The Normans: From Raiders to Kings

by Lars Brownworth

  Across the Channel in Normandy, Duke Richard I was facing the lesser but related problem of what to do about the Vikings. Despite their shared cultural heritage, the last thing the Norman duke wanted was a group of uncontrollable Vikings upsetting trade and rampaging through his territory. A succession of Norman leaders had done their best to convince the rest of Christendom that they were civilized Christians; Richard could hardly welcome pagan raiders into his territory and maintain that pretense. What’s more, there was also nothing to guarantee that the Vikings wouldn’t turn on him. They wanted plunder and Normandy had plenty of it.

  Richard was still wondering what to do when the Vikings forced his hand by requesting access to his ports to sell the goods they had plundered from England. The aging Richard was caught in a dilemma; actively resist and draw Viking ire or assist them and confirm the dark rumors already swirling that the Normans were nothing more than pirates themselves.

  Perhaps it was because he still felt a distant kinship to the Norse, or perhaps he was trying to avoid becoming a target himself, but for whatever reason, Richard I opened the ports and braced himself for the inevitable controversy.

  It erupted almost immediately. The English in particular were horrified that a fellow Christian prince was providing hospitality for the very raiders that were despoiling their nation, and sent an appeal to the pope to bring the Normans back into line. The pope was reluctant to do this as he was, at the time, engaged in a struggle to reform the Church and the Normans were great patrons of reform in their territory, but the scandal was so intense that a papal representative was dispatched to Richard, and the duke reluctantly signed an agreement to stop harboring Ethelred’s enemies. He could hardly break off relations completely, however; he instructed his merchants to continue trading and five years later he died, leaving the issue to his son to deal with.

  Although the thirty-three-year-old Richard II was technically illegitimate, it was a smooth transition of power; a testament to how deeply the principle of succession had taken root. Important marriages were always political matches, and the Norman dukes took the same approach to their mistresses, living openly with them and considering their offspring legitimate. The general population seems to have accepted this as a relic of the old pagan days and been content enough to let such things slide. It was fortunate that there were no real challenges to his authority, for Richard II was soon faced with his first real test.

  Drawn by decades of easy English loot, a huge Danish army descended on Wessex in 996 and began a three-year systematic plundering of the kingdom. By the time Ethelred had gathered enough money to persuade them to leave, the Vikings had decided that they needed a base from which to continue further attacks. They asked Richard II for permission to use Norman ports to resupply.

  Richard was caught in the same quandary as his father, and he came to the same conclusions. In England, Ethelred the Unready was starting to panic. He had emptied the treasury to force the Vikings away, only to see them get a what he assumed was a friendly reception across the Channel and continue their attacks. He had to find some way to close Norman ports. An appeal to the pope proved ineffective, so the king tried his hand at diplomacy. Richard II had an unmarried sister named Emma, and Ethelred offered to marry her if the Normans agreed to shut the door to the Norse.

  This was too good an opportunity for Richard to miss and was certainly worth the risk of offending the Vikings for, so young Emma was packed off to London. Confident that he had solved the Viking menace at last, king Ethelred carried out a surprise massacre of the Danes living in the southwest of England and then mustered a huge fleet to hold off any Danish retribution. When some months passed with no Viking attempt at revenge, Ethelred put his navy to use settling some old scores. Richard II may have been a useful recent ally, but the Normans had stood by for years while the Norse tormented England. The time had come for a little payback, so a detachment was sent to raid the coast of Normandy. It was easily routed, but by then Ethelred had larger problems. The Danish massacre had given its king, Svein Forkbeard, the perfect excuse to invade. Since Richard II had been needlessly antagonized, Svein was welcomed to Rouen with open arms. After a formal alliance between the two was concluded and an oath of perpetual peace sworn, Svein continued to England where he found surprisingly little resistance. The English were tired of their weak king and since Svein was already a Christian he wasn’t met with the usual suspicion accorded to Vikings. By the end of the year the Dane was sitting on the English throne and Ethelred, Emma, and their two young sons were living in awkward exile in Normandy.

  Richard II seems to have realized rather quickly that he had gone too far in making a treaty with the Vikings. Norman dukes had always tried hard to pretend that they were proper French nobility, but the surrounding people were deeply suspicious of their Norse ancestry. Now, it seemed as if the Norman inner Viking was revealed for all to see. Proper Christian, French princes didn’t go around making treaties with Viking kings or trading with Viking pirates – and they certainly didn’t use Viking mercenaries to threaten other Christians.

  Richard had just recently been guilty of this. He got involved in a border skirmish with Brittany, and had brought in Norse warriors13 to help him, which scandalized popular opinion among the surrounding French. Nearly as bad (in the French view) as the shameful behavior of duke Richard II was the conduct of his sister Emma. Barely two years into her exile both her husband Ethelred and his rival Svein Forkbeard died, and she wasted no time abandoning her young sons to marry the new Viking king of England. The boys, one of which was the future king Edward the Confessor, were left to fend for themselves, effectively disowned and orphaned.

  Normandy was clearly being drawn into the Scandinavian orbit, proving what the Gallic population had long suspected about its half-civilized new neighbors. In order to refurbish the tarnished Norman image, Richard II commissioned a pro-French history of the duchy. What better way to combat negative public relations than with a little spin of his own?

  Norman history was given a thorough white-washing. Rollo acquired a high birth in Norway; his fierce son William Longsword was transformed into a gentle ruler – a monk at heart and a lover of peace who died a martyr’s death. Richard I was made a paragon of virtue, fighting equally to reform the Church and maintain his independence from the powerful north.

  The tendency of the dukes to have public mistresses was rather embarrassing, but they were given the title ‘Danish wives’ – and explained away as holdovers from the old Norse, pagan days when rulers didn’t know any better. Even Richard II’s mother got a makeover. In reality she was the daughter of a powerful vassal of Richard I who had become the duke’s mistress to cement ties with her father. Now, however, she became a humble forester’s daughter who met the duke by chance on a hunting trip and captured his heart with her beauty and virtue.

  These were ancestors that an ambitious duke needed, worthy of even the proudest French nobility, and they gave Richard II the credibility he desired. From his court at Rouen he handed out titles, and appointed viscounts, seneschals, and constables in a quantity that not even the king of France could match. All of a sudden Norman forces seemed to be everywhere, intervening in neighboring squabbles, pressing ducal claims, and expanding the territory of Normandy. The message Richard was sending was clear. These were the actions of one of the great lords of France, and even if uncrowned, he was nearly the equal of the king.

  By the time he died of natural causes at the ripe old age of sixty-four, Richard II had successfully managed to turn the perception of Normandy from a rogue Viking state into one of the most powerful provinces of France. He was a friend of the French king, the brother-in-law of the English king, and had at least five grown sons to carry on his line. His subjects remembered him fondly as Richard the Good, and might possibly have done so without the pandering of court historians. More than any other duke, he had been responsible for creating an identity for his people, and had laid the foundation for even greater
heights yet to come.

  Chapter 4

  The Magnificent Devil

  The death of a medieval ruler was always an invitation to chaos, but Richard had made excellent preparations for his succession. There was no shortage of available heirs to choose from since the late duke had two brothers and five sons. The eldest son, Richard III, was the obvious choice, and was groomed from the start. When his father died, he was thirty years old, popular, battle-tested, and, most importantly, he already had a son to ensure the next generation of dukes. The various other uncles and siblings were bought off with extensive states around Normandy, and everybody was perfectly content to settle down and enjoy their new arrangements.

  The only one unhappy with the new situation was Richard III’s younger brother, Robert, who, at seventeen was cocky, energetic, and absolutely convinced that he should be the one in charge. His share of the inheritance was an estate in central Normandy focused around a castle in Falaise, and from the security of these walls he loudly announced his fitness to rule to anyone that would listen. When neither of his uncles showed the slightest interest in backing him, he decided to revolt anyway, and started ravaging his way through the countryside.

  Richard III was in no mood to take any abuse from his little brother and he swept into Falaise at the head of his army, forcing Robert to go scampering back to his castle. To the latter’s horror, Richard then produced siege engines and methodically reduced its defenses. Robert was forced to make a humiliating public act of submission, and returned chastened to Falaise to rebuild his favorite castle.

  Richard’s triumph over his brother set the stage for an even greater diplomatic coup. The king of France had an infant daughter, and as a mark of Richard’s preeminent status, she was betrothed to him, but just as the young duke was making preparations for his wedding, he fell ill and died. Poison was immediately suspected as the cause of his death, and, although no one was foolish enough to say it to his face, everyone suspected Robert. His aspirations were well known, and his behavior hardly broadcast innocence. Almost before his brother’s body was cold, Robert had moved into the palace and shipped Richard’s young son off to a monastery to keep him safely out of the way.

  The incident (not altogether fairly) earned the new duke the nickname Robert the Devil. Medieval society was notoriously susceptible to diseases, any number of which could strike without warning, but to the medieval mind, sudden death was among the most terrifying of fates. A sudden death meant that there was no time for preparations, confession, or ritual, leaving the victim unprepared for the terrible Day of Judgment. So awful was this demise that a particularly vicious medieval curse was ‘May you die without warning!’ When one of the powerful met their end unexpectedly, the suspicion was that such a thing couldn’t have occurred naturally. The explanation usually depended on an individual’s popularity. Corrupt or wicked rulers were struck low by the divine hand, while the promising were invariably poisoned.

  Robert may have stood to benefit the most from his brother’s death, perhaps he even wanted him dead, but that’s hardly an airtight case for poisoning. His actions in seizing the duchy could be attributed to ambition and pragmatism as much as guilt, and by moving quickly and firmly he had undoubtedly prevented further bloodshed. Furthermore, although his reputation was certainly damaged, and rumors of his use of poison dogged him for the rest of his life, no one – not even Richard III’s cloistered son Nicholas – seemed to have a problem with Robert taking control. As a later Norman historian blandly summed it up ‘Robert was given the duchy by hereditary right’.

  It was one thing to gain power, however, and quite another to rule. Robert had taken every opportunity he could to encourage the aristocracy to stir up trouble against his brother, and now he was plagued by rebellious nobles. Unauthorized castles started popping up and church lands were confiscated, but he was too busy punishing those who had failed to support him from the start to do anything about it. His uncle, who also happened to be the archbishop of Rouen, had failed to rush to his side in his first revolt and now the time had come for a little payback. Marching into his protesting uncle’s territory, the duke unceremoniously expelled him from Normandy, and confiscated his property. Encouraged by this easy victory, Robert next turned on his cousin, the Bishop of Bayeux, sending another hapless relative into exile.

  This seizure of Church property didn’t go unnoticed by the pope in Rome, where Robert’s banished uncle, the archbishop, was arguing for all of Normandy to be put under interdict, a case that was strengthened by the duke’s behavior. Protesting clergy were continually ignored and sent packing, and word of their suffering eventually trickled down to Rome. Finally the pope acted and Robert was excommunicated.

  The duke was cut off from the sacrament, forbidden from receiving remission of his sins. If he died under the sentence he would be prohibited from being buried in consecrated land, and his bones would be doomed to molder outside the blessings of the church. The excommunicate was an outcast from society; all feudal bonds of loyalty were dissolved. Nobles no longer needed to obey the command of an outcast duke, and any that gave him shelter ran the risk of bringing the church’s condemnation upon themselves.

  News of the dreadful sentence was brought to the duke in Falaise where he was staying in his favorite castle, but he was too distracted to pay much attention. He had just met an extraordinary woman named Herlève.

  The daughter of a tanner, Herlève was spotted by Robert while he was walking on the roof of his castle. Legend has it that she was assisting her father by walking barefoot on the garments that were being dyed, holding her dress up to keep it clean. When she noticed the duke’s attention she coyly lifted her skirts a bit higher, dazzling Robert with a view of her legs. Smitten, the duke ordered one of his men to quietly fetch her, instructing him to bring her through the back door directly to his chambers. Herlève, however, announced that she would either come proudly through the front gate or not at all. The obsessed duke caved in and Herlève rode proudly up to the castle on a white horse, dressed in her finest clothes. If she was going to be the duke’s mistress, then she would be his only one, and make sure that everyone knew it. Nine months later she presented Robert with a son, and the pleased father named him William after the second duke of Normandy.

  The difference in their social status made a marriage impossible, and Robert soon found himself under enormous pressure to marry her off to someone else and cease his association with her. A century earlier, a mistress wouldn’t have been a problem, but the slow reform of the Church that his father and grandfather had encouraged had begun to reshape the morals of Normandy. Even more serious than this, however, was Robert’s excommunication. Every day that passed endangered his mortal soul and even the hotheaded duke couldn’t shrug off such pressure forever. Swallowing his pride, he recalled his uncle, the archbishop, and restored his property and land.

  The move was the great turning point of his reign. Like Shakespeare’s young Prince Hal, his reckless days were over, and he was determined to acquit himself as a proper duke. Herlève was provided with a husband, Church property that had been seized was returned, and an attempt was made to force various lawless magnates to do likewise. The great religious houses in Normandy, especially Fécamp, were endowed at his personal expense, and placed under his protection.

  The nobility resisted any attempts at centralization, but Robert kept them occupied by a vigorous foreign policy. When the Count of Flanders was exiled by his own son, Robert took advantage of the chaos to invade his neighbor, ostensibly to restore the old count, but in reality to extend his influence. The following year, Brittany threatened Mont St-Michel and Robert repeated the same tactics, forcing Brittany’s count to publicly acknowledge his vassal status. In 1033 a palace coup sent the young French king, Henry I, into exile and handed Robert a golden opportunity to extend Normandy’s reach. Henry fled to Fécamp, home of his most robust supporter, and requested the duke’s help. An army was quickly mobilized and Robert swep
t towards Paris, crushing the rebel forces and restoring Henry to his throne.

  The same year that saw Robert play kingmaker on the continent also brought opportunities across the English Channel. The duke had close ties with the Anglo-Saxon royal family; his aunt Emma had married the English king, and her two sons, Alfred and Edward, were just slightly older than Robert. During Duke Richard II’s reign, a Viking named Cnut had seized the kingdom, sending the three royals into exile in Normandy. They weren’t together for long. Emma, ever the survivor, had returned to England to marry Cnut, abandoning her two sons to survive as best they could.

  Duke Robert’s cautious father had been somewhat indifferent to his English nephew’s fate, but Robert was closer in age and moved by his cousin’s plight. With his characteristic flair he began to refer to the older sibling Edward as ‘King of the English’, and made the awkward demand that Cnut provide money for their upkeep. When Cnut laughed it off – he was hardly going to provide accommodations for a rival to his own throne – Robert followed up his threat by launching an invasion fleet.

  This first attempt at a Norman conquest was more ad hoc than carefully executed. The fleet set sail in 1033 but ran into a storm and was quickly blown off course, landing further along the French coast in the middle of Brittany. Not one to waste the opportunity, Robert disembarked and led a quick raid through his neighbor’s territory.

  By the winter of 1034, Robert was twenty-five-years old and the most powerful magnate in France. He had corralled his vassals, dominated his neighbors, threatened one king and placed another on his throne – quite an accomplishment for a reckless younger son. He was at the height of his powers and appeared poised to become one of Normandy’s strongest dukes. Then, at his Christmas court, he shocked everyone by naming his eight-year-old illegitimate son, William, as his heir, and announcing that he was leaving for Jerusalem.