sens and 

 extorting from kings, dukes, founts, and towns 

 large sums in gold and silver as the price of abstain- 

 ing from hostilities. The chiefs of these formid- 

 able bands were Bjorn Ironside, Hasting, Siegfred, 

 Godfred, and Hollo or Kolf. Detachments of the 

 main body crossed over more than once to England, 

 where, however, Alfred was a match for them. 

 Hollo i lion ) is probably the same as Kolf the 

 Ganger ; if so, he was the son of a chief of the west 

 coast of Norway, and was outlawed by Harold 

 Fairhair shortly after 872. In 912 Charles the 

 Simple of France, seeing that it was hopeless for 

 him to drive away his dangerous and pertinacious 

 foemcn, thought it !>est to disarm them against 

 himself, and at the same time arm them against 

 new-comers, by allowing them to settle in his king- 

 dom, a plan adopted by other rulers before. 

 Accordingly at Clair-sur-Epte he agreed to cede to 

 Klh> tin' district bounded by the Channel, the 

 Seine, and the Epic, on condition that he would 

 become his man or vassal, and be baptised a 

 Christian. Kollo accepted the terms, and thus 

 acquired the nucleus of the duchy of Normandy 

 (q.v.). There the name Northmen was softened 

 into Normans, a name celebrated in history not 

 only in virtue of the conquest of England by Duke 

 William, but also liecause of their exploits in 

 Italy and Sicily, and the East, described under 

 GUI8CARD and Sicn.v. 



The earliest serious attacks upon England were 

 made in 793 and 794, when Lindisfarne and .furrow 

 monastery were sacked and Northumberland 

 ravaged. It was about the same time that the 

 sea-kings of Norway began to cross the 'Western 

 Sea' and soil as far as the ijyderocr or South 

 Islands i.e. the Hebrides, the Western Isles of 

 Scotland, and Man (q.v.) and to Irelaid, prob- 



