The Normans; told chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
by Sarah Orne Jewett · English · Gutenberg #44920 · 581,495 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Normans; told chiefly in relation to their conquest of England
Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
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THE NORMANS
[Illustration:/Frontispiece./ BIRTHPLACE OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
FALAISE.]
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
THE NORMANS
TOLD CHIEFLY IN RELATION TO THEIR CONQUEST
OF ENGLAND
BY
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1886
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
MY DEAR GRANDFATHER
DOCTOR WILLIAM PERRY, OF EXETER
[Illustration: EUROPE
AT THE CLOSE OF THE 11^{TH} CENTURY]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
I.
PAGE
THE MEN OF THE DRAGON SHIPS 1-29
The ancient Northmen, 1-3 — Manner of life, 4-6 — Hall-life
and hospitality, 7 — Sagamen, 8 — Sea-kings and vikings,
9 — Charlemagne and the vikings, 11 — Viking voyages and
settlements, 12-22 — The Northmen in France, 23-27 — Modern
inheritance from the Northmen, 28.
II.
ROLF THE GANGER 30-51
Harold Haarfager, 30 — Jarl Rögnwald, 32 — Rolf's outlawry,
33 — Charles the Simple, 35 — The Archbishop of Rouen, 37 —
Hasting, 38 — Siege of Bayeux, 40 — Rolf's character, 41 —
The founding of Normandy, 43 — The king's grant, 45 — Rolf's
christening, 46 — Law and order, 48 — Rolf's death, 50.
III.
WILLIAM LONGSWORD 52-65
French influences; Charlemagne; Charles the Fat, 52-54 —
Feudalism, 55 — The Franks, 55 — Norman loyalty to France,
57 — Longsword's politics, 60 — The Bayeux Northmen, 61 —
Longsword's love of the cloister, 63 — Longsword's character,
64.
IV.
RICHARD THE FEARLESS 66-89
Longsword's son, 66 — A Norman castle, 67 — News of
Longsword's death, 69 — His funeral, 70 — Richard made duke,
70 — The guardianship of Louis of France, 72 — Detention of
Richard and escape from Laon, 73-75 — Hugh of Paris, 76 —
Louis at Rouen, 77 — Norman plots, 80 — Harold Blaatand, 81 —
Normandy against France, 82 — Independence of Normandy, 84 —
Normandy and England, 85 — Gerberga, 85 — Alliance with Hugh of
Paris; with Hugh Capet, 86-88 — Death of Richard, 89.
V.
DUKE RICHARD THE GOOD 90-114
Richard the Good's succession, 90 — French influences, 91 —
Lack of records, 91 — Prosperity of the duchy, 92 — Richard's
love of courtliness and splendor, 92 — Wrongs of the common
people; their complaint, 93-95 — Raoul of Ivry, 96 — The
Flemish colony; the Falaise fair; Richard's brother William,
97, 98 — Robert of France, 99 — Richard's marriage, 101 —
Æthelred the Unready, 102 — The Danes in England, 103 — Emma of
Normandy, 105; Trouble with Burgundy, 107 — The lands of Dreux,
109 — The Count-Bishop of Chalons, 110; Norman chroniclers, 112
— Ermenoldus; the third Richard and his murder, 112-114.
VI.
ROBERT THE MAGNIFICENT 115-129
Power and wealth of Normandy, 115 — The English princes, 118
— Cnut of England and Queen Emma, 119 — Robert's lavishness;
Baldwin of Flanders, 120-122 — The tanner's daughter, 122 —
Norman pride and Robert's defiance of public opinion, 124 —
Robert's pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 125 — His death at Nicæa, 129.
VII.
THE NORMANS IN ITALY 130-148
Hasting the pirate, 130 — Early Norman colonies in the south
of Europe, 132 — The Norman character, 134 — Tancred de
Hauteville, 135 — Serlon de Hauteville, 136 — Sicily, 139 —
Pope Leo the Tenth, 140 — Robert Guiscard, 141 — Rapid progress
of the Norman-Italian States and their prosperity, 142 — Norman
architecture in Sicily, 145.
VIII.
THE YOUTH OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 149-170
Typical character of William, 149 — Loneliness of his
childhood, 151 — William de Talvas, 152 — The feudal system,
153 — Christianity and knighthood, 156 — Ceremonies at the
making of a knight, 157 — The oaths of knighthood, 161 — The
Truce of God, 166-170.
IX.
ACROSS THE CHANNEL 171-194
Changes in England, 171 — Æthelred, 172 — The Danegelt, 173
— The Danes again, 175 — Swegen, 177 — Cnut, 178 — Eadmund
Ironside, 180 — Cnut's pilgrimage, 181 — Godwine, 184 — Eadward
the Confessor, 187 — The Dover quarrel, 189 — Normans in
England, 192 — Castles, 193.
X.
THE BATTLE OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES 195-214
Roger de Toesny, 196 — William's boyhood, 198 — Escape from
Valognes, 199 — The Lord of Rye, 200 — Guy of Burgundy, 201
— Rebellion, 202 — Val-ès-Dunes, 204 — Ralph of Tesson, 206
— Neal of St. Saviour, 208 — William's leniency, 211 — His
mastery, 213 — The siege of Alençon, 213.
XI.
THE ABBEY OF BEC 215-231
Cloistermen, 215 — Soldiery and scholarship, 216 — Building of
religious houses, 218 — Cathedrals, 220 — Benedictines, 222 —
Herluin and his abbey, 223 — Lanfranc, 226 — His influence in
Normandy, 229.
XII.
MATILDA OF FLANDERS 232-254
Flanders, 232 — Objections to William's marriage, 234 —
Marriage of William and Matilda at Eu, 236 — Mauger, 237 —
Rebuilding of churches, 239 — William's early visit to England,
242 — Godwine's return, 244 — His death, 245 — Jealousy of
France, 246 — The French invasion of Normandy, 247 — Battle of
Mortemer, 248 — The curfew bell, 251 — Battle of Varaville, 252
— Harold of England's visit, 254.
XIII.
HAROLD THE ENGLISHMAN 255-274
Causes and effects of war, 255 — Relations of William and
Harold, 256 — Harold's unfitness as a leader of the English,
257 — His shipwreck on the coast of Ponthieu, 260 — William's
palace in Rouen, 261 — News of Harold's imprisonment by Guy of
Ponthieu, 262 — Harold's release, 264 — His life in Normandy,
265 — His oath, 267 — Eadward's last illness, 269 — Harold
named as successor, 272.
XIV.
NEWS FROM ENGLAND 275-294
Harold made king, 275 — William hears the news, 276 — The
Normans begin to plan for war, 278 — William's embassy, 280
— The council at Lillebonne, 280 — The barons hold back, 282
— Lanfranc's influence at Rome, 286 — Tostig, 287 — Harold's
army, 290 — Harold Hardrada, 291 — The battle of Stamford
Bridge, 293.
XV.
THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS 295-311
Normandy makes ready for war, 295 — The army at St. Valery,
297 — William crosses the Channel, 298 — The camp at Hastings,
300 — Harold of England, 302 — Senlac, 304 — The battle array,
306 — The great fight, 308 — The Norman victory, 310.
XVI.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 312-344
Norman characteristics, 312 — William's coronation, 314 —
His plan of government, 316 — Return to Normandy, 320 — Caen,
322 — The Bayeux tapestry, 323 — Matilda crowned queen, 325
— Difficulties of government, 327 — The English forests, 330
— Decay of learning in Eadward's time, 331 — William's laws
against slavery, 332 — His son Robert, 333 — The queen's death,
335 — Odo's plot, 335 — William's injury at Mantes, 337 — His
illness and death, 339 — Description from /Roman de Rou/, 341.
XVII.
KINGDOM AND DUKEDOM 345-358
William Rufus, 345 — Robert of Normandy, 346 — William Rufus
in England, 349 — Duke Robert goes on pilgrimage, 351 — Murder
of William Rufus, 353 — Henry Beauclerc seizes the English
crown, 355 — Death of Prince William, 358.
XVIII.
CONCLUSION 359-366
Development of Norman character, 360 — Northern influences,
362 — The great inheritance, 365.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
BIRTHPLACE OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. FALAISE. /Frontispiece/
MAP—EUROPE AT CLOSE OF ELEVENTH CENTURY 1
IRON SPEAR AND CHISEL 5
VIKING SHIP 13
VIKING 17
NORSE BUCKLE 21
NORWEGIAN FIORD 31
FLAILS AS MILITARY WEAPONS 77
ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. OUEN. (ROUEN) 87
QUEEN EMMA OR ÆLFGIFU 105
NORMAN COSTUMES 117
ROBERT, DUKE OF NORMANDY, CARRIED IN A LITTER TO JERUSALEM 127
NORMAN PLOUGHMAN 153
ARMING A KNIGHT 157
CONFERRING KNIGHTHOOD ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE 167
KING CNUT 179
DOORWAY OF CATHEDRAL, CHARTRES 217
CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL 221
CRYPT OF MOUNT ST. MICHEL 241
NORMAN ARCHER 253
GUY, COUNT OF PONTHIEU 259
MOUNT ST. MICHEL 263
OLD HOUSES, DÔL 265
FUNERAL OF EADWARD THE CONFESSOR 273
STIGAND, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 277
MAP—NORMANDY IN 1066 281
MAP—ENGLAND 289
NORMAN VESSEL 297
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 301
NORMAN MINSTREL 305
SOLDIER IN CLOAK 309
DEATH OF HAROLD 325
NORMAN LADY 326
BATTLE-AXES 329
ODO, BISHOP OF BAYEUX 335
The ten illustrations in this volume which are from designs by Thomas
Macquoid, have been reproduced (through the courtesy of Messrs. Chatto
& Windus) from Mrs. Macquoid's "Pictures and Legends from Normandy
and Brittany," the American edition of which was published by G. P.
Putnam's Sons.
[Illustration]
DUKES OF THE NORMANS.
ROLF,
First Duke of the Normans,
r. 911-927.
|
WILLIAM
LONGSWORD,
r. 927-943.
|
RICHARD
THE FEARLESS,
r. 943-996.
|
+-----+------+
| |
RICHARD EMMA,
THE GOOD, m. 1. Æthelred II.
r. 996-1026. of England;
| m. 2. Cnut of England
| and Denmark.
|
+-------+----------+
| |
RICHARD III., ROBERT
r. 1026-1028. THE MAGNIFICENT,
r. 1028-1035.
|
WILLIAM
THE CONQUEROR,
r. 1035-1087.
|
+-------------------+----+--------+---------------+
| | | |
ROBERT II., WILLIAM HENRY I., ADELA,
r. 1087-1096 RUFUS, r. 1106-1135. m. Stephen,
(from 1096 to 1100 r. 1096-1100. | Count of Blois
the Duchy was MATILDA |
held by his m. GEOFFRY STEPHEN
brother William), COUNT OF OF BLOIS,
and 1100-1106 ANJOU s. 1135.
(when he was AND
overthrown at MAINE
Tinchebrai by his (who won the
brother Henry). Duchy from
Stephen).
|
HENRY II.,
invested with the
Duchy, 1150,
d. 1189.
|
+-----------+-------+
| |
RICHARD JOHN,
THE LION-HEART, r. 1199-1204
r. 1189-1199. (when Normandy
was conquered
by France).
[Pg001]
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF THE NORMANS.
I.
THE MEN OF THE DRAGON SHIPS.
"Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire and behold our home."—BYRON.
The gulf stream flows so near to the southern coast of Norway, and
to the Orkneys and Western Islands, that their climate is much less
severe than might be supposed. Yet no one can help wondering why they
were formerly so much more populous than now, and why the people
who came westward even so long ago as the great Aryan migration,
did not persist in turning aside to the more fertile countries that
lay farther southward. In spite of all their disadvantages, the
Scandinavian peninsula, and the sterile islands of the northern seas,
were inhabited by men and women whose enterprise and intelligence
ranked them above their neighbors.
Now, with the modern ease of travel and transportation, these poorer
countries can be supplied from other parts of the world. And though
the [Pg002] summers of Norway are misty and dark and short, and it
is difficult to raise even a little hay on the bits of meadow among
the rocky mountain slopes, commerce can make up for all deficiencies.
In early times there was no commerce except that carried on by the
pirates—if we may dignify their undertakings by such a respectable
name,—and it was hardly possible to make a living from the soil alone.
The sand dunes of Denmark and the cliffs of Norway alike gave little
encouragement to tillers of the ground, yet, in defiance of all our
ideas of successful colonization, when the people of these countries
left them, it was at first only to form new settlements in such places
as Iceland, or the Faroë or Orkney islands and stormiest Hebrides. But
it does not take us long to discover that the ancient Northmen were
not farmers, but hunters and fishermen. It had grown more and more
difficult to find food along the rivers and broad grassy wastes of
inland Europe, and pushing westward they had at last reached the place
where they could live beside waters that swarmed with fish and among
hills that sheltered plenty of game.
Besides this they had been obliged not only to make the long journey
by slow degrees, but to fight their way and to dispossess the people
who were already established. There is very little known of these
earlier dwellers in the east and north of Europe, except that they
were short of stature and dark-skinned, that they were cave dwellers,
and, in successive stages of development, used stone and bronze and
iron tools and weapons. Many relics of [Pg003] their home-life and
of their warfare have been discovered and preserved in museums, and
there are evidences of the descent of a small proportion of modern
Europeans from that remote ancestry. The Basques of the north of
Spain speak a different language and wear a different look from any
of the surrounding people, and even in Great Britain there are some
survivors of an older race of humanity, which the fairer-haired Celts
of Southern Europe and Teutons of Northern Europe have never been able
in the great natural war of races to wholly exterminate and supplant.
Many changes and minglings of the inhabitants of these countries,
long establishment of certain tribes, and favorable or unfavorable
conditions of existence have made the nations of Europe differ widely
from each other at the present day, but they are believed to have come
from a common stock, and certain words of the Sanscrit language can be
found repeated not only in Persian and Indian speech to-day, but in
English and Greek and Latin and German, and many dialects that have
been formed from these.
The tribes that settled in the North grew in time to have many
peculiarities of their own, and as their countries grew more and more
populous, they needed more things that could not easily be had, and a
fashion of plundering their neighbors began to prevail. Men were still
more or less beasts of prey. Invaders must be kept out, and at last
much of the industry of Scandinavia was connected with the carrying on
of an almost universal fighting and marauding. Ships must be built,
and there must be endless [Pg004] supplies of armor and weapons.
Stones were easily collected for missiles or made fit for arrows and
spear-heads, and metals were worked with great care. In Norway and
Sweden were the best places to find all these, and if the Northmen
planned to fight a great battle, they had to transport a huge quantity
of stones, iron, and bronze. It is easy to see why one day's battle
was almost always decisive in ancient times, for supplies could not
be quickly forwarded from point to point, and after the arrows were
all shot and the conquered were chased off the field, they had no
further means of offence except a hand-to-hand fight with those who
had won the right to pick up the fallen spears at their leisure. So,
too, an unexpected invasion was likely to prove successful; it was a
work of time to get ready for a battle, and when the Northmen swooped
down upon some shore town of Britain or Gaul, the unlucky citizens
were at their mercy. And while the Northmen had fish and game and were
mighty hunters, and their rocks and mines helped forward their warlike
enterprises, so the forests supplied them with ship timber, and they
gained renown as sailors wherever their fame extended.
There was a great difference, however, between the manner of life in
Norway and that of England or France. The Norwegian stone, however
useful for arrow-heads or axes, was not fit for building purposes.
There is hardly any clay there, either, to make bricks with, so that
wood has usually been the only material for houses. In the Southern
countries there had always been rude castles in which [Pg006] the
people could shelter themselves, but the Northmen could build no
castles that a torch could not destroy. They trusted much more to
their ships than to their houses, and some of their great captains
disdained to live on shore at all.
[Illustration: IRON CHISEL FOUND IN AAMOT
PARISH, OESTERDALEN.
IRON POINT OF A SPEAR WITH INLAID WORK OF SILVER,
FOUND AT NESNE, IN NORDLAND.]
There is something refreshing in the stories of old Norse life; of its
simplicity and freedom and childish zest. An old writer says that they
had "a hankering after pomp and pageantry," and by means of this they
came at last to doing things decently and in order, and to setting the
fashions for the rest of Europe. There was considerable dignity in the
manner of every-day life and housekeeping. Their houses were often
very large, even two hundred feet long, with the flaring fires on a
pavement in the middle of the floor, and the beds built next the walls
on three sides, sometimes hidden by wide tapestries or foreign cloth
that had been brought home in the viking ships. In front of the beds
were benches where each man had his seat and footstool, with his armor
and weapons hung high on the wall above. The master of the house had
a high seat on the north side in the middle of a long bench; opposite
was another bench for guests and strangers, while the women sat on
the third side. The roof was high, there were a few windows in it,
and those were covered by thin skins and let in but little light. The
smoke escaped through openings in the carved, soot-blackened roof, and
though in later times the rich men's houses were more like villages,
because they made groups of smaller buildings for store-houses, for
guest-rooms, or for workshops all around, [Pg007] still, the idea of
this primitive great hall or living-room has not even yet been lost.
The later copies of it in England and France that still remain are
most interesting; but what a fine sight it must have been at night
when the great fires blazed and the warriors sat on their benches in
solemn order, and the skalds recited their long sagas, of the host's
own bravery or the valiant deeds of his ancestors! Hospitality was
almost made chief among the virtues. There was a Norwegian woman named
Geirrid who went from Heligoland to Iceland and settled there. She
built her house directly across the public road, and used to sit in
the doorway on a little bench and invite all travellers to come in and
refresh themselves from a table that always stood ready, spread with
food. She was not the only one, either, who gave herself up to such an
exaggerated idea of the duties of a housekeeper.
When a distinguished company of guests was present, the pleasures of
the evening were made more important. Listening to the sagas was the
best entertainment that could be offered. "These productions were of
very ancient origin and entirely foreign to those countries where the
Latin language prevailed. They had little or nothing to do with either
chronology or general history; but were limited to the traditions of
some heroic families, relating their deeds and adventures in a style
that was always simple and sometimes poetic. These compositions, in
verse or prose, were the fruit of a wild Northern genius. They were
evolved without models, and disappeared at last without imitations;
and [Pg008] it is most remarkable that in the island of Iceland, of
which the name alone is sufficient hint of its frightful climate,
and where the very name of poet has almost become a wonder,—in this
very island the skalds (poets) have produced innumerable sagas and
other compositions during a space of time which covers the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries."[1]
[1] Depping: "Maritimes Voyages des Normands."
The court poets or those attached to great families were most
important persons, and were treated with great respect and honor. No
doubt, they often fell into the dangers of either flattery or scandal,
but they were noted for their simple truthfulness. We cannot help
feeling such an atmosphere in those sagas that still exist, but the
world has always been very indulgent towards poetry that captivates
the imagination. Doubtless, nobody expected that a skald should always
limit himself to the part of a literal narrator. They were the makers
and keepers of legends and literature in their own peculiar form of
history, and as to worldly position, ranked much higher than the later
minstrels and troubadours or trouvères who wandered about France.
When we remember the scarcity and value of parchment even in the
Christianized countries of the South, it is a great wonder that so
many sagas were written down and preserved; while there must have been
a vast number of others that existed only in tradition and in the
memories of those who learned them in each generation.
If we try to get the story of the Northmen from [Pg009] the French
or British chronicler, it is one long, dreary complaint of their
barbarous customs and their heathen religion. In England the monks,
shut up in their monasteries, could find nothing bad enough to say
about the marauders who ravaged the shores of the country and did so
much mischief. If we believe them, we shall mistake the Norwegians and
their companions for wild beasts and heathen savages. We must read
what was written in their own language, and then we shall have more
respect for the vikings and sea-kings, always distinguishing between
these two; for, while any peasant who wished could be a viking—a
sea-robber—a sea-king was a king indeed, and must be connected with
the royal race of the country. He received the title of king by right
as soon as he took command of a ship's crew, though he need not have
any land or kingdom. Vikings were merely pirates; they might be
peasants and vikings by turn, and won their name from the inlets, the
viks or wicks, where they harbored their ships. A sea-king must be a
viking, but naturally very few of the vikings were sea-kings.
When we turn from the monks' records, written in Latin, to the
accounts given of themselves by the Northmen, in their own languages,
we are surprised enough to find how these ferocious pagans, these
merciless men, who burnt the Southern churches and villages, and
plundered and killed those of the inhabitants whom they did not drag
away into slavery,—how these Northmen really surpassed their enemies
in literature, as much as in military achievements. Their laws and
government, their history [Pg010] and poetry and social customs, were
better than those of the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks.
If we stop to think about this, we see that it would be impossible
for a few hundred men to land from their great row-boats and subdue
wide tracts of country unless they were superior in mental power, and
gifted with astonishing quickness and bravery. The great leaders of
armies are not those who can lift the heaviest weights or strike the
hardest blow, but those who have the mind to plan and to organize
and discipline and, above all, to persevere and be ready to take
a dangerous risk. The countries to the southward were tamed and
spiritless, and bound down by church influence and superstition
until they had lost the energy and even the intellectual power of
their ancestors five centuries back. The Roman Empire had helped to
change the Englishmen and many of the Frenchmen of that time into
a population of slaves and laborers, with no property in the soil,
nothing to fight for but their own lives.
The viking had rights in his own country, and knew what it was to
enjoy those rights; if he could win more land, he would know how to
govern it, and he knew what he was fighting for and meant to win.
If we wonder why all this energy was spent on the high seas, and in
strange countries, there are two answers: first, that fighting was
the natural employment of the men, and that no right could be held
that could not be defended; but beside this, one form of their energy
was showing itself at home in rude attempts at literature. It is
surprising enough to find that both the quality and the quantity
[Pg011] of the old sagas far surpass all that can be found of either
Latin or English writing of that time in England. These sagas are all
in the familiar tongue, so that everybody could understand them, and
be amused or taught by them. They were not meant only for the monks
and the people who lived in cloisters. The legends of their ancestors'
beauty or bravery belonged to every man alike, and that made the
Norwegians one nation of men, working and sympathizing with each
other—not a mere herd of individuals.
The more that we know of the Northmen, the more we are convinced how
superior they were in their knowledge of the useful arts to the people
whom they conquered. There is a legend that when Charlemagne, in the
ninth century, saw some pirate ships cruising in the Mediterranean,
along the shores of which they had at last found their way, he
covered his face and burst into tears. He was not so much afraid
of their cruelty and barbarism as of their civilization. Nobody
knew better that none of the Christian countries under his rule had
ships or men that could make such a daring voyage. He knew that
they were skilful workers in wood and iron, and had learned to be
rope-makers and weavers; that they could make casks for their supply
of drinking-water, and understood how to prepare food for their long
cruises. All their swords and spears and bow-strings had to be made
and kept in good condition, and sheltered from the sea-spray.
It is interesting to remember that the Northmen's [Pg012] fleets were
not like a royal navy, though the king could claim the use of all the
war-ships when he needed them for the country's service. They were
fitted out by anybody who chose, private adventurers and peasants, all
along the rocky shores. They were not very grand affairs for the most
part, but they were all seaworthy, and must have had a good deal of
room for stowing all the things that were to be carried, beside the
vikings themselves. Sometimes there were transport vessels to take
the arms and the food and bring back the plunder. Perhaps most of
the peasants' boats were only thirty or forty feet long, but when we
remember how many hundreds used to put to sea after the small crops
were planted every summer, we cannot help knowing that there were a
great many men who knew how to build strong ships in Norway, and how
to fit them out sufficiently well, and man them and fight in them
afterward. You never hear of any fleets being fitted out in the French
and English harbors equalling these in numbers or efficiency.
[Illustration: VIKING SHIP.]
When we picture the famous sea-kings' ships to ourselves, we do not
wonder that the Northmen were so proud of them, or that the skalds
were never tired of recounting their glories. There were two kinds of
vessels: the last-ships, that carried cargoes; and the long-ships, or
ships-of-war. Listen to the splendors of the "Long Serpent," which
was the largest ship ever built in Norway. A dragon-ship, to begin
with, because all the long ships had a dragon for a figure-head,
except the smallest of them, which were called cutters, and only
carried [Pg014] ten or twenty rowers on a side. The "Long Serpent"
had thirty-four rowers' benches on a side, and she was a hundred and
eleven feet long. Over the sides were hung the shining red and white
shields of the vikings, the gilded dragon's head towered high at the
prow, and at the stern a gilded tail went curling off over the head of
the steersman. Then, from the long body, the heavy oars swept forward
and back through the water, the double thirty-four of them, and as it
came down the fiord, the "Long Serpent" must have looked like some
enormous centipede creeping out of its den on an awful errand, and
heading out across the rough water toward its prey.
The crew used to sleep on the deck, and ship-tents were necessary for
shelter. There was no deep hold or comfortable cabin, for the ships
were built so that they could be easily hauled up on a sloping beach.
They had sails, and these were often made of gay colors, or striped
with red and blue and white cloths, and a great many years later than
this we hear of a crusader waiting long for a fair wind at the Straits
of the Dardanelles, so that he could set all his fine sails, and look
splendid as he went by the foreign shores.
To-day in Bergen harbor, in Norway, you are likely to see at least
one or two Norland ships that belong to the great fleet that bring
down furs and dried fish every year from Hammerfest and Trondhjem
and the North Cape. They do not carry the red and white shields, or
rows of long oars, but they are built with high prow and stern, and
spread a great [Pg015] square brown sail. You are tempted to think
that a belated company of vikings has just come into port after a long
cruise. These descendants of the long-ships and the last-ships look
little like peaceful merchantmen, as they go floating solemnly along
the calm waters of the Bergen-fiord.
The voyages were often disastrous in spite of much clever seamanship.
They knew nothing of the mariner's compass, and found their way
chiefly by the aid of the stars—inconstant pilots enough on such
foggy, stormy seas. They carried birds too, oftenest ravens, and
used to let them loose and follow them toward the nearest land. The
black raven was the vikings' favorite symbol for their flags, and
familiar enough it became in other harbors than their own. They were
bold, hardy fellows, and held fast to a rude code of honor and rank
of knighthood. To join the most renowned company of vikings in Harold
Haarfager's time, it was necessary that the champion should lift a
great stone that lay before the king's door, as first proof that he
was worth initiating. We are gravely told that this stone could not be
moved by the strength of twelve ordinary men.
They were obliged to take oath that they would not capture women and
children, or seek refuge during a tempest, or stop to dress their
wounds before a battle was over. Sometimes they were possessed by a
strange madness, caused either by a frenzy of rivalry and the wild
excitement of their rude sports or by intoxicating liquors or drugs,
when they foamed at the mouth and danced wildly about, swallowing
burning coals, uprooting the very rocks and trees, destroying [Pg016]
their own property, and striking indiscriminately at friends and
foes. This berserker rage seems to have been much applauded, and
gained the possessed viking a noble distinction in the eyes of his
companions. If a sea-king heard of a fair damsel anywhere along the
neighboring coast, he simply took ship in that direction, fought for
her, and carried her away in triumph with as many of her goods as he
was lucky enough to seize beside. Their very gods were gods of war
and destruction, though beside Thor, the thunderer, they worshipped
Balder, the fair-faced, the god of gentle speech and purity, with
Freyr, who rules over sunshine and growing things. Their hell was a
place of cold and darkness, and their heaven was to be a place where
fighting went on from sunrise until the time came to ride back to
Valhalla and feast together in the great hall. Those who died of old
age or sickness, instead of in battle, must go to hell. Odin, who was
chief of all the gods, made man, and gave him a soul which should
never perish, and Frigga, his wife, knew the fate of all men, but
never told her secrets.
[Illustration: VIKING.]
The Northmen spread themselves at length over a great extent of
country. We can only wonder why, after their energy and valor led them
to found a thriving colony in Iceland and in Russia, to even venture
among the icebergs and perilous dismal coasts of Greenland, and from
thence downward to the pleasanter shores of New England, why they did
not seize these possessions and keep the credit of discovering and
settling America. What a change that would have made in the world's
history! Historians [Pg018] have been much perplexed at the fact of
Leif Ericson's lack of interest in the fertile Vinland, New England
now, which he visited in 986 and praised eloquently when he left it
to its fate. Vinland waited hundreds of years after that for the
hardy Icelander's kindred to come from old England to build their
houses and spend the rest of their lives upon its good corn-land and
among the shadows of its great pine-trees. There was room enough
for all Greenland, and to spare, but we cannot help suspecting that
the Northmen were not very good farmers, that they loved fighting
too well, and would rather go a thousand miles across a stormy sea
to plunder another man of his crops than to patiently raise their
own corn and wool and make an honest living at home. So, instead of
understanding what a good fortune it would be for their descendants,
if they seized and held the great western continent that stretched
westward from Vinland until it met another sea, they kept on with
their eastward raids, and the valleys of the Elbe and the Rhine, of
the Seine and Loire, made a famous hunting-ground for the dragon ships
to seek. The rich seaports and trading towns, the strongly walled
Roman cities, the venerated abbeys and cathedrals with their store of
wealth and provisions, were all equally exposed to the fury of such
attacks, and were soon stunned and desolated. What a horror must have
fallen upon a defenceless harbor-side when a fleet of the Northmen's
ships was seen sweeping in from sea at daybreak! What a smoke of
burning houses and shrieking of frightened people all day long; and
as [Pg019] the twilight fell and the few survivors of the assault
dared to creep out from their hiding-places to see the ruins of their
homes, and the ships putting out to sea again loaded deep with their
possessions!—we can hardly picture it to ourselves in these quiet days.
The people who lived in France were of another sort, but they often
knew how to defend themselves as well as the Northmen knew how to
attack. There are few early French records for us to read, for the
literature of that early day was almost wholly destroyed in the
religious houses and public buildings of France. Here and there a few
pages of a poem or of a biography or chronicle have been kept, but
from this very fact we can understand the miserable condition of the
country.
In the year 810 the Danish Norsemen, under their king, Gottfried,
overran Friesland, but the Emperor Charlemagne was too powerful for
them and drove them back. After his death they were ready to try
again, and because his huge kingdom had been divided under many
rulers, who were all fighting among themselves, the Danes were more
lucky, and after robbing Hamburg several times they ravaged the coasts
and finally settled themselves as comfortably as possible at the mouth
of the Loire in France. Soon they were not satisfied with going to
and fro along the seaboard, and took their smaller craft and voyaged
inland, swarming up the French rivers by hundreds, devastating the
country everywhere they went.
In 845 they went up the Seine to Paris, and plundered [Pg020] Paris
too, more than once; and forty years later, forty thousand of them,
led by a man named Siegfried, went up from Rouen with seven hundred
vessels and besieged the poor capital for ten months, until they were
bought off at the enormous price of the whole province of Burgundy.
See what power that was to put into the hands of the sea-kings' crews!
But no price was too dear, the people of Paris must have thought, to
get rid of such an army in the heart of Gaul. They could make whatever
terms they pleased by this time, and there is a tradition that a few
years afterward some bands of Danish rovers, who perhaps had gone to
take a look at Burgundy, pushed on farther and settled themselves in
Switzerland.
From the settlements they had made in the province of Aquitania, they
had long before this gone on to Spain, because the rich Spanish cities
were too tempting to be resisted. They had forced their way all along
the shore of the sea, and in at the gate of the Mediterranean; they
wasted and made havoc as they went, in Spain, Africa, and the Balearic
islands, and pushed their way up the Rhone to Valence. We can trace
them in Italy, where they burned the cities of Pisa and Lucca, and
even in Greece, where at last the pirate ships were turned about,
and set their sails for home. Think of those clumsy little ships out
on such a journey with their single masts and long oars! Think of
the stories that must have been told from town to town after these
strange, wild Northern foes had come and gone! They were like hawks
that came swooping down out of the sky, and though [Pg021] Spain and
Rome and Greece were well enough acquainted with wars, they must have
felt when the Northmen came, as we should feel if some wild beast from
the heart of the forest came biting and tearing its way through a city
street at noontime.
[Illustration: NORSE BUCKLE WITH BYZANTINE DECORATION.]
The whole second half of the ninth century is taken up with the
histories of these invasions. We must follow for a while the progress
of events in Gaul, or France as we call it now, though it was made
up [Pg022] then of a number of smaller kingdoms. The result of the
great siege of Paris was only a settling of affairs with the Northmen
for the time being; one part of the country was delivered from them
at the expense of another. They could be bought off and bribed for a
time, but there was never to be any such thing as their going back
to their own country and letting France alone for good and all. But
as they gained at length whole tracts of country, instead of the
little wealth of a few men to take away in their ships as at first,
they began to settle down in their new lands and to become conquerors
and colonists instead of mere plunderers. Instead of continually
ravaging and attacking the kingdoms, they slowly became the owners
and occupiers of the conquered territory; they pushed their way from
point to point. At first, as you have seen already, they trusted to
their ships, and always left their wives and children at home in the
North countries, but as time went on, they brought their families with
them and made new homes, for which they would have to fight many a
battle yet. It would be no wonder if the women had become possessed
by a love for adventure too, and had insisted upon seeing the lands
from which the rich booty was brought to them, and that they had been
saying for a long time: "Show us the places where the grapes grow
and the fruit-trees bloom, where men build great houses and live in
them splendidly. We are tired of seeing only the long larchen beams
of their high roofs, and the purple and red and gold cloths, and the
red wine and yellow wheat that you bring away. Why should we not
go [Pg023] to live in that country, instead of your breaking it to
pieces, and going there so many of you, every year, only to be slain
as its enemies? We are tired of our sterile Norway and our great
Danish deserts of sand, of our cold winds and wet weather, and our
long winters that pass by so slowly while the fleets are gone. We
would rather see Seville and Paris themselves, than only their gold
and merchandise and the rafters of their churches that you bring home
for ship timber." One of the old ballads of love and valor lingers yet
that the women used to sing: "/Myklagard and the land of Spain lie
wide away o'er the lee/." There was room enough in those far countries
where the ships went—why then do they stay at home in Friesland and
Norway and Denmark, crowded and hungry kingdoms that they were, of the
wandering sea-kings?
As the years went on, the Northern lands themselves became more
peaceful, and the voyages of the pirates came to an end. Though the
Northmen still waged wars enough, they were Danes or Norwegians
against England and France, one realm against another, instead of
every man plundering for himself.
The kingdoms of France had been divided and weakened, and, while
we find a great many fine examples of resistance, and some great
victories over the Northmen, they were not pushed out and checked
altogether. Instead, they gradually changed into Frenchmen themselves,
different from other Frenchmen only in being more spirited, vigorous,
and alert. They inspired every new growth of the [Pg024] religion,
language, or manners, with their own splendid vitality. They were like
plants that have grown in dry, thin soil, transplanted to a richer
spot of ground, and sending out fresh shoots in the doubled moisture
and sunshine. And presently we shall find the Northman becoming the
Norman of history. As the Northman, almost the first thing we admire
about him is his character, his glorious energy; as the Norman, we see
that energy turned into better channels, and bringing a new element
into the progress of civilization.
The Northmen had come in great numbers to settle in Gaul, but they
were scattered about, and so it was easier to count themselves into
the population, instead of keeping themselves separate. Some of
these settlements were a good way inland, and everywhere they mixed
their language with the French for a time, but finally dropped it
almost altogether. In a very few years, comparatively speaking, they
were not Danes or Norwegians at all; they had forgotten their old
customs, and even their pagan gods of the Northern countries from
which their ancestors had come. At last we come to a time when we
begin to distinguish some of the chieftains and other brave men from
the crowd of their companions. The old chronicles of Scandinavia and
Denmark and Iceland cannot be relied upon like the histories of Greece
or Rome. The student who tries to discover when this man was born,
and that man died, from a saga, is apt to be disappointed. The more
he studies these histories of the sea-kings and their countries, the
more distinct picture he gets of a [Pg025] great crowd of men taking
their little ships every year and leaving the rocky, barren coasts
of their own country to go southward. As we have seen, France and
England and Flanders and Spain were all richer and more fruitful, and
they would go ashore, now at this harbor, now that, to steal all they
could, even the very land they trod upon. Now and then we hear the
name of some great man, a stronger and more daring sailor and fighter
than the rest. There is a dismal story of a year of famine in France,
when the north wind blew all through the weeks of a leafless spring,
the roots of the vines were frozen, and the fruit blossoms chilled
to the heart. The wild creatures of the forest, crazed with hunger,
ventured into the farms and villages, and the monks fasted more than
they thought best, and prayed the more heartily for succor in their
poverty. But down from the North came Ragnar Lodbrok, the great Danish
captain, with his stout-built vessels, "ten times twelve dragons of
the sea," and he and his men, in their shaggy fur garments, went
crashing through the ice of the French rivers, to make an easy prey
of the hungry Frenchmen—to conquer everywhere they went. And for one
Ragnar Lodbrok, read fifty or a hundred; for, though there are many
stories told about him, just as we think that we can picture him and
his black-sailed ships in our minds, we are told that this is only a
legend, and that there never was any Ragnar Lodbrok at all who was
taken by his enemies and thrown into a horrible dungeon filled with
vipers, to sing a gallant saga about his life and misdeeds. But if
there were no hero of [Pg026] this name, we put together little by
little from one hint and another legend a very good idea of those
quarrelsome times, when to be great it was necessary to be a pirate,
and to kill as many men and steal as much of their possession as one
possibly could. These Northmen set as bad an example as any traveller
since the world began. More than ninety times we can hear of them in
France and Spain and the north of Germany, and always burning and
ruining, not only the walled cities, but all the territory round
about. Shipload after shipload left their bones on foreign soil; again
and again companies of them were pushed out of France and England and
defeated, but from generation to generation the quarrels went on, and
we begin to wonder why the sea-coasts were not altogether deserted,
until we remember that the spirit of those days was warlike, and
that, while the people were plundered one year, they succeeded in
proving themselves masters the next, and so life was filled with hope
of military glory, and the tide of conquest swept now north, and now
south.
From the fjords of Norway a splendid, hardy race of young men were
pushing their boats to sea every year. Remember that their own country
was a very hard one to live in with its long, dark winters, its rainy,
short summers when the crops would not ripen, its rocky, mountainous
surface, and its natural poverty. Even now if it were not for the
fishing the Norwegian peasant people would find great trouble in
gaining food enough. In early days, when the tilling of the ground was
less understood, it must [Pg027] have been hard work tempting those
yellow-haired, eager young adventurers to stay at home, when they
could live on the sea in their rude, stanch little ships, as well as
on land; when they were told great stories of the sunshiny, fruitful
countries that lay to the south, where plenty of food and bright
clothes and gold and silver might be bought in the market of war for
the blows of their axes and the strength and courage of their right
arms. No wonder that it seemed a waste of time to stay at home in
Norway!
And as for the old men who had been to the fights and followed the
sea-kings and brought home treasures, we are sure that they were
always talking over their valiant deeds and successes, and urging
their sons and grandsons to go to the South. The women wished their
husbands and brothers to be as brave as the rest, while they cared
a great deal for the rich booty which was brought back from such
expeditions. What a hard thing it must have seemed to the boys who
were sick or lame or deformed, but who had all the desire for glory
that belonged to any of the vikings, and yet must stay at home with
the women!
When we think of all this, of the barren country, and the crowd of
people who lived in it, of the natural relish for a life of adventure,
and the hope of splendid riches and fame, what wonder that in all
these hundreds of years the Northmen followed their barbarous trade
and went a-ravaging, and finally took great pieces of the Southern
countries for their own and held them fast.
As we go on with this story of the Normans, you [Pg028] will watch
these followers of the sea-kings keeping always some trace of their
old habits and customs. Indeed you may know them yet. The Northmen
were vikings, always restless and on the move, stealing and fighting
their way as best they might, daring, adventurous. The Norman of the
twelfth century was a crusader. A madness to go crusading against
the Saracen possessed him, not alone for religion's sake or for the
holy city of Jerusalem, and so in all the ages since one excuse after
another has set the same wild blood leaping and made the Northern
blue eyes shine. Look where you may, you find Englishmen of the same
stamp—Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Nelson, Stanley and Dr. Livingstone
and General Gordon, show the old sea-kings' courage and recklessness.
Snorro Sturleson's best saga has been followed by Drayton's "Battle of
Agincourt" and Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Ballad
of Sir Richard Grenville." I venture to say that there is not an
English-speaking boy or girl who can hear that sea-king's ballad this
very day in peaceful England or America without a great thrill of
sympathy.
"At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away:
'Spanish ships of war at sea! We have sighted fifty-three.'"——
Go and read that; the whole of the spirited story; but there is one
thing I ask you to remember first in all this long story of the
Normans: that however much it seems to you a long chapter of bloody
wars and miseries and treacheries that get to be almost [Pg029]
tiresome in their folly and brutality; however little profit it may
seem sometimes to read about the Norman wars, yet everywhere you will
catch a gleam of the glorious courage and steadfastness that have won
not only the petty principalities and dukedoms of those early days,
but the great English and American discoveries and inventions and
noble advancement of all the centuries since.
On the island of Vigr, in the Folden-fiord, the peasants still show
some rude hollows in the shore where the ships of Rolf-Ganger were
drawn up in winter, and whence he launched them to sail away to the
Hebrides and France—the beginning of as great changes as one man's
voyage ever wrought.
[Illustration]
[Pg030]
[Illustration]
II.
ROLF THE GANGER.
"Far had I wandered from this northern shore,
Far from the bare heights and the wintry seas,
Dreaming of these
No more." —A. F.
Toward the middle of the ninth century Harold Haarfager did great
things in Norway. There had always been a great number of petty kings
or jarls, who were sometimes at peace with each other, but oftener
at war, and at last this Harold was strong enough to conquer all the
rest and unite all the kingdoms under his own rule. It was by no means
an easy piece of business, for twelve years went by before it was
finished, and not only Norway itself, but the Orkneys, and Shetlands,
and Hebrides, and Man were conquered too, and the lawless vikings were
obliged to keep good order. The story was that the king had loved
a fair maiden of the North, called Gyda, but when he asked her to
marry him she had answered that she would not marry a jarl; let him
make himself a king like Gorm of Denmark! At this proud answer Harold
loved her more than ever, and vowed that he would never cut his hair
[Pg031] until he had conquered all the jarls and could claim Gyda's
hand.
[Illustration: A NORWEGIAN FIORD.]
The flourishing shock of his yellow hair became renowned; we can
almost see it ourselves waving prosperously through his long series of
battles. When he was king at last he chose Jarl Rögnwald of [Pg032]
Möre to cut the shining locks because he was the most valiant and
best-beloved of all his tributaries.
Jarl Rögnwald had a family of sons who were noted men in their day.
One was called Turf-Einar, because he went to the Orkney islands and
discovered great deposits of peat of which he taught the forestless
people to make use, so that they and their descendants were grateful
and made him their chief hero. Another son was named Rolf, and he
was lord of three small islands far up toward the North. He followed
the respected profession of sea-robber, but though against foreign
countries it was the one profession for a jarl to follow, King Harold
was very stringent in his laws that no viking should attack any of his
own neighbors or do any mischief along the coasts of Norway. These
laws Rolf was not careful about keeping.
There was still another brother, who resented Haarfager's tyrannies
so much that he gathered a fine heroic company of vikings and more
peaceable citizens and went to Iceland and settled there. This
company came in time to be renowned as the beginners of one of the
most remarkable republics the world has ever known, with a unique
government by its aristocracy, and a natural development of literature
unsurpassed in any day. There, where there were no foreign customs to
influence or pervert, the Norse nature and genius had their perfect
flowering.
Rolf is said to have been so tall that he used to march afoot whenever
he happened to be ashore, rather than ride the little Norwegian
horses. He was nicknamed Gang-Roll (or Rolf), which means [Pg033]
Rolf the Walker, or Ganger. There are two legends which give the
reason why he came away from Norway—one that he killed his brother
in an unfortunate quarrel, and fled away to England, whither he was
directed by a vision or dream; that the English helped him to fit out
his ships and to sail away again toward France.
The other story, which seems more likely, makes it appear that the
king was very angry because Rolf plundered a Norwegian village when
he was coming home short of food from a long cruise in the Baltic
Sea. The peasants complained to Harold Haarfager, who happened to be
near, and he called the great Council of Justice and banished his old
favorite for life.
Whether these stories are true or not, at any rate Rolf came southward
an outlaw, and presently we hear of him in the Hebrides off the coast
of Scotland, where a company of Norwegians had settled after King
Harold's conquests. These men were mostly of high birth and great
ability, and welcomed the new-comer who had so lately been their
enemy. We are not surprised when we find that they banded together as
pirates and fitted out a famous expedition. Perhaps they did not find
living in the Hebrides very luxurious, and thought it necessary to
collect some merchandise and money, or some slaves to serve them, so
they fell back upon their familiar customs.
Rolf's vessels and theirs made a formidable fleet, but although they
agreed that there should not be any one chosen as captain, or admiral,
as we should [Pg034] say nowadays, we do not hear much of any of the
confederates except Rolf the Ganger, so we may be sure he was most
powerful and took command whether anybody was willing or not.
They came round the coast of Scotland, and made first for Holland,
but as all that part of the country had too often been devastated
and had become very poor, the ships were soon put to sea again. And
next we find them going up the River Seine in France, which was a
broader river then than it is now, and the highway toward Paris and
other cities, which always seemed to offer great temptations to the
vikings. Charles the Simple was king of France by right, but the only
likeness to his ancestor Charlemagne was in his name, and to that his
subjects had added the Simple, or the Fool, by which we can tell that
he was not a very independent or magnificent sort of monarch. The
limits of the kingdom of France, at that time, had just been placed
between the Loire and the Meuse, after many years of fighting between
the territories, and Charles was still contesting his right to the
crown. The wide empire of Charlemagne had not been divided at once
into distinct smaller kingdoms, but the heirs had each taken what
they could hold and fought for much else beside. Each pretended to be
the lawful king and was ready to hold all he could win. So there was
naturally little good-feeling between them, and not one could feel
sure that his neighbor would even help him to fight against a common
enemy. It was "Every one for himself, and devil take the hindmost!"
to quote the old proverb, which seldom has so literal an [Pg035]
application. King Charles the Simple, besides defending himself from
his outside enemies, was also much troubled by a pretender to the
crown, and was no doubt at his wit's end to know how to manage the
province of Neustria, lately so vexed by the foreign element within
its borders. It might be easy work for the troop of Northmen that had
followed Rolf. Besides the fact that they need not fear any alliance
against them, and had only Charles the Simple for their enemy, one of
his own enemies was quite likely to form a league with them against
him.
The fleet from the Hebrides had come to anchor on its way up the Seine
at a town called Jumièges, five leagues from Rouen. There was no army
near by to offer any hindrance, and the work of pillaging the country
was fairly begun without hindrance when the news of the incursion was
told in Rouen. There the people were in despair, for it was useless
to think of defending their broken walls; the city was already half
ruined from such invasions. At any hour they might find themselves
at the mercy of these new pirates. But in such dreadful dismay the
archbishop, a man of great courage and good sense, whom we must honor
heartily, took upon himself the perilous duty of going to the camp
and trying to save the city by making a treaty. He had heard stories
enough, we may be sure, of the cruel tortures of Christian priests by
these Northern pagans, who still believed in the gods Thor and Odin
and in Valhalla, and that the most fortunate thing, for a man's life
in the next world, was that he should die in battle in this world.
[Pg036]
There was already a great difference in the hopes and plans of the
Northmen: they listened to the archbishop instead of killing him at
once, and Rolf and his companions treated him and his interpreter
with some sort of courtesy. Perhaps the bravery of the good man won
their hearts by its kinship to their daring; perhaps they were already
planning to seize upon a part of France and to forsake the Hebrides
altogether, and Rolf had a secret design of founding a kingdom for
himself that should stand steadfast against enemies. When the good
priest went back to Rouen, I think the people must have been surprised
that he had kept his head upon his shoulders, and still more filled
with wonder because he was able to tell them that he had made a truce,
that he had guaranteed the assailants admission to the city, but that
they had promised not to do any harm whatever. Who knows if there were
not many voices that cried out that it was only delivering them to the
cruel foe, with their wives and children and all that they had in the
world. When the ships came up the river and were anchored before one
of the city gates near the Church of St. Morin, and the tall chieftain
and his comrades began to come ashore, what beating hearts, what
careful peeping out of windows there must have been in Rouen that day!
But the chiefs had given their word of honor, and they kept it well;
they walked all about the city, and examined all the ramparts, the
wharves, and the supply of water, and gave every thing an unexpectedly
kind approval. More than this, they said that Rouen [Pg037] should be
their head-quarters and their citadel. This was not very welcome news,
but a thousand times better than being sacked and ravaged and burnt,
and when the ships had gone by up the river, I dare say that more than
one voice spoke up for Rolf the Ganger, and gratefully said that he
might not prove the worst of masters after all. Some of the citizens
even joined the ranks of the sea-king's followers when they went on in
quest of new adventure up the Seine.
Just where the river Eure joins the Seine, on the point between the
two streams, the Norwegians built a great camp, and fortified it,
and there they waited for the French army. For once King Charles was
master of his whole kingdom, and he had made up his mind to resist
this determined invasion. Pirates were bad enough, but pirates who
were evidently bent upon greater mischief than usual could not be sent
away too soon. It was not long before the French troops, under the
command of a general called Regnauld, who bore the title of Duke of
France, made their appearance opposite the encampment, on the right
bank of the Eure.
The French counts had rallied bravely; they made a religious duty of
it, for were not these Norwegians pagans? and pagans deserved to be
killed, even if they had not come to steal from a Christian country.
There was one count who had been a pagan himself years before, but he
had become converted, and was as famous a Christian as he had been
sea-king. He had declared that he was tired of leading a life of wild
adventure, and had made peace with France [Pg038] twenty years before
this time; and the kingdom had given him the county of Chartres—so he
must have been a powerful enemy. Naturally he was thought to be the
best man to confer with his countrymen. There was a council of war
in the French camp, and this Hasting (of whom you will hear again by
and by) advised that they should confer with Rolf before they risked
a battle with him. Perhaps the old sea-king judged his tall successor
by his own experience, and thought he might like to be presented with
a county too, as the price of being quiet and letting the frightened
Seine cities alone. Some of the other lords of the army were very
suspicious and angry about this proposal, but Hasting had his way, and
went out with two attendants who could speak Danish.
The three envoys made their short journey to the river-side as quickly
as possible, and presently they stood on the bank of the Eure. Across
the river were the new fortifications, and some of the sea-kings' men
were busy with their armor on the other shore.
"Gallant soldiers!" cries the Count of Chartres; "what is your
chieftain's name?"
"We have no lord over us," they shouted back again; "we are all equal."
"For what end have you come to France?"
"To drive out the people who are here, or make them our subjects, and
to make ourselves a new country," says the Northman. "Who are you?—How
is it that you speak our own tongue?"
"You know the story of Hasting," answers the [Pg039] count, not
without pride—"Hasting, the great pirate, who scoured the seas with
his crowd of ships, and did so much evil in this kingdom?"
"Aye, we have heard that, but Hasting has made a bad end to so good
a beginning"; to which the count had nothing to say; he was Lord of
Chartres now, and liked that very well.
"Will you submit to King Charles?" he shouts again, and more men
are gathering on the bank to listen. "Will you give your faith and
service, and take from him gifts and honor?"
"No, no!" they answer; "we will not submit to King Charles—go back,
and tell him so, you messenger, and say that we claim the rule and
dominion of what we win by our own strength and our swords."
But the Frenchmen called Hasting a traitor when he brought this
answer back to camp, and told his associates not to try to force the
pagan entrenchments. A traitor, indeed! That was too much for the old
viking's patience. For all that, the accusation may have held a grain
of truth. Nobody knows the whole of his story, but he may have felt
the old fire and spirit of his youth when he saw the great encampment
and heard the familiar tones of his countrymen. It may be wrong to
suspect that he went to join them; but, at all events, Count Chartres
left the French camp indignantly, and nobody knows where he went,
either then or afterward, for he forsook his adopted country and left
it to its fate. They found out that he had given good advice to those
proud comrades of his, for when they attacked the enemy between the
rivers they were cut to [Pg040] pieces; even the duke of France,
their bold leader, was killed by a poor fisherman of Rouen who had
followed the Northern army.
Now there was nothing to hinder Rolf, who begins to be formally
acknowledged as the leader, from going up the Seine as fast or as slow
as he pleased, and after a while the army laid siege to Paris, but
this was unsuccessful. One of the chiefs was taken prisoner, and to
release him they promised a year's truce to King Charles, and after
a while we find them back at Rouen again. They had been ravaging the
country to the north of Paris, very likely in King Charles's company,
for there had been a new division of the kingdom, and the northern
provinces no longer called him their sovereign. Poor Charles the
Simple! he seems to have had a very hard time of it with his unruly
subjects, and his fellow-knights and princes too, who took advantage
of him whenever they could find a chance.
By this time we know enough of Rolf and his friends not to expect
them to remain quiet very long at Rouen. Away they went to Bayeux,
a rich city, and assaulted that and killed Berenger, the Count of
Bayeux, and gained a great heap of booty. We learn a great deal of the
manners and fashions of that early day when we find out that Berenger
had a beautiful daughter, and when the treasure was divided she was
considered as part of it and fell to Rolf's lot. He immediately
married her with apparent satisfaction and a full performance of
Scandinavian rites and ceremonies.
After this the Northmen went on to Evreux and [Pg041] to some other
cities, and their dominion was added to, day by day. They began to
feel a certain sort of respect and care for the poor provinces now
that they belonged to themselves. And they ceased to be cruel to the
unresisting people, and only taxed them with a certain yearly tribute.
Besides this, they chose Rolf for their king, but this northern title
was changed before long for the French one of duke. Rolf must have
been very popular with his followers. We cannot help a certain liking
for him ourselves or being pleased when we know that his new subjects
liked him heartily. They had cursed him very often, to be sure, and
feared his power when he was only a pirate, but they were glad enough
when they gained so fearless and strong a man for their protector.
Whatever he did seemed to be with a far-sightedness and better object
than they had been used to in their rulers. He was a man of great
gifts and uncommon power, and he laid his plans deeper and was not
without a marked knowledge of the rude politics of that time—a good
governor, which was beginning to be needed more in France than a good
fighter even.
Fighting was still the way of gaining one's ends, and so there was
still war, but it was better sustained and more orderly. These
Northerners, masters now of a good piece of territory, linked
themselves with some of the smaller scattered settlements of Danes at
the mouth of the river Loire, and went inland on a great expedition.
They could not conquer Paris this time either, nor Dijon nor Chartres.
The great walls of these cities and several others were not to
[Pg042] be beaten down, but there is a long list of weaker towns that
fell into their hands, and at last the French people could bear the
sieges no longer, and not only the peasants but the nobles and priests
clamored for deliverance. King Charles may have been justly called the
Simple, but he showed very good sense now. "We shall starve to death,"
the people were saying. "Nobody dares to work in the field or the
vineyard; there is not an acre of corn from Blois to Senlis. Churches
are burnt and people are murdered; the Northmen do as they please.
See, it is all the fault of a weak king!"
King Charles roused himself to do a sensible thing; he may have
planned it as a stroke of policy, and meant to avail himself of the
Northmen's strength to keep himself on his throne. He consulted his
barons and bishops, and they agreed with him that he must form a
league with their enemies, and so make sure of peace. As we read the
story of those days, we are hardly sure that Rolf was the subject
after this rather than the king. He did homage to King Charles, and
he received the sovereignty over most of what was to be called the
dukedom of Normandy. The league was little more than an obligation of
mutual defence, and King Charles was lucky to call Rolf his friend
and ally. The vigorous Norwegian was likely to keep his word better
than the French dukes and barons, who broke such promises with perfect
ease. Rolf's duty and his interest led him nearly in the same path,
but he was evidently disposed to do what was right according to his
way of seeing right and wrong. [Pg043]
All this time he had been living with his wife Popa, the daughter
of Count Berenger, who was slain at Bayeux. They had two
children—William, and a daughter, Adela. According to the views of
King Charles and the Christian church of that time, the marriage
performed with Scandinavian rites was no marriage at all, though Rolf
loved his wife devotedly and was training his son with great care, so
that he might by and by take his place, and be no inferior, either, of
the young French princes who were his contemporaries. As one historian
says, the best had the best then, and this young William was being
made a scholar as fast as possible.
For all this, when the king's messenger came to Rolf and made him an
offer of Gisla, the king's daughter, for a wife, with the seigneury of
all the lands between the river Epte and the border of Brittany, if he
would only become a Christian and live in peace with the kingdom, Rolf
listened with pleasure. He did not repeat now the words that Hasting
heard on the bank of the Eure, "We will obey no one!" while with
regard to the marriage he evidently felt free to contract a new one.
It was all a great step upward, and Rolf's clear eyes saw that. If
he were not a Christian he could not be the equal of the lords of
France. He was not a mere adventurer any longer, the leader of a
band of pirates; other ambitions had come to him since he had been
governor of his territory. The pagan fanaticism and superstition of
his companions were more than half extinguished already; the old myths
of the Northern gods had not flourished in [Pg044] this new soil. At
last, after much discussion and bargaining about the land that should
be given, Rolf gave his promise once for all, and now we may begin to
call him fairly the Duke of Normandy and his people the Normans; the
old days of the Northmen in France had come to an end. For a good many
years the neighboring provinces called the new dukedom "the pirate's
land" and "the Northman's land," but the great Norman race was in
actual existence now, and from this beginning under Rolf, the tall
Norwegian sea-king, has come one of the greatest forces and powers of
the civilized world.
I must give you some account of the ceremonies at this establishment
of the new duke, for it was a grand occasion, and the king's train
of noblemen and gentlemen, and all the Norman officers and statesmen
went out to do honor to that day. The place was in a village called
St. Claire, on the river Epte, and the French pitched their tents
on one bank of the river and the Normans on the other. Then, at the
hour appointed, Rolf came over to meet the king, and did what would
have astonished his father Rögnwald and his viking ancestors very
much. He put his hand between the king's hands and said: "From this
time forward I am your vassal and man, and I give my oath that I will
faithfully protect your life, your limbs, and your royal honor."
After this the king and his nobles formally gave Rolf the title of
duke or count, and swore that they would protect him and his honor
too, and all the lands named in the treaty. But there is an old story
that, when Rolf was directed to kneel before [Pg045] King Charles and
kiss his foot in token of submission, he was a rebellious subject at
once. Perhaps he thought that some of his French rivals had revived
this old Frankish custom on purpose to humble his pride, but he said
nothing, only beckoned quietly to one of his followers to come and
take his place. Out steps the man. I do not doubt that his eyes were
dancing, and that his yellow beard hid a laughing mouth; he did not
bend his knee at all, but caught the king's foot, and lifted it so
high that the poor monarch fell over backward, and all the pirates
gave a shout of laughter. They did not think much of Charles the
Simple, those followers of Rolf the Ganger.
Afterward the marriage took place at Rouen, and the high barons of
France went there with the bride, though it was not a very happy day
for Gisla, whom Rolf never lived with or loved. He was a great many
years older than she, and when she died he took Popa, the first wife
back again—if, indeed, he had not considered her the true wife all the
time. Then on that wedding-day he became a Christian too, though there
must have been more change of words and manner than of Rolf's own
thoughts. He received the archbishop's lessons with great amiability,
and gave part of his lands to the church before he divided the rest
among his new-made nobles. They put a long white gown or habit on
him, such as newly baptized persons wore, and he must have been an
amusing sight to see, all those seven days that he kept it on, tall
old seafarer that he was, but he preserved a famous dignity, and gave
estates to [Pg046] seven churches in succession on each day of that
solemn week. Then he put on his every-day clothes again, and gave his
whole time to his political affairs and the dividing out of Normandy
among the Norwegian chieftains who had come with him on that lucky
last voyage.
It is said that Rolf himself was the founder of the system of
landholding according to the custom of feudal times, and of a regular
system of property rights, and customs of hiring and dividing the
landed property, but there are no state papers or charters belonging
to that early time, as there are in England, so nobody can be very
sure. At any rate, he is said to have been the best ruler possible,
and his province was a model for others, though it was the most modern
in Gaul. He caused the dilapidated towns and cities to be rebuilt, and
the churches were put into good repair and order. There are parts of
some of the Rouen churches standing yet, that Rolf rebuilt.
There is a great temptation to linger and find out all we can of the
times of this first Count of Normandy—so many later traits and customs
date back to Rolf's reign; and all through this story of the Normans
we shall find a likeness to the first leader, and trace his influence.
His own descendants inherited many of his gifts of character—a
readiness of thought and speech; clear, bright minds, and vigor of
action. Even those who were given over to ways of vice and shame, had
a cleverness and attractiveness that made their friends hold to them,
in spite of their sins and treacheries. A great deal was thought of
learning and scholarship among the nobles and gentle folk of [Pg047]
that day, and Rolf had caught eagerly at all such advantages, even
while he trusted most to his Northern traditions of strength and
courage. If he had thought these were enough to win success, and had
brought up his boy as a mere pirate and fighter, it would have made a
great difference in the future of the Norman people and their rulers.
The need of a good education was believed in, and held as a sort of
family doctrine, as long as Rolf's race existed, but you will see in
one after another of these Norman counts the nature of the sea-kings
mixed with their later learning and accomplishments.
We cannot help being a little amused, however, when we find that
young William, the grandson of old Rögnvald, loved his books so well
that he begged his father to let him enter a monastery. The wise,
good man Botho, who was his tutor, had taught him to be proud of his
other grandfather, Count Berenger, who belonged to one of the most
illustrious French families, and taught him also to follow the example
of the good clergymen of Normandy, as well as the great conquerors and
chieftains. By and by we shall see that he loved to do good, and to do
works of mercy, though his people called him William Longsword, and
followed him to the wars.
Normandy was wild enough when Rolf came to rule there, but before he
died the country had changed very much for the better. He was very
careful to protect the farmers, and such laws were made, and kept,
too, that robbery was almost unknown throughout the little kingdom.
The peasants could leave their oxen or their tools in the [Pg048]
field now, and if by chance they were stolen, the duke himself was
responsible for the loss. A pretty story is told of Rolf that has also
been told of other wise rulers. He had gone out hunting one day, and
after the sport, while he and his companions were resting and having
a little feast as they sat on the grass, Rolf said he would prove the
orderliness and trustiness of his people. So he took off the two gold
bracelets which were a badge of his rank, and reached up and hung them
on a tree close by, and there they were, safe and shining, a long time
afterward, when he went to seek them. Perhaps this story is only a
myth, though the tale is echoed in other countries—England, Ireland,
and Lombardy, and others beside. At any rate, it gives an expression
of the public safety and order, and the people's gratitude to their
good kings. Rolf brought to his new home some fine old Scandinavian
customs, for his own people were knit together with close bonds in
Norway. If a farmer's own servants or helpers failed him for any
reason, he could demand the help of his neighbors without paying
them, and they all came and helped him gather his harvest. Besides,
the law punished nothing so severely as the crime of damaging or
stealing from a growing crop. The field was said to be under God's
lock, with heaven for its roof, though there might be only a hedge for
its wall. If a man stole from another man's field, and took the ripe
corn into his own barn, he paid for it with his life. This does not
match very well with the sea-kings' exploits abroad, but they were
very strict rulers, and very honest [Pg049] among themselves at home.
One familiar English word of ours—hurrah,—is said to date from Rolf's
reign. /Rou/ the Frenchmen called our Rolf; and there was a law that
if a man was in danger himself, or caught his enemy doing any damage,
he could raise the cry /Ha Rou!/ and so invoke justice in Duke Rolf's
name. At the sound of the cry, everybody was bound, on the instant, to
give chase to the offender, and whoever failed to respond to the cry
of /Ha Rou!/ must pay a heavy fine to Rolf himself. This began the old
English fashion of "hue and cry," as well as our custom of shouting
Hurrah! when we are pleased and excited.
We cannot help being surprised to see how quickly the Normans became
Frenchmen in their ways of living and even speaking. There is hardly a
trace of their Northern language except a few names of localities left
in Normandy. Once settled in their new possessions, Rolf and all his
followers seem to have been as eager for the welfare of Normandy as
they were ready to devastate it before. They were proud not of being
Norsemen but of being Normans. Otherwise their country could not have
done what it did in the very next reign to Rolf's, nor could Rouen
have become so much like a French city even in his own lifetime. This
was work worthy of his power, to rule a people well, and lift them
up toward better living and better things. His vigor and quickness
made him able to seize upon the best traits and capabilities of his
new countrymen, and enforce them as patterns and examples, with no
tolerance of their faults. [Pg050]
From the viking's ships which had brought Rolf and his confederates,
all equal, from the Hebrides, it is a long step upward to the Norman
landholders and quiet citizens with their powerful duke in his palace
at Rouen. He had shared the lands of Normandy, as we have seen, with
his companions, and there was a true aristocracy among them—a rule of
the best, for that is what aristocracy really means. No doubt there
was sin and harm enough under the new order of things, but we can see
that there was a great advance in its first duke's reign, even if we
cannot believe that all the fine stories are true that his chroniclers
have told.
Rolf died in 927, and was a pious Christian according to his friends,
and had a lingering respect for his heathen idols according to his
enemies. He was an old man, and had been a brave man, and he is
honored to this day for his justice and his courage in that stormy
time when he lived. Some say that he was forty years a pirate before
he came to Normandy, and looking back on these days of seafaring and
robbery and violence must have made him all the more contented with
his pleasant fields and their fruit-trees and waving grain; with his
noble city of Rouen, and his gentle son William, who was the friend of
the priests.
Rolf became very feeble in body and mind, and before his death he gave
up the rule of the duchy to his son. He lingered for several years,
but we hear nothing more of him except that when he lay dying he had
terrible dreams of his old pirate days, and was troubled by visions of
his slaughtered victims [Pg051] and the havoc made by the long-ships.
We are glad to know that he waked from these sorrows long enough to
give rich presents to the church and the poor, which comforted him
greatly and eased his unhappy conscience. He was buried in his city
of Rouen, in the cathedral, and there is his tomb still with a figure
of him in stone—an old tired man with a furrowed brow; the strength
of his fourscore years had become only labor and sorrow, but he looks
like the Norseman that he was in spite of the ducal robes of French
Normandy. There was need enough of bravery in the man who should fill
his place. The wars still went on along the borders, and there must
have been fear of new trouble in the duchy when this old chieftain
Rolf had lain down to die, and his empty armor was hung high in the
palace hall.
[Illustration]
[Pg052]
[Illustration]
III.
WILLIAM LONGSWORD.
"For old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago." —WORDSWORTH.
Before we follow the fortunes of the new duke, young William
Longsword, we must take a look at France and see what traditions and
influences were going to affect our colony of Northmen from that
side, and what relations they had with their neighbors. Perhaps the
best way to make every thing clear is to go back to the reign of the
Emperor Charlemagne, who inherited a great kingdom, and added to it
by his wars and statesmanship until he was crowned at Rome, in the
year 800, emperor not only of Germany and Gaul, but of the larger part
of Italy and the northeastern part of Spain. Much of this territory
had shared in the glories of the Roman Empire and had fallen with it.
But Charlemagne was equal to restoring many lost advantages, being
a man of great power and capacity, who found time, while his great
campaigns were going on, to do a great deal for the schools of his
country. He even founded a sort of normal school, where teachers were
fitted for their work, and his daughters were [Pg053] busy in copying
manuscripts; the emperor himself was fond of being read to when he was
at his meals, and used to get up at midnight to watch the stars. Some
of the interesting stories about him may not be true, but we can be
sure that he was a great general and a masterly governor and lawgiver,
and a good deal of a scholar. Like Rolf, he was one of the men who
mark as well as make a great change in the world's affairs, and in
whose time civilization takes a long step forward. When we know that
it took him between thirty and forty years to completely conquer the
Saxons, who lived in the northern part of his country, and we read the
story of the great battle of Roncesvalles in which the Basque people
won; when we follow Charlemagne (the great Charles, as his people love
to call him) on these campaigns which take up almost all his history,
we cannot help seeing that his enemies fought against the new order
of things that he represented. It was not only that they did not want
Charlemagne for their king, but they did not wish to be Christians
either, or to forsake their own religion and their own ideas for his.
When he died he was master of a great association of countries which
for years yet could not come together except in name, because of their
real unlikeness and jealousy of each other. Charlemagne had managed to
rule them all, for his sons and officers, whom he had put in command
of the various provinces, were all dictated to by him, and were not
in the least independent of his oversight. His fame was widespread.
Embassies came to him from [Pg054] distant Eastern countries, and
no doubt he felt that he was establishing a great empire for his
successors. Thirty years after he died the empire was divided into
three parts, and thirty-four years later it was all broken up in
the foolish reign of his own great-grandson, who was called Charles
also, but instead of Charles the Great became known as Charles the
Fat. From the fragments of the old empire were formed the kingdoms of
France, of Italy, and of Germany, with the less important states of
Lorraine, Burgundy, and Navarre. But although the great empire had
fallen to pieces, each fragment kept something of the new spirit that
had been forced into it by the famous emperor. For this reason there
was no corner of his wide domain that did not for many years after his
death stand in better relation to progress, and to the influence of
religion, the most potent civilizer of men.
All this time the power of the nobles had been increasing, for,
whereas, at first they had been only the officers of the king, and
were appointed to or removed from their posts at the royal pleasure,
they contrived at length to make their positions hereditary and to
establish certain rights and privileges. This was the foundation of
the feudal system, and such a growth was sure to strike deep root.
Every officer could hope to become a ruler in a small way, and to
endow his family with whatever gains and holdings he had managed to
make his own. And as these feudal chiefs soon came to value their
power, they were ready to fight, not only all together for their king
or over-lord, but for themselves; and one [Pg055] petty landholder
with his dependents would go out to fight his next neighbor, each
hoping to make the other his tributary. France proper begins to make
itself heard about in these days.
If you have read "The Story of Rome," and "The Rise and Fall of the
Roman Empire," you can trace the still earlier changes in the old
province of Gaul. The Franks had come westward, a bold association
of German tribes, and in that fifth century when the Roman rule was
overthrown, they swarmed over the frontiers and settled by hundreds
and thousands in the conquered provinces. But, strange to say, as
years went on they disappeared; not because they or their children
went away again and left Gaul to itself, but because they adopted
the ways and fashions of the country. They were still called Franks
and a part of the country was called France even, but the two races
were completely mixed together and the conquerors were as Gallic as
the conquered. They even spoke the new language; it appears like an
increase or strengthening of the Gallic race rather than a subjugation
of it, and the coming of these Franks founded, not a new province of
Germany, but the French nation.
The language was changed a good deal, for of course many Frankish or
German words were added, as Roman (or Romance) words had been added
before, to the old Gallic, and other things were changed too. In
fact we are not a bit surprised when we find that the German kings,
Charlemagne's own descendants, were looked upon as foreigners, and
some of the French leaders, the feudal lords and princes, [Pg056]
opposed themselves to their monarchs. They were brave men and ready to
fight for what they wanted. Charles the Fat could not keep himself on
his unsteady throne, and in Rolf's day France was continually at war,
sometimes at home, and almost always with the neighboring provinces
and kingdoms. Rolf's contemporary, Charles the Simple, lost his
kingship in 922, when his nobles revolted and put another leader in
his place, who was called Hugh the Great, Count of Paris. Charles the
Simple was kept a prisoner until he died, by a Count of Vermandois, of
whom he had claimed protection, and whose daughter William Longsword
had married.
There was a great deal of treachery among the French nobles. Each was
trying to make himself rich and great, and serving whatever cause
could promise most gain. There was diplomacy enough, and talking
and fighting enough, but very little loyalty and care for public
welfare. In Normandy, a movement toward better things showed itself
more and more plainly; instead of wrangling over the fragments of an
old dismembered kingdom, Rolf had been carefully building a strong
new one, and had been making and keeping laws instead of breaking
laws, and trying to make goodness and right prevail, and theft and
treachery impossible. We must not judge those days by our own, for
many things were considered right then that are wrong now; but Rolf
knew that order and bravery were good, and that learning was good, and
so he kept his dukedom quiet, though he was ready enough to fight his
enemies, and he sent his son William [Pg057] Longsword to school, and
made him a good scholar as well as soldier. This was as good training
as a young man could have in those stormy times.
Under Rolf, Normandy had held faithfully to the king, but under
his son's rule we find a long chapter of changes, for William was
constantly transferring his allegiance from king to duke. When he
succeeded his father, Normandy and France were at war—that is, Rolf
would not acknowledge any king but Charles, who was in prison, while
the usurper, Rudolph of Burgundy, was on the French throne. It is
very hard to keep track of the different parties and their leaders.
Everybody constantly changed sides, and it is not very clear what
glory there was in being a king, when the vassals were so powerful
that they could rebel against their sovereign and make war on him as
often as they pleased. Yet they were very decided about having a king,
if only to show how much greater they were by contrast. Duke Hugh of
Paris takes the most prominent place just at this time, and with his
widespread dominions and personal power and high rank, we cannot help
wondering that he did not put himself at the head of the kingdom.
Instead of that he chose to remain a subject, while he controlled
the king's actions and robbed him of his territory and kept him in
personal bondage. He had no objection to transferring his strange
loyalty from one king to another, but he would always have a king over
him, though at three different times there was nothing except his own
plans to hinder him from putting the crown of [Pg058] France upon
his own head. He had a stronger guiding principle than some of his
associates, and seems to have been a better man.
From Charles the Simple had come the lands of Normandy, and to him
the first vow of allegiance had been made, and so both Rolf and
William took his part and were enemies to his usurper and his foes.
When William came into possession of his dukedom, one of his first
acts was to do homage to his father's over-lord, and he never did
homage to Rudolph the usurper until Charles was dead, and even then
waited three years; but Rudolph was evidently glad to be friends, and
presented Longsword with a grant of the sea-coast in Brittany. The
Norman duke was a formidable rival if any trouble should arise, and
the Normans themselves were very independent in their opinions. One of
Rolf's followers had long ago told a Frenchman that his chief, who had
come to Neustria a king without a kingdom, now held his broad lands
from the sun and from God. They kept strange faith with each other in
those days. Each man had his own ambitious plans, and his leagues and
friendships were only for the sake of bringing them about. This was
not being very grateful, but Rolf's men knew that the Breton lands
were the price of peace and alliance, and not a free gift for love's
sake by any means.
As we try to puzzle out a distinct account of William's reign, we
find him sometimes the enemy of Rudolph and in league with Hugh of
Paris, sometimes he was in alliance with Rudolph, though he would not
call him king, and oftener he would have [Pg059] nothing to do with
either. It is very dull reading, except as we trace the characters of
the men themselves.
Most of the Normans had accepted Christianity many years before,
in the time of Rolf, and had been christened, but a certain number
had refused it and clung to the customs of their ancestors. These
people had formed a separate neighborhood or colony near Bayeux, and
after several generations, while they had outwardly conformed to the
prevailing observances, they still remained Northmen at heart. They
were remarkable among the other Normans for their great turbulence and
for an almost incessant opposition to the dukes, and some of them kept
the old pagan devices on their shields, and went into battle shouting
the Northern war-cry of "/Thor aide!/" instead of the pious "/Dieu
aide!/" or "/Dex aide!/" of Normandy.
Whatever relic of paganism may have clung to Rolf himself, it is
pretty certain that his son, half Frenchman by birth, was almost
wholly a Frenchman in feeling. We must remember that he was not the
son of Gisla the king's sister, however, but of Popa of Bayeux. There
was a brother or half-brother of hers called Bernard de Senlis, who
in spite of his father's murder and the unhappy beginning of their
acquaintance with Rolf, seems to have become very friendly with the
Norse chieftain.
The fortunes of war were so familiar in those days and kept so many
men at fierce enmity with each other, that we are half surprised to
come upon this sincere, kindly relationship in the story of the early
[Pg060] Normans. Even Rolf's wife's foolish little nickname, "Popa,"
under cover of which her own name has been forgotten,—this name of
puppet or little doll, gives a hint of affectionateness and a sign of
home-likeness which we should be very sorry to miss. As for Bernard
de Senlis, he protected not only the rights of Rolf's children and
grandchildren, but their very lives, and if it had not been for his
standing between them and their enemies Rolf's successors would never
have been dukes of Normandy.
With all his inherited power and his own personal bravery, William
found himself in a very hard place. He kept steadfastly to his ideas
of right and might, and one thinks that with his half French and
half Northman nature he might have understood both of the parties
that quickly began to oppose each other in Normandy. He ruled as
a French prince, and he and his followers were very eager to hold
their place in the general confederacy of France, and eager too that
Normandy should be French in religion, manners, and customs. Yet they
did not wish Normandy to be absorbed into France in any political
sense. Although there were several men of Danish birth, Rolf's old
companions, who took this view of things, and threw in their lot with
the French party, like Botho, William's old tutor, and Oslac, and
Bernard the Dane, of whom we shall hear again, there was a great body
of the Normans who rebelled and made much trouble.
William's French speech and French friends were all this time making
him distrusted and even disliked by a large portion of his own
subjects. There still [Pg061] remained a strong Northern and pagan
influence in the older parts of the Norman duchy; while in the new
lands of Brittany some of the independent Danish settlements, being
composed chiefly of the descendants of men who had forced their way
into that country before Rolf's time, were less ready for French rule
than even the Normans. Between these new allies and the disaffected
Normans themselves a grand revolt was organized under the leadership
of an independent Danish chief from one of the Breton provinces. The
rebels demanded one concession after another, and frightened Duke
William dreadfully; he even proposed to give up his duchy and to beg
the protection of his French uncle, Bernard de Senlis. We are afraid
that he had left his famous longsword at home on that campaign, until
it appears that his old counsellor, Bernard the Dane, urged him to go
back and meet the insurgents, and that a great victory was won and the
revolt ended for that time. The account of William's wonderful success
is made to sound almost miraculous by the old chronicles.
The two Norman parties held separate territories and were divided
geographically, and each party wished to keep to itself and not be
linked with the other. The Christian duke who liked French speech
and French government might keep Christian Rouen and Evreux where
Frenchmen abounded, but the heathen Danes to the westward would rather
be independent of a leader who had turned his face upon the traditions
and beliefs of his ancestors. For the time being, these rebellious
subjects must keep their grudges and bear their wrongs as best they
might, [Pg062] for their opponents were the masters now, and William
was free to aim at still greater influence in French affairs as his
dominion increased.
Through his whole life he was swayed by religious impulses, and, as
we have known, it was hard work at one time to keep him from being
a monk. Yet he was not very lavish in his presents to the church,
as a good monarch was expected to be in those days, and most of the
abbeys and cathedrals which had suffered so cruelly in the days of the
pirates were very poor still, and many were even left desolate. His
government is described as just and vigorous, and as a general thing
his subjects liked him and upheld his authority. He was very desirous
all the time to bring his people within the bounds of Christian
civilization and French law and order, yet he did not try to cast away
entirely the inherited speech or ideas of his ancestors. Of course his
treatment of the settlements to the westward and the Danish party in
his dominion must have varied at different times in his reign. Yet,
after he had made great efforts to identify himself with the French,
he still found himself looked down upon by his contemporaries and
called the Duke of the Pirates, and so in later years he concerned
himself more with his father's people, and even, so the tradition
goes, gave a new Danish colony direct from Denmark leave to settle
in Brittany. His young son Richard was put under the care, not of
French priests, but his own old tutor, Botho the Dane, and the boy and
his master were sent purposely to Bayeux, the very city which young
Richard's grandfather, Rolf, had helped to ravage. [Pg063] At Rouen
the Northman's language was already almost forgotten, but the heir to
the duchy was sent where he could hear it every day, though his good
teacher had accepted French manners and the religion of Rome. William
Longsword had become sure that there was no use in trying to be either
wholly Danish or wholly French, the true plan for a Duke of Normandy
was to be Dane and Frenchman at once. The balance seems to have swung
toward the Danish party for a time after this, and after a troubled,
bewildering reign to its very close, William died at the hands of his
enemies, who had lured him away to hold a conference with Arnulf, of
Flanders, at Picquigny, where he came to a mysterious and sudden death.
The next year, 943, was a marked one in France and began a new order
of things. There was a birth and a death which changed the current
of history. The Count of Vermandois, the same man who had kept the
prison and helped in the murder of Charles the Simple, was murdered
himself—or at least died in an unexplained and horrible way, as men
were apt to do who were called tyrants and were regicides beside. His
dominion was divided among his sons, except some parts of it that Hugh
of Paris seized. This was the death, and the birth was of a son and
heir to Hugh of Paris himself. His first wife was an Englishwoman,
Eadhild, but she had died childless, to his great sorrow. This baby
was the son of his wife Hadwisa, the daughter of King Henry of
Germany, and he was called Hugh for his father; Hugh Capet, the future
king. After this Hugh of Paris [Pg064] changed his plans and his
policy. True enough, he had never consented to being a king himself,
but it was quite another thing to hinder his son from reigning over
France by and by. Here the Frenchman begins to contrast himself more
plainly against the Frank, just as we have seen the Norman begin to
separate himself from the Northman. Under Rolf Normandy had been
steadily loyal to King Charles the Simple; under William it had
wavered between the king and the duke; under Richard we shall see
Normandy growing more French again.
Under William Longsword, now Frenchman, now Northman was coming to the
front, and everybody was ready to fight without caring so very much
what it was all about. But everywhere we find the striking figure of
the young duke carrying his great sword, that came to be the symbol of
order and peace. The golden hilt and long shining blade are familiar
enough in the story of William's life. Somehow we can hardly think of
him without his great weapon. With it he could strike a mighty blow,
and in spite of his uncommon strength, he is said to have been of a
slender, graceful figure, with beautiful features and clear, bright
color like a young girl's. His charming, cheerful, spirited manners
won friendship and liking. "He had an eye for splendor," says one
biographer; "well spoken to all, William Longsword could quote a text
to the priest, listen respectfully to the wise sayings of the old,
talk merrily with his young friends about chess and tables, discuss
the flight of the falcon and the fleetness of the hound." [Pg065]
When he desired to be a monk, he was persuaded that his rank and
duties would not permit such a sacrifice, and that he must act his
part in the world rather than in the cloister, for Normandy's sake,
but in spite of his gay life and apparent fondness for the world's
delights and pleasures, when he died his followers found a sackcloth
garment and scourge under his splendid clothes. And as he lay dead
in Rouen the rough haircloth shirt was turned outward at the throat
so that all the people could see. He had not the firmness and
decision that a duke of Normandy needed; he was very affectionate
and impulsive, but he was a miserly person, and had not the power of
holding on and doing what ought to be done with all his might.
[Illustration]
[Pg066]
[Illustration]
IV.
RICHARD THE FEARLESS.
"By many a warlike feat
Lopped the French lilies."—DRAYTON.
Around the city of Bayeux, were the head-quarters of the Northmen, and
both Rolf's followers and the later colonists had kept that part of
the duchy almost free from French influence. There Longsword's little
son Richard (whose mother was Espriota, the duke's first wife, whom
he had married in Danish fashion), was sent to learn the Northmen's
language, and there he lived yet with his teachers and Count Bernard,
when the news came of the murder of his father by Arnulf of Flanders,
with whom William had gone to confer in good faith.
We can imagine for ourselves the looks of the little lad and his
surroundings. He was fond even then of the chase, and it might be on
some evening when he had come in with the huntsmen that he found a
breathless messenger who had brought the news of Lonsgword's death. We
can imagine the low roofed, stone-arched room with its thick pillars,
and deep stone casings to the windows, where the wind came in and made
the torches flare. At each end of [Pg067] the room would be a great
fire, and the servants busy before one of them with the supper, and
there on the flagstones, in a dark heap, is the stag, and perhaps some
smaller game that the hunters have thrown down. There are no chimneys,
and the fires leap up against the walls, and the smoke curls along the
ceiling and finds its way out as best it can.
One end of the room is a step or two higher than the other, and here
there is a long table spread with drinking-horns and bowls, and
perhaps some beautiful silver cups, with figures of grapevines and
fauns and satyrs carved on them, which the Norse pirates brought home
long ago from Italy. The floor has been covered with rushes which the
girls of the household scatter, and some of these girls wear old Norse
ornaments of wrought silver, with bits of coral, that must have come
from Italy too. The great stag-hounds are stretched out asleep after
their day's work, and the little Richard is tired too, and has thrown
himself into a tall carved chair by the fire.
Suddenly there comes the sound of a horn, and everybody starts and
listens. Was the household to be attacked and besieged? for friends
were less likely visitors than enemies in those rough times.
The dogs bark and cannot be quieted, and again the horn sounds outside
the gate, and somebody has gone to answer it, and those who listen
hear the great hinges creak presently as the gate is opened and the
sound of horses' feet in the courtyard. The dogs have found that there
is no danger and creep away lazily to go to sleep again, but when the
[Pg068] men of the household come back to the great hall their faces
are sadly changed. Something has happened.
Among them are two guests, two old counts whom everybody knows, and
they walk gravely with bent heads toward the boy Richard, who stands
by the smaller fire, in the place of honor, near his father's chair.
Has his father come back sooner than he expected? The boy's heart
must beat fast with hope for one minute, then he is frightened by the
silence in the great hall. Nobody is singing or talking; there is a
dreadful stillness; the very dogs are quiet and watching from their
beds on the new-strewn rushes. The fires snap and crackle and throw
long shadows about the room.
What are the two counts going to do—Bernard Harcourt and Rainulf
Ferrières? They are kneeling before the little boy, who is ready to
run away, he does not know why. Count Bernard has knelt before him,
and says this, as he holds Richard's small hand: "Richard, Duke of
Normandy, I am your liegeman and true vassal"; and then the other
count does and says the same, while Bernard stands by and covers his
face with his hands and weeps.
Richard stands, wondering, as all the rest of the noblemen promise
him their service and the loyalty of their castles and lands, and
suddenly the truth comes to him. His dear father is dead, and he
must be the duke now; he, a little stupid boy, must take the place
of the handsome, smiling man with his shining sword and black horse
and purple robe and the feather with its shining clasp in the high
ducal [Pg069] cap that is as splendid as any crown. Richard must take
the old counts for his playfellows, and learn to rule his province
of Normandy; and what a long, sad, frightened night that must have
been to the fatherless boy who must win for himself the good name of
Richard the Fearless!
Next day they rode to Rouen, and there, when the nobles had come, the
dead duke was buried with great ceremony, and all the people mourned
for him and were ready to swear vengeance on his treacherous murderer.
After the service was over Richard was led back from the cathedral to
his palace, and his heavy black robes were taken off and a scarlet
tunic put on; his long brown hair was curled, and he was made as fine
as a little duke could be, though his eyes were red with crying, and
he hated all the pomp and splendor that only made him the surer that
his father was gone.
They brought him down to the great hall of the palace, and there he
found all the barons who had come to his father's burial, and the boy
was told to pull off his cap to them and bow low in answer to their
salutations. Then he slowly crossed the hall, and all the barons
walked after him in a grand procession according to rank—first the
Duke of Brittany and last the poorest of the knights, all going to the
Church of Notre Dame, the great cathedral of Rouen, where the solemn
funeral chants had been sung so short a time before.
There were all the priests and the Norman bishops, and the choir sang
as Richard walked to his place near the altar where he had seen his
father sit [Pg070] so many times. All the long services of the mass
were performed, and then the boy-duke gave his promise, in the name
of God and the people of Normandy, that he would be a good and true
ruler, guard them from their foes, maintain truth, punish sin, and
protect the Church. Two of the bishops put on him the great mantle
of the Norman dukes, crimson velvet and trimmed with ermine; but
it was so long that it lay in great folds on the ground. Then the
archbishop crowned the little lad with a crown so wide and heavy that
one of the barons had to hold it in its place. Last of all, they gave
him his father's sword, taller than he, but he reached for the hilt
and held it fast as he was carried back to his throne, though Count
Bernard offered to carry it. Then all the noblemen did homage, from
Duke Alan of Brittany down, and Richard swore in God's name to be the
good lord of every one and to protect him from his foes. Perhaps some
of the elder men who had followed Rolf the Ganger felt very tenderly
toward this grandchild of their brave old leader, and the friends of
kind-hearted Longsword meant to be loyal and very fatherly to his
defenceless boy, upon whom so much honor, and anxiety too, had early
fallen.
See what a change there was in Normandy since Rolf came, and what a
growth in wealth and orderliness the dukedom had made. All the feudal
or clannish spirit had had time to grow, and Normandy ranked as the
first of the French duchies. Still it would be some time yet before
the Danes and Norwegians of the north could cease to think of the
Normans as their brothers and cousins, and begin to [Pg071] call them
Frenchmen or Welskes, or any of the other names they called the people
in France or Britain. It was sure to be a hard dukedom enough for the
boy-duke to rule, and all his youth was spent in stormy, dangerous
times.
His father had stood godfather—a very close tie—to the heir of the new
king of France, who was called Louis, and he was also at peace with
Count Hugh of Paris. Soon after Longsword's death King Louis appeared
in Rouen at the head of a body of troops, and demanded that he should
be considered the guardian and keeper of young Richard during his
minority. He surprised the counts who were in Rouen, and who were just
then nearly defenceless. It would never do for them to resist Louis
and his followers; they had no troops at hand; and they believed that
the safest thing was to let Richard go, for a time at any rate. It
was true that he was the king's vassal, and Normandy had always done
homage to the kings of France. And with a trusty baron for protection
the boy was sent away out of pleasant Normandy to the royal castle
of Laon. The Rouen people were not very gracious to King Louis, and
that made him angry. Indeed, the French king's dominion was none too
large, and everybody knew that he would be glad to possess himself
of the dukedom, or of part of it, and that he was not unfriendly to
Arnulf, who had betrayed William Longsword. So the barons who were
gathered at Rouen, and all the Rouen people, must have felt very
anxious and very troubled about Richard's safety when the French
horsemen [Pg072] galloped away with him. From time to time news came
that the boy was not being treated very well. At any rate he was not
having the attention and care that belonged to a duke of Normandy. The
dukedom was tempestuous enough at any time, with its Northman party,
and its French party, and their jealousies and rivalries. But they
were all loyal to the boy-duke who belonged to both, and who could
speak the pirate's language as well as that of the French court. If
his life were brought to an untimely end what a falling apart there
would be among those who were not unwilling now to be his subjects. No
wonder that the old barons were so eager to get Richard home again,
and so distrustful of the polite talk and professions of affection
and interest on King Louis's part. Louis had two little sons of his
own, and it would be very natural if he sometimes remembered that,
if Richard were dead, one of his own boys might be Duke of Normandy
instead—that is, if old Count Hugh of Paris did not stand in the way.
So away went Richard from his pleasant country of Normandy, with
its apple and cherry orchards and its comfortable farms, from his
Danes and his Normans, and the perplexed and jealous barons. A young
nobleman, named Osmond de Centeville, was his guardian, and promised
to take the best of care of his young charge, but when they reached
the grim castle of Laon they found that King Louis' promises were not
likely to be kept. Gerberga, the French queen, was a brave woman, but
eager to forward the fortunes of her own household, and nobody took
much notice of the boy who was of so [Pg073] much consequence at home
in his own castle of Rouen. We cannot help wondering why Richard's
life did not come to a sudden end like his father's, but perhaps
Osmond's good care and vigilance gave no chance for treachery to do
its work.
After a while the boy-duke began to look very pale and ill, poor
little fellow, and Osmond watched him tenderly, and soon the rest of
the people in the castle had great hopes that he was going to die.
The tradition says that he was not sick at all in reality, but made
himself appear so by refusing to eat or sleep. At any rate he grew so
pale and feeble that one night everybody was so sure that he could not
live that they fell to rejoicing and had a great banquet. There was no
need to stand guard any longer over the little chief of the pirates,
and nobody takes much notice of Osmond even as he goes to and from the
tower room with a long face.
Late in the evening he speaks of his war-horse which he has forgotten
to feed and litter down, and goes to his stable in the courtyard with
a huge bundle of straw. The castle servants see him, but let him pass
as usual, and the banquet goes on, and the lights burn dim, and the
night wanes before anybody finds out that there was a thin little lad,
keeping very still, in the straw that Osmond carried, and that the two
companions were riding for hours in the starlight toward the Norman
borders. Hurrah! we can almost hear the black horse's feet clatter and
ring along the roads, and take a long breath of relief when we know
that the fugitives get safe to Crecy castle within the Norman lines
next morning. [Pg074]
King Louis was very angry and sent a message that Richard must come
back, but the barons refused, and before long there was a great
battle. There could really be no such thing as peace between the
Normans and the kingdom of France, and Louis had grown more and more
anxious to rid the country of the hated pirates. Hugh the Great
and he were enemies at heart and stood in each other's way, but
Louis made believe that he was friendly, and granted his formidable
rival some new territory, and displayed his royal condescension in
various ways. Each of these rulers was more than willing to increase
his domain by appropriating Normandy, and when we remember the two
parties in Normandy itself we cannot help thinking that Richard's
path was going to be a very rough one to follow. His father's enemy,
Arnulf of Flanders, was the enemy of Normandy still, and always in
secret or open league with Louis. The province of Brittany was hard
to control, and while William Longsword had favored the French party
in his dominions he had put Richard under the care of the Northmen.
Yet this had not been done in a way to give complete satisfaction,
for the elder Danes clung to their old religion and cared nothing
for the solemn rites of the Church, by means of which Richard had
been invested with the dukedom. They were half insulted by such silly
pageantry, yet it was not to the leaders of the old pirate element
in the dukedom, but to the Christianized Danes, whose head-quarters
were at Rouen, that the guardianship of the heir of Normandy had
been given. He did not belong to the [Pg075] Christians, but to the
Norsemen, yet not to the old pagan vikings either. It was a curious
and perhaps a very wise thing to do, but the Danes little thought
when Longsword promised solemnly to put his son under their charge,
that he meant the Christian Danes like Bernard and Botho. There was
one thing that all the Normans agreed upon, that they would not be
the vassals and lieges of the king of France. They had promised it in
their haste when the king had come and taken young Richard away to
Laon, but now that they had time to consider, they saw what a mistake
it had been to make Louis the boy-duke's guardian. They meant to take
fast hold of Richard now that he had come back, and so the barons were
summoned, and when Louis appeared again in Normandy, with the spirit
and gallantry of a great captain, to claim the guardianship and to
establish Christianity, as well as to avenge the murder of Longsword,
if you please!—he found a huge army ready to meet him.
Nobody can understand how King Louis managed to keep such a splendid
army as his in good condition through so many reverses. He had lost
heavily from his lands and his revenues, and there were no laws, so
far as we know, that compelled military service, but the ranks were
always full, and the golden eagle of Charlemagne was borne before the
king on the march, and the banner of that great emperor, his ancestor,
fluttered above his pavilion when the army halted. As for the Danes
(which means simply the Northern or Pirate party of Normandy), they
were very unostentatious soldiers and fought [Pg076] on foot, going
to meet the enemy with sword and shield. Some of them had different
emblems on their shields now, instead of the old red and white stripes
of the shields that used to be hung along the sides of the long-ships,
and they carried curious weapons, even a sort of flail that did great
execution.
We must pass quickly over the long account of a feigned alliance
between Hugh of Paris and King Louis, their agreement to share
Normandy between themselves, and then Hugh's withdrawal, and Bernard
of Senlis's deep-laid plot against both the enemies of Normandy. It
was just at this time that there was a great deal of enmity between
Normandy and Brittany, and the Normans seem to be in a more rebellious
and quarrelsome state than usual. If there was one thing that they
clung to every one of them, and would not let go, it was this: that
Normandy should not be divided, that it should be kept as Rolf had
left it. Sooner than yield to the plots and attempted grasping and
divisions of Hugh and Arnulf of Flanders, and Louis, they would send
to the North for a fleet of dragon ships and conquer their country
over again. They knew very well that however bland and persuasive
their neighbors might become when they desired to have a truce, they
always called them filthy Normans and pirates behind their backs, and
were always hoping for a chance to push them off the soil of Normandy.
There was no love lost between the dukedoms and the kingdom.
[Illustration: FLAIL AS A MILITARY WEAPON (1).]
[Illustration: FLAIL AS A MILITARY WEAPON (2).]
After some time Louis was persuaded again that Normandy desired
nothing so much as to call him her feudal lord and sovereign. Bernard
de Senlis [Pg077] assured him, for the sake of peace, that they were
no longer in doubt of their unhappiness in having a child for a ruler,
that they were anxious to return to the old pledge of loyalty that
Rolf gave to the successor of Charlemagne. He must be the over-lord
again and must come and occupy his humble city of Rouen. They were
tired of being harried, their land was desolated, and they would do
any thing to be released from the sorrows and penalties of war. Much
to our surprise, and very likely to his own astonishment too, we find
King Louis presently going to Rouen, and being received there with all
manner of civility and deference. Everybody hated him just as much as
ever, and distrusted him, and no doubt Louis returned the compliment,
but to outward view he was beloved and honored by his tributaries,
and the Norman city seemed quiet and particularly servile to its new
ruler and his bragging troops. Nobody understood exactly why they had
won their ends with so little trouble, and everybody [Pg078] was on
the watch for some amazing counterplot, and dared not trust either
friend or foe. As for Louis, they had shamed and tormented him too
much to make him a very affectionate sovereign now. To be sure he
ruled over Normandy at last, but that brought him perplexity enough.
In the city the most worthless of his followers was putting on the
airs of a conqueror and aggravating the Norman subjects unbearably.
The Frenchmen who had followed the golden eagle of Charlemagne so
long without any reward but glory and a slender subsistence, began
to clamor for their right to plunder the dukedom and to possess
themselves of a reward which had been too long withheld already.
Hugh, of Paris, and King Louis had made a bold venture together for
the conquest of Normandy, and apparently succeeded to their heart's
content. Hugh had besieged Bayeux; and the country, between the two
assailants, had suffered terribly. Bernard the Dane, or Bernard de
Senlis either, knew no other way to reëstablish themselves than
by keeping Louis in Rouen and cheating him by a show of complete
submission. The Normans must have had great faith in the Danish
Bernard when they submitted to make unconditional surrender to Louis.
Could it be that he had been faithless to the boy-duke's rights, and
allowed him to be contemptuously disinherited?
Now that the king was safely bestowed in Rouen, his new liegemen
began to say very disagreeable things. Louis had made a great fool
of himself at a banquet soon after he reached Rolf's tower in the
[Pg079] Norman city. Bernard the Dane, had spread a famous feast for
him and brought his own good red wine. Louis became very talkative,
and announced openly that he was going to be master of the Normans at
last, and would make them feel his bonds, and shame them well. But
Bernard the Dane left his own seat at the table and placed himself
next the king. Presently he began, in most ingenious ways, to taunt
him with having left himself such a small share of the lands and
wealth of the ancient province of Neustria. He showed him that Hugh
of Paris had made the best of the bargain, and that he had given up a
great deal more than there was any need of doing. Bernard described
in glowing colors the splendid dominions he had sacrificed by letting
his rival step in and take first choice. Louis had not chosen to take
a seventh part of the whole dukedom, and Hugh of Paris was master of
all Normandy beyond the Seine, a beautiful country watered by fine
streams whose ports were fit for commerce and ready for defence. More
than this; he had let ten thousand fighting men slip through his hands
and become the allies of his worst enemy. And so Bernard and his
colleagues plainly told Louis that he had made a great mistake. They
would consent to receive him as their sovereign and guardian of the
young duke, but Normandy must not be divided; to that they would never
give their consent.
Louis listened, half dazed to these suggestions, and when he was well
sobered he understood that he was attacked on every side. Hugh of
Paris had declared that if Louis broke faith with him now he [Pg080]
would make an end to their league, and Louis knew that he would
be making a fierce enemy if he listened to the Normans; yet if he
refused, they would turn against him.
On the other hand, if he permitted Hugh to keep his new territory,
he was only strengthening a man who was his enemy at heart, and who
sooner or later would show his antagonism. Louis's own soldiers were
becoming very rebellious. They claimed over and over again that Rolf
had had no real right to the Norman lands, but since he had divided
them among his followers, all the more reason now that the conquerors,
the French owners of Normandy, should be put into possession of what
they had won back again at last. They demanded that the victors should
enforce their right, and not only expressed a wish for Bernard the
Dane's broad lands, but for his handsome young wife. They would not
allow that the Normans had any rights at all. When a rumor of such
wicked plans began to be whispered through Rouen and the villages,
it raised a great excitement. There would have been an insurrection
at once, if shrewd old Bernard had not again insisted upon patience
and submission. His wife even rebelled, and said that she would bury
herself in a convent; and Espriota, young Richard's mother, thriftily
resolved to provide herself with a protector, and married Sperling, a
rich miller of Vaudreuil.
Hugh of Paris was Bernard's refuge in these troubles, and now we see
what the old Dane had been planning all the time. Hugh had begun to
believe that there was no use in trying to hold his new [Pg081]
possessions of Normandy beyond the Seine, and that he had better
return to his old cordial alliance with the Normans and uphold Rolf
the Ganger's dukedom. So the Danish party, Christians and pagans, and
the Normans of the French party, and Hugh of Paris, all entered into a
magnificent plot against Louis. The Normans might have been contented
with expelling the intruders, and a renunciation of the rights Louis
had usurped, but Hugh the Great was very anxious to capture Louis
himself.
Besides Hugh of Paris and the Norman barons who upheld the cause of
young Richard, there was a third very important ally in the great
rebellion against King Louis of France. When Gorm a famous old king
of Denmark had died some years before, the successor to his throne
was Harold Blaatand or Bluetooth, a man of uncommonly fine character
for those times—a man who kept his promises and was noted for his
simplicity and good faith and loyalty to his word. Whatever reason may
have brought Harold to Normandy at this time, there he was, the firm
friend of the citizens of the Bayeux country, and we find him with his
army at Cherbourg.
All Normandy was armed and ready for a grand fight with the French,
though it appears that at first there was an attempt at a peaceful
conference. This went on very well at first, the opposing armies being
drawn up on either side of the river Dive, when who should appear but
Herluin of Montreuil, the insolent traitor who was more than suspected
of having caused the murder of William Longsword. Since then he had
ruled in Rouen as Louis's deputy and [Pg082] stirred up more hatred
against himself, but now he took a prominent place in the French
ranks, and neither Normans nor Danes could keep their tempers any
longer. So the peaceful conference was abruptly ended, and the fight
began.
Every thing went against the French: many counts were killed; the
golden eagle of Charlemagne and the silk hangings and banners of the
king's tent had only been brought for the good of these Normans, who
captured them. As for the king himself, he was taken prisoner; some
say that he was led away from the battle-field and secreted by a loyal
gentleman of that neighborhood, who hid him in a secluded bowery
island in the river near by, and that the poor gentleman's house and
goods were burnt and his wife and children seized, before he would
tell anything of the defeated monarch's hiding-place. There is another
story that Harold Blaatand and Louis met in hand-to-hand combat, and
the Dane led away the Frank as the prize of his own bravery. The king
escaped and was again captured and imprisoned in Rouen. No bragging
now of what he would do with the Normans, or who should take their
lands and their wives. Poor Louis was completely beaten, but there was
still a high spirit in the man and in his brave wife Gerberga, who
seems to have been his equal in courage and resource. After a while
Louis only regained his freedom by giving up his castle of Laon to
Hugh of Paris, and the successor of Charlemagne was reduced to the
pitiful poverty of being king only of Compiegne. Yet he was still
king, and nobody was more ready to give him the title than [Pg083]
Hugh of Paris himself, though the diplomatic treacheries went on as
usual.
Harold had made a triumphant progress through Normandy after the
great fight was over, and all the people were very grateful to him,
and it is said that he reëstablished the laws of Rolf, and confirmed
the authority of the boy-duke. We cannot understand very well at this
distance just why Harold should have been in Normandy at all with his
army to make himself so useful, but there he was, and unless one story
is only a repetition of the other, he came back again, twenty years
after, in the same good-natured way, and fought for the Normans again.
Poor Louis certainly had a very hard time, and for a while his pride
was utterly broken; but he was still young and hoped to retrieve his
unlucky fortunes. Richard, the young duke, was only thirteen years
old when Normandy broke faith with France. He had not yet earned his
title of the Fearless, which has gone far toward making him one of
the heroes of history, and was waiting to begin his real work and
influence in the dukedom. Louis had sympathy enough of a profitless
sort from his German and English neighbors. England sent an embassy
to demand his release, and Hugh of Paris refused most ungraciously.
Later, the king of the Germans or East Franks determined to invade
Hugh's territory, and would not even send a message or have any
dealings with him first; and when he found that the German army
was really assembling, the Count of Paris yielded. But, as we have
already seen, Louis had to give up a great piece of his [Pg084]
kingdom. As far as words went, he was king again. He had lost his
authority while he was in prison, but it was renewed with proper
solemnity, and Hugh was again faithful liegeman and homager of his
former prisoner. The other princes of Europe, at least those who were
neighbors, followed Hugh's example—all except one, if we may believe
the Norman historians. On the banks of the Epte, where Rolf had first
done homage to the French king, the Norman duchy was now set free
from any over-lordship, and made an independent country. The duke was
still called duke, and not king, yet he was completely the monarch of
Normandy, and need give no tribute nor obedience.
Before long, however, Richard, or his barons for him—wily Bernard the
Dane, and Bernard de Senlis, and the rest—commended the lands and men
of Normandy to the Count of Paris, benefactor and ally. The Norman
historians do not say much about this, for they were not so proud of
it as of their being made free from the rule of France. We are certain
that the Norman soldiers followed Hugh in his campaigns, for long
after this during the reign of Richard the Fearless there were some
charters and state papers written which are still preserved, and which
speak of Hugh of Paris as Richard's over-lord.
There are so few relics of that time that we must note the coinage of
the first Norman money in Richard's reign. The chronicles follow the
old fashion of the sagas in sounding the praises of one man—sometimes
according to him all the deeds of his ancestors besides; but,
unfortunately, they refer little to general history, and tell few
things about the [Pg085] people. We find Normandy and England coming
into closer relations in this reign, and the first mention of the
English kings and of affairs across the Channel, lends a new interest
to our story of the Normans. Indeed, to every Englishman and American
the roots and beginnings of English history are less interesting in
themselves than for their hints and explanations of later chapters and
events.
Before we end this account of Duke Richard's boyhood, we must take
a look at one appealing fragment of it which has been passed by in
the story of the wars and tumults and strife of parties. Once King
Louis was offered his liberty on the condition that he would allow
the Normans to take his son and heir Lothair as pledge of his return
and good behavior. No doubt the French king and Queen Gerberga had
a consciousness that they had not been very kind to Richard, and
so feared actual retaliation. But Gerberga offered, not the heir
to the throne, but her younger child Carloman, a puny, weak little
boy, and he was taken as hostage instead, and soon died in Rouen.
Miss Yonge has written a charming story called "The Little Duke," in
which she draws a touching picture of this sad little exile. It makes
Queen Gerberga appear very hard and cruel, and it seems as if she
must have been to let the poor child go among his enemies. We must
remember, though, that these times were very hard, and one cannot help
respecting the poor queen, who was very brave after all, and fought as
gallantly as any one to keep her besieged and struggling kingdom out
of the hands of its assailants. [Pg086]
We must pass over the long list of petty wars between Louis and
Hugh. Richard's reign was stormy to begin with, but for some years
before his death Normandy appears to have been tolerably quiet. Louis
had seen his darkest times when Normandy shook herself free from
French rule, and from that hour his fortunes bettered. There was one
disagreement between Otto of Germany and Louis, aided by the king
of Burgundy, against the two dukes, Hugh and Richard, and before
Louis died he won back again the greater part of his possessions at
Laon. Duke Hugh's glories were somewhat eclipsed for a time, and he
was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Rheims and took no notice
of that, but by and by when the Pope of Rome himself put him under
a ban, he came to terms. The Normans were his constant allies, but
there is not much to learn about their own military enterprises. The
enthusiastic Norman writers give a glowing account of the failure
of the confederate kings to capture Rouen, but say less about their
marauding tour through the duchies of Normandy and Hugh's dominions.
Rouen was a powerful city by this time, and a famous history belonged
to her already. There are some fragments left still of the Rouen of
that day, which is very surprising when we remember how battered and
beleaguered the old town was through century after century.
Every thing was apparently prospering with the king of France when
he suddenly died, only thirty-three years of age, in spite of his
tempestuous reign and always changing career. He must have felt like
a [Pg087] very old man, one would think, and somehow one imagines him
and Gerberga, his wife, as old people in their Castle of Laon. Lothair
was the next king, and Richard, who so lately was a child too, became
the elder ruler of his time. Hugh of Paris died two years later, and
the old enemy of Normandy, Arnulf of Flanders, soon followed him. The
king of Germany, Otto, outlived all these, but Richard lived longer
than he or his son.
[Illustration: ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. OUEN (ROUEN).]
[Pg088]
The duchy of France, Hugh's dominion, passed to his young son, Hugh
Capet, a boy of thirteen. When this Hugh grew up he did homage to
Lothair, but Richard gave his loyalty to Hugh of Paris's son. The
wars went on, and before many years went over Hugh Capet extinguished
the succession of Charlemagne's heirs to the throne of France, and
was crowned king himself, so beginning the reign of France proper;
as powerful and renowned a kingdom as Europe saw through many
generations. By throwing off the rule of German princes, and achieving
independence of the former French dynasty, an order of things began
that was not overthrown until our own day. Little by little the
French crown annexed the dominions of all its vassals, even the duchy
of Normandy, but that was not to be for many years yet. I hope we
have succeeded in getting at least a hint of the history of France
from the time it was the Gaul of the Roman empire; and the empire
of Charlemagne, and later, of the fragments of that empire, each a
province or kingdom under a ruler of its own, which were reunited in
one confederation under one king of France. All this time Europe is
under the religious rule of Rome, and in Richard the Fearless's later
years we find him the benefactor of the Church, living close by the
Minster of Fécamp and buried in its shadow at last. There was a deep
stone chest which was placed by Duke Richard's order near one of the
minster doors, where the rain might fall upon it that dropped from
the holy roof above. For many years, on Saturday evenings, the chest
was filled to the brim with [Pg089] wheat, a luxury in those days,
and the poor came and filled their measures and held out their hands
afterward for five shining pennies, while the lame and sick people
were visited in their homes by the almoner of the great church. There
was much talk about this hollowed block of stone, but when Richard
died in 996 at the end of his fifty-five years' reign, after a long,
lingering illness, his last command was that he should be buried in
the chest and lie "there where the foot should tread, and the dew and
the waters of heaven should fall." Beside this church of the Holy
Trinity at Fécamp he built the abbey of St. Wandville, the Rouen
cathedral, and the great church of the Benedictines at St. Ouen. New
structures have risen upon the old foundations, but Richard's name is
still connected with the places of worship that he cared for.
"Richard Sans-peur has long been our favorite hero," says Sir Francis
Palgrave, who has written perhaps the fullest account of the Third
Duke; "we have admired the fine boy, nursed on his father's knee
whilst the three old Danish warriors knelt and rendered their fealty.
During Richard's youth, adolescence, and age our interest in his
varied, active, energetic character has never flagged, and we go with
him in court and camp till the day of his death."
[Illustration]
[Pg090]
[Illustration]
V.
DUKE RICHARD THE GOOD.
"Then would he sing achievements high
And circumstance of chivalry."—SCOTT.
Richard the Fearless had several sons, and when he lay dying his
nobles asked him to say who should be his successor. "He who bears
my name," whispered the old duke, and added a moment later: "Let
the others take the oaths of fealty, acknowledge Richard as their
superior; and put their hands in his, and receive from him those lands
which I will name to you."
So Richard the Good came to his dukedom, with a rich inheritance in
every way from the father who had reigned so successfully, and his
brothers Geoffry, Mauger, William, and Robert, accepted their portions
of the dukedom, to which Richard added more lands of his own accord.
During this reign there were many changes, some very gradual
and natural ones, for Normandy was growing more French and less
Scandinavian all the time, and the relationship grew stronger and
stronger between vigorous young Normandy and troubled, failing
England. Later we shall see how our [Pg091] Normans gave a new
impulse to England, but already there are signs and forebodings of
what must come to pass in the days of Richard the Good's grandson,
William the Conqueror.
We first hear now of many names which are great names in Normandy
and England to this day. "It seems as if there were never any region
more peopled with men of known deeds, known names, known passions
and known crimes," says Palgrave; and the Norman annals abound with
historical titles "rendered illustrious by the illusions of time
and blazonry which imagination imparts." It is very strange how
few records there are, among the state papers in France, of all
this period. Every important public matter in England was carefully
recorded long before this, but with all the proverbial love of going
to law, and all the well-ordered priesthood, and good education of the
upper classes, there are only a few scattered charters until Normandy
is really merged in France. This almost corresponds to the absence,
in the literary world, of papers relating to Shakespeare, which is
such a puzzle to antiquarians. Here was a man well-known and beloved
both in his native village and the world of London, a man who must
have covered thousands of pages with writing, and written letters
and signed his name times without number, and yet not one of his
manuscripts and very few signatures can be found. Only the references
to him in contemporary literature remain to give us any facts at all
about the greatest of English writers. Of far less noteworthy men,
of his time and before that, we can make up [Pg092] reasonably full
biographies. And Normandy is known only through the records of other
nations, and the traditions and reports of romancing chroniclers.
There are no long lists of men and money, and no treasurer or general
of Rolf's, or Longsword's time has left us his accounts. Rolf's
brother, who went to Iceland while Rolf came to Normandy, in the
tyrannical reign of Harold Haarfager, established in that storm-bound
little country a nation of scholars and record-makers. Perhaps it was
easier to write there where the only enemies were ice and snow and
darkness and the fury of the sea and wind.
Yet we can guess at a great deal about the condition of Normandy.
There was so much going to and fro, such a lively commerce and
transportation of goods, that we know the old Roman roads had been
kept in good repair, and that many others must have been built as
the population increased. The famous fairs which were held make us
certain that there was a large business carried on, and besides the
maintenance and constant use of a large army, in some years there was
also a thrifty devotion to mercantile matters and agriculture. Foreign
artisans and manufacturers were welcomed to the Norman provinces, and
soon formed busy communities like the Flemish craftsmen, weavers and
leather-makers, at Falaise. The Normans had an instinctive liking for
pomp and splendor; so their tradesmen flourished, and their houses
became more and more elegant, and must be carved and gilded like the
dragon ships.
A merry, liberal duke was this Richard; fond of his court, and always
ready to uphold Normandy's [Pg093] honor and his own when there was
any fighting to be done. He had a great regard for his nobles, and we
begin to find a great deal said about gentlemen; the duke would have
only gentlemen for his chosen followers, and the aristocrats make
themselves felt more distinctly than before. The rule of the best is a
hard thing to manage, it sinks already into a rule of the lucky, the
pushing, or the favored in the Rouen court. The power and reign of
chivalry begins to blossom now far and wide.
We begin to hear rumors too on the other side that there were wrong
distinctions between man and man, and tyranny that grew hard to bear,
and one Norman resents the truth that his neighbor is a better and
richer man than he, and moreover has the right to make him a servant,
and to make laws for him. The Norman citizens were equal in civil
rights—that is to say, they were not taxed without their own consent,
need pay no tolls, and might hunt and fish; all could do these things
except the villeins[2] and peasants, who really composed the mass of
the native population, the descendants of those who lived in Normandy
before Rolf came there. Even the higher clergy did not form part of
the nobility and gentry at first, and in later years there was still a
difference in rank and privileges between the priests of Norwegian and
Danish race and the other ecclesiastics.
[2] Farm laborers; countrymen.
Before Richard the Good had been long on his throne there was a great
revolt and uprising of the peasantry, who evidently did not think that
their new [Pg094] duke deserved his surname at all. These people
conceived the idea of destroying the inequality of races, so that
Normandy should hold only one nation, as it already held one name.
We cannot help being surprised at the careful political organization
of the peasantry, and at finding that they established a regular
parliament with two representatives from every district. In all
the villages and hamlets, after the day's work was over, they came
together to talk over their wrongs or to listen to some speaker more
eloquent than his fellows. They "made a commune," which anticipates
later events in the history of France in a surprising way. Freeman
says that "such a constitution could hardly have been extemporized by
mere peasants," and believes that the disturbance was founded in a
loyalty to the local customs and rights which were fast being trampled
under foot, and that the rebels were only trying to defend their
time-honored inheritance. The liberty which they were eager to grasp
might have been a great good, scattered as it would have been over
a great extent of country, instead of being won by separate cities.
The ancient Norman constitutions of the Channel Islands, Jersey and
Guernsey and the rest, antiquated as they seem, breathe to-day a
spirit of freedom worthy of the air of England or Switzerland or
Norway.
The peasants clamored for their right to be equal with their
neighbors, and no doubt many a small landholder joined them, who did
not wish to swear fealty to his over-lord. In the /Roman de Rou/,
an old chronicle which keeps together many traditions about early
[Pg095] Normandy that else might have been forgotten, we find one of
these piteous harangues. Perhaps it is not authentic, but it gives the
spirit of the times so well that it ought to have a place here:
"The lords do nothing but evil; we cannot obtain either reason or
justice from them; they have all, they take all, eat all, and make us
live in poverty and suffering. Every day with us is a day of pain; we
gain nought by our labors, there are so many dues and services. Why do
we allow ourselves to be thus treated? Let us place ourselves beyond
their power; we too are men, we have the same limbs, the same height,
the same power of endurance, and we are a hundred to one. Let us swear
to defend each other; let us be firmly knit together, and no man shall
be lord over us; we shall be free from tolls and taxes, free to fell
trees, to take game and fish, and do as we will in all things, in the
wood, in the meadow, on the water!"
At this time the larger portion of Normandy was what used to be called
forest. That word meant something more than woodland; it belonged then
to tracts of wild country, woodland and moorland and marshes, and
these were the possession of the crown. The peasants had in the old
days a right, or a custom at any rate, of behaving as if the forests
were their own, but more and more they had been restricted, and the
unaccustomed yoke galled them bitterly. Besides their being forbidden
to hunt and fish in the forests, the water-ways were closed from them,
taxes imposed, and their time and labor demanded on the duke's lands.
There had been grants [Pg096] of these free tracts of country to
the new nobility, and with the lands the new lords claimed also the
service of the peasantry.
The people do not appear to have risen against the duke himself, so
much as against their immediate oppressors, and it was one of these
who was to be their punisher. You remember that Richard the Fearless'
mother, Espriota, married, in the troublous times of his boyhood,
a rich countryman called Sperling. They had a son called Raoul of
Ivry, who seems to have been high in power and favor with the second
Richard, his half-brother, and who now entered upon his cruel task
with evident liking. He had been brought up among the country-folk,
although he stood at this time next to the duke in office.
He was very crafty, and sent spies all through Normandy to find out
when the Assembly or Parliament was to be held, and then dispersed
his troops according to the spies' report, and seized upon all the
deputies and these peasants who were giving oaths of allegiance to
their new commanders. Whether from design or from anger and prejudice
Raoul next treated his poor prisoners with terrible cruelty. He maimed
them in every way, putting out their eyes, cutting off their hands
or feet; he impaled them alive, and tortured them with melted lead.
Those who lived through their sufferings were sent home to be paraded
through the streets as a warning. So fear prevailed over even the
love of liberty in their brave hearts, for the association of Norman
peasants was broken up, and a sad resignation took the place, for
[Pg097] hundreds of years, of the ardor and courage which had been
lighted only to go out again so quickly.
There was another rebellion besides this, of which we have some
account, and one man instead of a whole class was the offender. One of
Richard's brothers, or half-brothers, the son of an unknown mother,
had received as his inheritance the county of Exmes, which held three
very rich and thriving towns. These were Exmes, Argentan, and Falaise
in which we have already learned that there was a colony of Flemings
settled, skilful, industrious weavers and leather-makers and workers
in cloth and metals. Falaise itself was already very old indeed, and
there remain yet the ruins of an old Roman camp, claimed to belong to
the time of Julius Cæsar, beside the earliest specimen of that square
gray tower which is really of earlier date though always associated
with Norman feudalism. The Falaise Fair, which was of such renown in
the days of the first dukes, is supposed to be the survival of some
pagan festival of vast antiquity. The name of Guibray, the suburb of
Falaise which gave its name to the Fair, is said to be derived from
the Gaulish word for mistletoe, and wherever we hear of mistletoe in
ancient history it reminds us, not of merry-makings and Christmas
holidays, but of the grim rites and customs of the Druids.
William, Duke Richard's brother, does not seem to have been grateful
for these rich possessions, and before long there is a complaint that
he fails to respond to the royal summons, and that he will not render
service or do homage in return for his holding. [Pg098] Raoul of Ivry
promptly counselled the Duke to take arms against the offender.
It was not long before William found himself a prisoner in the old
tower of Rolf at Rouen. He was treated with great severity, and only
avoided being hanged by making his escape in most romantic fashion. A
compassionate lady contrived to supply him with a rope, and he came
down from his high tower-window to the ground hand over hand. Luckily
he found none of his keepers waiting for him, and succeeded in getting
out of the country. Raoul had been hunting his partisans, and now he
had the pleasure of hunting William himself, by keeping spies on his
track and forcing him from one danger to another until he was tired
of his life, and boldly determined to go to his brother the Duke and
beg for mercy. He was very fortunate, for Richard not only listened
to him, and was not angry at being stopped on a day when he had gone
out to amuse himself with hunting, but he pardoned the suppliant and
pitied his trials and sufferings, and more than all, though he did not
give back the forfeited county of Exmes, he did give him the county of
Eu. We hear nothing of what Raoul thought of such a pleasant ending
to the troubles after he had shown such zeal himself in pursuing and
harassing the Duke's enemy.
We must take a quick look at the relations between Richard the Good
and Hugh Capet, Hugh of Paris's successor, and Robert of France, Hugh
Capet's son, who was trying to uphold the fading dignities and power
of the Carlovingian throne. Truly [Pg099] Charlemagne's glories were
almost spent, and the new glories of the great house of the Capets
were growing brighter and brighter. Our eyes already turn toward
England and the part that the Norman dukes must soon play there, but
there is something to say first about France.
Robert and Richard were great friends; they had many common interests,
and were bound by solemn oaths and formal covenants of loyalty toward
and protection of each other. Robert was a very honorable man; his
relation to his father was a most curious one, for they seem to have
been partners in royalty and to have reigned together over France.
Richard the Fearless had done much to establish the throne of the
Capets, and there was a firm bond between the second Richard and young
Robert, to whom he did homage. There were several powerful chiefs and
tributaries, but Richard the Good outranks them all, and takes his
place without question as the first peer of France. The golden lilies
of France are already in flower, and though history is almost silent
through the later years of Hugh Capet's life, there are signs of great
activity within the kingdom and of growing prosperity. There is an old
proverb: "Happy is that nation which has no history!" and whenever
we come to a time that the historians pass over or describe in a few
sentences, we take a long breath and imagine the people busy in their
homes and fields and shops, blest in the freedom from war and disorder.
Robert of France was a famous wit and liked to play tricks upon his
associates. He was a poet too, [Pg100] and wrote some beautiful
Latin rhymes which are still sung in the churches. There is a good
story about his being at Rome once at a solemn church festival. When
he approached the altar he held a chalice in his hands with great
reverence, and everybody could see that it held a roll of parchment.
There could be no doubt that the king meant to bestow a splendid gift
upon the church, perhaps, a duchy or even his whole kingdom; but after
the service was over, and the pope and cardinals, full of expectation,
hurried to see what prize was put into their keeping, behold! only a
copy of Robert's famous chant "/Cornelius Centurio!/" It was a sad
disappointment indeed when they looked at this unexpected offering!
But Robert was more than a good comrade, he was a remarkably good
king, as kings went; he kept order and was brave, decided, and
careful. It was true that he had fallen heir to a prosperous and
well-governed kingdom, but it takes constant effort and watchfulness
and ready strength to keep a kingdom or any lesser responsibilities
up to the right level. He had one great trial, for his wife Bertha,
being his first cousin, should not have been his wife according to the
laws of the Roman Church. For the first time there was a pope of Rome
who was from beyond the Alps, a German; and Robert and he were on bad
terms, which resulted in the excommunication of the king of France and
the queen, and at one time they were put so completely under the ban
that even their servants forsook them and the whole kingdom was thrown
into confusion. The misery became so [Pg101] great that the poor
queen presently had to be separated from her husband, and this was the
more grievous as she had no children, and so Robert was obliged to put
her away from him and marry again for the sake of having an heir to
the throne. Bertha's successor was very handsome, but very cross, and
in later years King Robert used to say: "There are plenty of chickens
in the nest, but my old hen pecks at me!"
In spite of the new queen's bad temper there are a good many things to
be said in her praise. She was much better educated than most women of
her day, and she had a great admiration for Robert's poetry, and these
things must have gone far to make up for her faults.
Duke Richard's marriage was a very fortunate one. His sister Hawisa,
of whom he was guardian, was asked in marriage by Duke Godfrey of
Brittany, and this was a very welcome alliance, since it bound the two
countries closer together than ever before, and made them forget the
rivalries which had sometimes caused serious trouble. Especially this
was true when a little later Richard himself married Godfrey's sister
Judith, who was distinguished for her wisdom. They had a most splendid
wedding at the Abbey of St. Michael's Mount, and in course of time one
of their daughters married the Count of Burgundy and one the Count of
Flanders.
In spite of much immorality and irregularity in those days, there was
enough that was proper and respectable in the alliances of the noble
families, and we catch many a glimpse of faithful lovers and [Pg102]
gallant love-making. It was often said that Normandy's daughters did
as much for the well-being of the country as her sons, and when we
read the lists of grand marriages we can understand that the dukes'
daughters won as many provinces by their beauty as the sons did by
their bravery in war.
It is hard to keep the fortunes of all these races and kingdoms clear
in our minds. We cannot help thinking of England, and looking at all
this early history of the Normans and their growth in relation to it.
Then we must keep track of the Danes and Northmen, who have by no
means outgrown their old traits and manners, though their cousins in
Normandy have given up privateering and the long ships. The history of
France makes a sort of background for Normandy and England both.
These marriages of which I have just told you greatly increased
the magnificence and the power of the Norman duchy and widened the
territory in every way. The Norman dukes could claim the right to
interfere in the affairs of those states to which they were allied,
and they improved their opportunities. But the most important of all
the alliances has not been spoken of at all—the marriage of Richard
the Fearless' daughter Emma to Æthelred the Unready of England.
Æthelred himself was the black sheep of his illustrious family—a long
line of noble men they were for the most part. In that age much of the
character of a nation's history depended upon its monarch, and it is
almost impossible to tell the fortunes of a country except by giving
the biographies [Pg103] of the reigning king. This Æthelred seems
to have had energy enough, but he began many enterprises and never
ended them, and wasted a great deal of strength on long, needless
expeditions, and does not appear to have made effective resistance to
the enemies who came knocking at the very gates of England. He had
no tact and little bravery, and was given to putting his trust in
unworthy and treacherous followers. Æthelred was the descendant of
good King Ælfred and his noble successors, but his own kingdom was
ready to fall to pieces before he reigned over it very long, and his
reign of thirty-eight years came near to being the ruin of England.
There were two or three men who helped him in the evil work, who were
greater traitors at heart than Æthelred himself, and we can hardly
understand why they were restored to favor after their treason and
selfishness were discovered. As one historian says, if we could only
have a few of the private letters, of which we have such abundance two
or three centuries later, they would be the key to many difficulties.
The Danes were nibbling at the shores of England as rats would gnaw
at a biscuit. They grew more and more troublesome. Over in Normandy,
Richard the Good was treating these same Danes like friends, and
allowing them to come into his harbors to trade with the Norman
merchants. In the Côtentin country they found a people much like
themselves, preserving many old traditions, and something of the
northern speech. The Côtentin lands were poor and rocky, but the hills
were crowded [Pg104] with castles, well armed and well fortified, and
the men were brave soldiers and sailors, true descendants of the old
vikings. They sought their fortunes on the sea too, and we can trace
the names of these Côtentin barons and their followers through the
army of William the Conqueror to other castles in the broad English
lands that were won in less than a hundred years from Æthelred's time.
Very likely some of these Côtentin Normans were in league with the
northern Danes who made their head-quarters on the Norman shores, and
went plundering across the Channel. Soon Æthelred grew very angry,
which was to be expected, and he gathered his fleets at Portsmouth,
and announced that he should bring Duke Richard back a captive in
chains, and waste the whole offending country with fire, except the
holy St. Michael's Mount.
[Illustration: QUEEN EMMA OR ÆLFGIFU (FROM THE REGISTER OF HYDE
ABBEY).]
The fleet obeyed Æthelred's foolish orders, and went ashore at the
mouth of the river Barfleur, only to find the Normans assembled from
the whole surrounding country—not a trained army by any means, but an
enraged peasantry, men and women alike, armed with shepherds' crooks,
and reaping-hooks and flails, and in that bloody battle of Sanglac,
they completely routed the English. All the invaders who escaped
crowded into six of their vessels and abandoned the rest, and hurried
away as fast as they could go. This was a strong link in the chain
that by and by would be long enough to hold England fast, and put her
at the mercy of the Normans altogether. There was peace made before
very long, though the Normans considered themselves [Pg105] to have
been grievously insulted, and laughed at the English for being so well
whipped. Perpetual peace, the contract unwisely promises, and the pope
interfered between the combatants, to prevent the shedding of innocent
blood. After the promises were formally made, Æthelred tried to make
the alliance even closer. He had children already—one, the gallant
Eadmund Ironside, who might have saved the tottering kingdom if he had
only held the authority which was thrown away in his father's hands.
The name of Æthelred's first queen has been lost, but she was "a
noble lady, the daughter of Thored, an Ealdorman," and had been some
time dead, so with great diplomacy King Æthelred the Unready, "by the
grace of God Basileus of Albion, King and Monarch of all the British
Nations, of the Orkneys and the surrounding Islands," as he liked
to sign himself, came wooing to Normandy. Emma, the duke's sister,
married him and went to England.
Æthelred gave her a splendid wedding-present of [Pg106] wide domains
in the counties of Devon and Hants, part of which held the cathedral
cities of Winchester and Exeter, the pride and defence of Southern
Britain. Queen Emma gave the governorship of Exeter to her chief
adviser and officer, Hugh the Norman, and her new subjects called her
the Gem of Normandy, and treated her with great deference. She had the
beauty of her race and of Rolf's descendants, and her name was changed
to Ælfgifu, because this sounded more familiar to the English ears. At
least that is the explanation which has come down to us.
Things were in a very bad way in England—the Anglo-Saxon rule of that
time was founded upon fraud and violence, and the heavy misfortunes
which assailed the English made them fear worse troubles later on. The
wisest among them tried to warn their countrymen, but the warnings
were apparently of little use. The make-believe rejoicings at Queen
Emma's coming were quickly over with, and soon we hear of her flight
to Normandy. Many reasons were given for this ominous act. Some say
that Æthelred disgusted her by his drunkenness and lawlessness, and
others that Hugh the Norman was treacherous, and betrayed his trust to
the Danes, and that the queen was a partner in the business. There is
still another story, that Æthelred was guilty of a shocking massacre,
and that Emma fled in the horror and confusion that it made. Yet later
she returned to England as the queen of Cnut the Dane.
Now we must change from England to France altogether for a few pages,
and see how steadily the [Pg107] power of the Normans was growing,
and how widely it made itself felt. We must see Richard the Good
as the ally of France in the warfare waged by King Robert against
Burgundy, which was the most important event of Robert's reign.
Old Hugh of Paris had carefully avoided any confusion between the
rights of Burgundy and the rights of France when he established the
foundation of his kingdom. He was a wise politician, and understood
that it would not do to conflict with such a power as Burgundy's,
which held the Low Countries, Spain, and Portugal and Italy within its
influence. Since his day Burgundy had been divided, but it was still
distinguished for its great piety and the number of its religious
institutions. Robert's uncle was Duke of Burgundy, and he was a very
old man; so Robert himself had high hopes of becoming his successor.
His chief rival was the representative of the Lombard kings in
Italy—Otho William, who was son of Adalbert, a pirate who had wandered
beyond the Alps, and Gerberga, the Count of Chalons' daughter. After
Adalbert died Gerberga married old Duke Henry of Burgundy, and
prevailed upon him to declare her son as his successor. This was
illegal, but Otho William was much admired and beloved, and the great
part of the Burgundians upheld his right.
Behold, then, Richard the Good and his Norman soldiery marching away
to the wars! Duke Henry was dead, and King Robert made haste to summon
his ally. Thirty thousand men were mustered under the Norman banner,
and the black raven of war went slowly inland. What an enterprise
it was to transport [Pg108] such a body of men and horses across
country! Supplies could not be hurried from point to point as readily
as in after-times, and the country itself must necessarily be almost
devastated as if a swarm of locusts had crept through it. Normandy was
overflowing with a military population anxious for something to do,
with a lingering love for piracy and plundering. They made a swift
journey, and Richard and his men were at the gates of the city of
Auxerre almost as soon as the venerable duke was in his grave.
There was a tremendous siege; Robert's rival had won the people's
hearts, and in the natural strongholds of the mountain slopes they
defended themselves successfully. Besides this brave opposition of
the Burgundians, the Normans were fought against in a more subtle way
by strange phenomena in the heavens. A fiery dragon shot across the
sky, and a thick fog and darkness overspread the face of the earth.
Auxerre was shrouded in night, and the Norman archers could not see
to shoot their arrows. Before long the leagued armies raised the
siege of the border city and marched on farther into the country up
among the bleak, rocky hills. Only one of the Burgundian nobles—Hugh,
Count of Chalons and Bishop of Auxerre—was loyal to the cause of
King Robert of France. Presently we shall see him again under very
surprising circumstances for a count, not to speak of a bishop! The
country was thoroughly ravaged, but some time passed before it was
finally conquered. At last there was a compromise, and Robert's son
was elected duke. His [Pg109] descendants gave France a vast amount
of trouble in later years, and so Burgundy revenged herself and Otho
William's lost cause.
Richard of Normandy had kept his army well drilled in this long
Burgundian campaign, but before his reign was over he had another war
to fight with the Count of Dreux. The lands of Dreux were originally
in the grant made to Rolf, but later they were held by a line of
counts, whose last representative disappeared in Richard the Fearless'
reign. We find the country in Richard's possession without any record
of war, so it had probably fallen to the crown by right. There was a
great Roman road through the territory like the Watling Street that
ran from Dover to Chester through England, and this was well defended
as the old Roman roads always were. Chartres was joined to Dreux by
this road, and Chartres was not at peace with Normandy. So a new fort
and a town sprung up on the banks of the river to keep Chartres in
check: Tillières, or the Tileries, which we might call the ancestor of
the famous Tuileries of modern Paris.
There were several fierce battles, and sometimes gaining and sometimes
losing, the Normans found themselves presently in a hard place. We
are rather startled to hear of the appearance of king Olaf of Norway
and the king of the Swedes as Richard's allies. The French people had
not wholly outgrown their hatred—or fear and distrust either—of the
pirates, and when the news came that bands of Northmen were landing
in Brittany there was a wild excitement. Richard and the Chartres
chieftain were making [Pg110] altogether too much of their quarrel,
and King Robert, as preserver of the public peace, was obliged to
interfere. After this episode everybody was more afraid of Normandy
than ever, and Chartres was the gainer by the town of Dreux, with
its forest and castle, that being the king's award. We cannot help
wondering why Richard was persuaded to yield so easily, with all his
Northmen eager enough to fight—but they disappear for the time being,
and many stories were told of their treacherous warfare in Brittany;
of the pitfalls covered with branches into which they tempted their
mounted enemies on the battle-field of Dôl. All this seems to have
been a little private diversion on their way to the Norman capital,
where they were bidden for the business with Chartres.
Then there was a fight with the bishopric of Chalons, which interests
us chiefly because Richard's son and namesake first makes his
appearance. Renaud, the son of Otho William, who had lost the dukedom
of Burgundy, had married a Norman damsel belonging to the royal family
of Rolf. This Renaud was defeated and captured by the Count-Bishop
of Chalons, of whom we know something already. He was loyal to King
Robert of France, you remember, in the war with Burgundy, and now
he treated Renaud with terrible severity, and had broken his vows,
moreover, by getting married.
King Robert gave the Normans permission to march through his
dominions, and seems to have turned his back upon the Count-Bishop.
There was a succession of sieges, and the army burned and [Pg111]
destroyed on every side as it went through Burgundy, and finally
made great havoc in one of the chief towns, called Mirmande in the
chronicles, though no Mirmande can be heard of now in that part of
the world, and perhaps the angry Normans determined to leave no trace
of it for antiquarians and geographers to discover. The Count-Bishop
flees for his life to Chalons, and when he was assailed there, he was
so frightened that he put an old saddle on his back and came out of
the city gates in that fashion to beg for mercy. The merry historian
who describes this scene adds that he offered Richard a ride and
that he rolled on the ground at the young duke's feet in complete
humiliation. One might reasonably say that the count made a donkey of
himself in good earnest, and that his count's helmet and his priestly,
shaven crown did not go very well together.
The third Richard covered himself with glory in this campaign,
however, and went back to Normandy triumphant, to give his old father
great pleasure by his valor. But Richard the Good was very feeble now,
and knew that he was going to die; so, like Richard the Fearless, he
went to Fécamp to spend his last days.
When he had confessed to the bishops, he called for his faithful
barons, and made his will. Richard was to be his successor, and his
courage and honesty deserved it; but the old father appears to have
had a presentiment that all would not go well, for he begged the
barons to be loyal to the good youth. Robert, the second son, fell
heir to the county of Exmes, upon the condition that he should be
faithful [Pg112] to his brother. There was another son, Mauger, a
bad fellow, who had no friends or reputation, even at that early day.
He was a monk, and a very low-minded one; but later he appears, to
our astonishment, as Archbishop of Rouen. No mention is made of his
receiving any gift from his father; and soon Richard the Good died and
was buried in the Fécamp Abbey. In after years the bones of Richard
the Fearless were taken from the sarcophagus outside the abbey door,
and father and son were laid in a new tomb near the high altar.
All this early history of Normandy is told mainly by two men, the
saga-writers of their time—William of Jumiéges, who wrote in the
lifetime of William the Conqueror, and Master Wace, of Caen, who was
born on the island of Jersey, between thirty and forty years after
the conquest of England. His "Roman de Rou" is most spirited and
interesting, but, naturally, the earlier part of it is not always
reliable. Both the chroniclers meant to tell the truth, but writing at
a later date for the glory of Normandy, and in such a credulous age,
we must forgive them their inaccuracies.
They have a great deal more to say about Richard the Good than about
his two sons, Richard and Robert. Richard was acknowledged as duke by
all the barons after his father's death, and then went in state to
Paris to do homage to King Robert. This we learn from the records of
his contract of marriage with the king's daughter, Lady Adela, who was
a baby in her cradle, and the copy of the settlements is preserved,
or, at least, the account of the dowry [Pg113] which Richard
promised. This was the /seigneurie/ of the whole Côtentin country, and
several other baronies and communes; Cherbourg and Bruot and Caen, and
many cities and lands besides. Poor little Lady Adela! and poor young
husband, too, for that matter; for this was quite a heartless affair
of state, and neither of them was to be any happier for all their
great possessions.
In the meantime Robert, the Duke's brother, was not in the least
satisfied, and made an outcry because, though he was lord of the
beautiful county of Exmes, the city of Falaise was withheld from him.
There was a man from Brittany who urged him to resent his wrongs, and
made trouble between the brothers; Ermenoldus he was called, /the
theosophist/; and there is a great mystery about him which the old
writers stop to wonder over. He was evidently a sort of magician, and
those records that can be discovered give rise to a suspicion that he
had strayed far eastward with some pirate fleet toward Asia, and had
learned there to work wonders and to compass his ends by uncanny means.
There was a siege of Falaise, which Robert seized and tried to keep by
main strength; but Richard's army was too much for him, and at last he
sued for peace. The brothers went back to Rouen apparently the best
of friends; but there was a grand banquet in Rolf's old castle, and
Richard was suddenly death-struck as he sat at the head of the feast,
and was carried to his bed, where he quickly breathed his last. The
funeral bell began to toll while the banquet still went on, and the
barons made themselves merry in the old hall. [Pg114]
There was great lamentation, for Richard was already much beloved, and
nobody doubted that he had been poisoned. So Robert came to the throne
of Normandy with a black stain upon his character, and during all the
rest of his life that stain was not overlooked nor forgotten.
As for the baby-widow, she afterward became the wife of the Count of
Flanders, Baldwin de Lisle, and she was the mother of Matilda, who was
the wife of William the Conqueror.
[Illustration]
[Pg115]
[Illustration]
VI.
ROBERT THE MAGNIFICENT.
"What exile from himself can flee?"—BYRON.
Before we begin the story of the next Duke of Normandy whose two
surnames, the Devil, and the Magnificent, give us a broad hint of
his character, we must take a look at the progress of affairs in the
dukedom. There is one thing to be remembered in reading this history,
or any other, that history is not merely the story of this monarch
or that, however well he may represent the age in which he lived and
signify its limitations and development.
In Normandy one cannot help seeing that a power has been at work
bringing a new Northern element into the country, and that there has
been a great growth in every way since Rolf came with his vikings and
besieged the city of Jumièges. Now the dukedom that he formed is one
of the foremost of its day, able to stand on equal ground with the
royal kingdom and duchy of France, for Robert's homage is only the
homage of equals and allies. Normandy is the peer of Burgundy and of
Flanders, and every day increases in strength, in [Pg116] ambition,
in scholarship and wealth. The influence and /prestige/ of the dukedom
are recognized everywhere, and soon the soldiers of Normandy are
going to take hold of English affairs and master them with unequalled
strength. Chivalry is in the bloom of its youth, and the merchants of
Falaise, and Rouen, and their sister cities, are rich and luxurious.
The women are skilled in needlework and are famous for their beauty
and intelligence. Everywhere there are new castles and churches, and
the land swarms with inhabitants who hardly find room enough, while
the great army hardly draws away the overplus of men from the farms
and workshops. There are whole districts like the Côtentin peninsula,
that are nearly ready to pour out their population into some new
country, like bees when they swarm in early summer, and neither the
fashion of going on pilgrimage to the holy shrines, nor the spirit
that leads to any warlike adventure, are equal to the need for a new
conquest of territory, and a general emigration.
There are higher standards everywhere in law and morals and customs of
home-life. The nobles are very proud and keep up a certain amount of
state in their high stone castles. In the Côtentin alone the ruins of
more than a hundred of these can yet be seen, and all over Normandy
and Brittany are relics of that busy, prosperous time. The whole
territory is like a young man who has reached his majority, and who
feels a strength and health and ambition that make him restless, and
make him believe himself capable of great things.
[Pg117]
[Illustration: NORMAN COSTUMES.
1. Herdsman. 2. Man of rank. 3. Pilgrim. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Warriors. 9.
Man of rank. 10. Lady of rank.]
[Pg118]
From followers of the black ravens and worshippers of the god Thor,
the Normans have become Christians and devout followers of the Church
of Rome. They go on pilgrimage to distant shrines and build churches
that the world may well wonder at to-day and try to copy. They have
great houses for monks and nuns, and crowds of priests and scholars,
and it would not be easy to find worshippers of the old faith unless
among old people and in secluded neighborhoods. There is little left
of the old Northman's fashions of life but his spirit is as vigorous
as ever, and his courage, and recklessness, his love of a fight and
hatred of cowardice, his beauty and shapeliness, are sent down from
generation to generation, a surer inheritance than lands or money. We
grow eager, ourselves, to see what will come of this leaven of daring
and pride of strength. There is no such thing for Normandy now, as
tranquillity.
Duke Robert's story is chiefly interesting to us because he was the
father of William the Conqueror, and in most of the accounts of that
time it is hard to find any thing except various versions of his
course toward his more famous son. But in reality he was a very gifted
and powerful man, and strange to say, the conquest of England was only
the carrying out of a plan that was made by Duke Robert himself.
The two young sons of Emma and Æthelred were still in Normandy, and
the Duke thought it was a great pity that they were neglected and
apparently forgotten by their countrymen. He undertook to be their
champion, and boldly demanded that King [Pg119] Cnut of England
should consider their rights. He sent an embassy to England and bade
Cnut "give them their own," which probably meant the English crown.
Cnut disdained the message, as might have been expected, and Duke
Robert armed his men and fitted out a fleet, and all set sail for
England to force the Dane to recognize the young princes. It sounds
very well that the Normans should have been so eager to serve the
Duke's cousins, but no doubt they were talking together already about
the possibility of extending their dominions across the Channel. They
were disappointed now, however, for they were beaten back and out of
their course by very bad weather, and had to put in at the island of
Jersey. From there they took a short excursion to Brittany, because
Robert and his cousin Alan were not on good terms, Alan having refused
to do homage to Normandy. There was a famous season of harrying
and burning along the Breton coast, which may have reconciled the
adventurers to their disappointment, but at any rate the conquest of
England was put off for forty years. One wonders how Cnut's Queen
Emma felt about the claims of her sons. It was a strange position for
her to be put into. A Norman woman herself who had virtually forsaken
her children, she could hardly blame her brother for his efforts to
restore them to their English belongings, and yet she was bound to her
new English interests, and must have different standards as Danish
Cnut's wife from those of Saxon Æthelred's. There is an announcement
in one of the Norman chronicles that Cnut sent a message to the
[Pg120] effect that he would give the princes their rights at his
death. This must have been for the sake of peace, but it is not very
likely that any such thing ever happened.
A new acquaintance between the countries must have grown out of the
banishment of some of the English nobles in the early part of Cnut's
reign, and they no doubt strengthened the interest of the Normans,
and made their desire to possess England greater than ever before. We
shall be conscious of it more and more until the time of the Conquest
comes. The Normans plotted and planned again and again, and their
intrigues continually grew more dangerous to England. It is plain to
see that they were always watching for a chance to try their strength,
and were not unwilling to provoke a quarrel. Eadward, one of the
English princes, was ready to claim his rights, but he had learned
to be very fond of Normandy, and his half-heartedness served his
adopted country well when he came at last to the English throne. For
the present we lose sight of him, but not of Ælfred his brother, who
ventured to England on an expedition which cost him his life, but that
failure made the Norman desire for revenge burn hotter and deeper than
before, though the ashes of disappointment covered it for a time.
Duke Robert's reign began with a grand flourish, as if he wished to
bribe his subjects into forgetfulness of his brother Richard's death.
There were splendid feasts and presents of armor and fine clothes for
his retainers, and he won his name of the Magnificent in the very face
of those who whispered [Pg121] that he was a murderer. He was very
generous, and seems to have given presents for the pleasure it gave
himself rather than from any underhand motives of gaining popularity.
We are gravely told that some of his beneficiaries died of joy, which
strikes one as being somewhat exaggerated.
The old castle of Rolf at Rouen was forsaken for the castle of
Falaise. No doubt there were unpleasant associations with Rolf's hall,
where poor Richard had been seized with his mysterious mortal illness.
Falaise, with its hunting-grounds and pleasant woods and waters and
its fine situation, was Robert's favorite home forever after. There he
brought his wife Estrith, Cnut's sister, who first had been the wife
of Ulf the Danish king, and there he lived in a free companionship
with his nobles and with great condescension towards his inferiors,
with whom he was often associated in most familiar terms.
There were chances enough to show his valor. Once Baldwin the elder,
of Flanders, was attacked by his son Baldwin de Lisle, who had put
himself at the head of an army, and the poor Count was forced to flee
to Falaise for shelter and safety. Any excuse for going to war seems
to have been accepted in Normandy; the country was brimming over with
people. There was almost more population than the land could support,
and Robert led his men to Flanders with great alacrity, and settled
the mutiny so entirely that there was no more trouble. Flanders was
brought to a proper state of submission, as if in revenge for old
scores. At last the noblemen who had upheld the insurrection all
deserted the leader of [Pg122] it, and both they and young Baldwin
besought Robert to make the terms of peace. After this, Flanders and
Normandy were very friendly together, and before long they formed a
most significant alliance of the royal houses.
In Robert's strolls about Falaise, perhaps in disguise, like another
Haroun al Raschid, his beauty-loving eyes caught sight one day of a
young girl who was standing bare-footed in a shallow brook, washing
linen, and making herself merry with a group of busy young companions.
This was Arlette, or Herleva, according as one gives her the Saxon
or the Norman name; her father was a brewer and tanner, who had been
attracted to Falaise from Germany by the reputation of its leather
manufactures and good markets. The pastures and hunting-grounds made
skins very cheap and abundant, but the trade of skinning of beasts was
considered a most degrading one, and those who pursued it in ancient
times were thought less of than those who followed almost any other
occupation. If we were not sure of this, we might suspect the Norman
nobles of casting undue shame and reproach upon this man Fulbert.
Duke Robert seems to have quite forgotten his lawful wife in his new
love-making with Herleva. Even the tanner himself objected to the
duke's notice of his daughter, but who could withstand the wishes of
so great a man? Not Fulbert, who accepted the inevitable with a good
grace, for later in the story he shows himself a faithful retainer and
household official of his lord and master. Robert never seems to have
recovered from his first [Pg123] devotion to the pretty creature who
stood with slender, white feet in the brook, and turned so laughing
a face toward him. They showed not long ago the very castle-window
in Falaise from which he caught his first sight of the woman who
was to rule his life. He did not marry her, though Estrith was sent
away; but they had a son, who was named William, who himself added
the titles of the Great and The Conqueror, but who never escaped
hearing to his life's end the shame and ignominy of his birth. We
cannot doubt that it was as mean an act then as now to taunt a man
with the disgrace he could not help; but of all the great men who
were of illegitimate birth whom we know in the pages of history,
this famous William is oftenest openly shamed by his title of the
Bastard. He won much applause; he was the great man of his time, but
from pique, or jealousy, or prejudice, perhaps from some faults that
he might have helped, he was forever accused of the shame that was
not his. The Bastard,—the Tanner's Grandson; he was never allowed to
forget, through any heroism or success in war, or furthering of Norman
fortunes, that these titles belonged to him.
The pride of the Norman nobles was dreadfully assailed by Duke
Robert's shameful alliance with Herleva. All his relations, who had
more or less right to the ducal crown, were enraged beyond control.
Estrith had no children, and this beggarly little fellow who was
growing plump and rosy in the tanner's house, was arch-enemy of
all the proud lords and gentlemen. There was plenty of scandal and
mockery [Pg124] in Falaise, and the news of Robert's base behavior
was flying from village to village through Normandy and France. The
common people of Falaise laughed in the faces of the barons and
courtiers as they passed in the street, and one day an old burgher and
neighbor of the tanner asked William de Talvas, the head of one of
the most famous Norman families, to go in with him to see the Duke's
son. The Lord of Alençon was very angry when he looked at the innocent
baby-face. He saw, by some strange foreboding and prevision, the
troubles that would fall upon his own head because of this vigorous
young life, and, as he cursed the unconscious child again and again,
his words only echoed the fear that was creeping through Normandy.
Robert was very bold in his defiance of public opinion, and before
long the old tanner sheds his blouse like the cocoon of a caterpillar,
and blooms out resplendent in the gay trappings of court chamberlain.
Herleva was given the place as duchess which did not legally belong to
her, and this hurt the pride of the ladies and gentlemen of the court
and the country in a way that all Robert's munificence and generosity
could not repay or cure. The age was licentious enough, but public
opinion demanded a proper conformity to law and etiquette. All the
aristocratic house of Rolf's descendants, the valor and scholarship
and churchmanship of Normandy, were insulted at once. The trouble
fermented more and more, until the Duke's uncle, the Archbishop of
Rouen, called his nephew to account for such open sin and disgrace
of his kindred, and finally [Pg125] excommunicated him and put all
Normandy under a ban.
Somehow this outbreak was quieted down, and just then Robert was
called upon, not only to settle the quarrel in Flanders above
mentioned, but to uphold the rights of the French king. For his
success in this enterprise he was granted the district of the Vexin,
which lay between Normandy and France, and so the Norman duchy
extended its borders to the very walls of Paris. Soon other questions
of pressing importance rose up to divert public comment; it was no
time to provoke the Duke's anger, and there was little notice taken of
Herleva's aggravating presence in the ducal castle, or the untoward
growth and flourishing of her son.
At length Duke Robert announced his intention of going on a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem. He wished to show his piety and to gain as much credit
as possible, so the long journey was to be made on foot. The Norman
barons begged him not to think of such a thing, for in the excited
condition of French and Norman affairs nothing could be more imprudent
than to leave the dukedom masterless. "By my faith!" Robert answered
stoutly, "I do not mean to leave you without a lord. Here is my young
son, who will grow and be a gallant man, by God's help; I command you
to take him for your lord, for I make him my heir and give him my
whole duchy of Normandy."
There was a stormy scene in the council, and however we may scorn
Robert's foolish, selfish present-giving and his vulgarity, we cannot
help pitying him [Pg126] as he pleads with the knights and bishops
for their recognition of his innocent boy. We pity the Duke's shame,
while his natural feeling toward the child wars with his disgust. With
all his eloquence, with all his authority, he entreats the scornful
listeners until they yield. They have warned him against the danger
of the time, and of what he must expect, not only if he goes on
pilgrimage and leaves the dukedom to its undefended fate, but also
if he further provokes those who are already his enemies, and who
resent the presence of his illegitimate child. But he dares to put
the base-born lad over the dukedom of Normandy as his own successor.
He even goes to the king of France and persuades him to receive the
unworthy namesake of Longsword as vassal and next duke, and to Alan
of Brittany, who consents to be guardian. Then at last the unwilling
barons do homage to the little lord—a bitter condescension and service
it must have been!
After all the ceremonies were finished, Robert lost no time in
starting on his pilgrimage. He sought the shrine of Jerusalem, many a
weary mile away, over mountain and fen, past dangers of every sort.
Nothing could be more characteristic than his performance of his
penance or his pleasure journey—whichever he called it—for although he
went on foot, he spent enormous sums in showering alms upon the people
who came out to greet him. Heralds rode before him, and prepared his
lodging and reception, and the great procession of horses and grooms
and beasts of burden grew longer and longer as he went on his way.
Once they blocked up the [Pg127] gateway of a town, and the keeper
fell upon the pilgrim Duke, ignorantly, and gave him a good thrashing
to make him hurry on with his idle crowd. Robert piously held back
those of his followers who would have beaten the warder in return, and
said that it was well for him to show himself a pattern of humility
and patience, and such suffering was meant for the good of one's soul.
[Illustration: ROBERT, DUKE OF NORMANDY, CARRIED IN A LITTER TO
JERUSALEM.
(FROM AN OLD ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT.)]
[Pg128]
The Duke did a great many foolish things; for one, he had his horses
shod with silver shoes, held on by only one nail, and gave orders that
none of his servants should pick up the shoes when they were cast, but
let them lie in the road.
At last the pilgrims reached Constantinople, and Robert made a great
display of his wealth, not to speak of his insolent bad manners.
The emperor, Michael, treated his rude guests with true Eastern
courtesy, and behaved himself much more honorably than those who
despised him and called him names. He even paid all the expenses of
the Norman procession, but, no doubt, he was anxious not to give
any excuse for displeasure or disturbance between the Northerners
and his own citizens. When the visit was over, and Robert moved on
toward Jerusalem, his already feeble health, broken by his bad life,
grew more and more alarming, and at last he could not take even a
very short journey on foot, and was carried in a litter by negroes.
The Crusades were filling the roads with pilgrims and soldiers, and
travellers of every sort. One day they met a Côtentin man, an old
acquaintance of Robert's. The Duke said with grim merriment that he
was borne like a corpse on a bier. "My lord," asked the Crusader, who
seems to have been sincerely shocked and doleful at the sight of the
Duke's suffering; "my lord, what shall I say for you when I reach
home?" "That you saw me carried toward Paradise by four devils," said
the Duke, readier at any time to joke about life than to face it
seriously and to do his duty. He kept up the pretence of travelling
unknown and in [Pg129] disguise, like a humbler pilgrim, but his
lavishness alone betrayed the secret he would really have been sorry
to keep. Outside the gates of Jerusalem there was always a great crowd
of people who were not able to pay the entrance-fee demanded of every
pilgrim; but Robert paid for himself and all the rest before he went
in at the gate. The long journey was almost ended, for on the way
home, at the city of Nicæa, the Duke was poisoned, and died, and was
buried there in the cathedral with great solemnity and lamentation. He
had collected a heap of relics of the saints, and these were brought
safely home to Normandy by Tostin, his chamberlain, who seems to have
served him faithfully all the way.
[Illustration]
[Pg130]
[Illustration]
VII.
THE NORMANS IN ITALY.
"And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come."—MARVELL.
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
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