The Normans and Their World

by Jack Lindsay

William Longsword was probably born at Rouen. Dudo stresses his French tastes, his friendship with the De Senlis, his preference for Christian and Gallicized Normans; but though Dudo (who had had much information from Richard I and his brother Raoul d’Ivri) was writing in good faith, we may doubt this picture. William had spent much time with his father, who certainly spoke Norse, was reared by a Norseman Botho (though this man was said to have been won over to French ways), and had later as his chief councillor Bernard the Dane. He took care to have his son taught to speak Norse. He carried on his father’s policy of supporting Charles, till that king ended in a dungeon, starved to death, it is said. In 930, perhaps learning that a Saracenic threat had drawn away the forces of Burgundy and Paris to the south-east, the Loire Vikings began ravaging the countryside, but were defeated at Limoges. The Breton counts repudiated Norman supremacy; but with the aid of the Loire Vikings William overran the country. When he left, the Bretons rallied again and he had to devastate their region a second time. He annexed the Cotentin, the Channel Islands, and the Avranchin; and took a Breton concubine, Sprota. He settled down at Fécamp, where he and his successors restored and added to the Abbey.

  Bayeux, whether or not set in an ancient Saxon area, seems to have been the centre of the Norse speakers, among whom malcontents found a leader in Riulf, a count set over the annexed Breton territories — though he was no Norman but uncle of Baldwin of Flanders and connected with the family of Charles the Simple. When he demanded some two-thirds of Normandy, the whole area west of the river Risle, William seems to have panicked, remained irresolute, and tried to buy off the rebels. However, when Riulf came up to Rouen, he led out the troops and won a victory. Riulf was captured and killed. Soon afterwards William heard that Sprota had borne him a son, Richard. He accepted Raoul of Burgundy as king of France and married Liutgarda, daughter of Herbert of Vermandois, a great French house; but he went on living with Sprota and recognized her child as his heir. He sent Richard to Bayeux under his own old tutor Botho to learn Norse. He may have wanted to placate the sections of his people who stuck to Norse traditions and resented French influences; or he may have thought it right for a Norman ruler at least to know and respect those traditions. In any event, Richard, the third ruler of Normandy, was bilingual like his father. Behind the circumspect narrative of Dudo we get the impression that William’s rule was insecurely established and that it was still possible that the Norman state would be destroyed. We are told that in 933 he was so anxious that he meditated leaving Normandy and sent Sprota to Fécamp so that she could make an easy getaway to England.

  Charles the Simple had married Eadgifu, daughter of Edward the Elder, who bore him a son, Louis. On his death, wife and son fled to Aethelstane in England. Dudo says that William took the lead in bringing about the restoration of the Carolingian line. But the Normans were unpopular at the English court as pirates and William is not likely to have cared much either way. Still he seems to have supported Louis, who in June 936 returned to France and was crowned at Laon. With English aid, Alan Barbe Torte, a fugitive Breton noble, landed in Brittany, drove out the pagan Danes and Normans, and established himself at Nantes. William did nothing and Alan became one of his supporters.

  From 937 till his death in 943 William kept changing sides in the complex French situation. Out of hatred of his brother-in-law Arnulf of Flanders, he defied Louis, invaded Flanders and laid waste much land. He caused so much damage that he was excommunicated; but he still went on destroying. One of his aims was to get hold of Ponthieu, a small county between Flanders and Normandy. When conflict broke out between Louis and the new German ruler Otto, William once more supported Louis, who visited him at Rouen. Later, however, he made moves which can be interpreted as a turn to the Norse party in Normandy, but was coolly received. The Cotentin was said to have been depopulated by warfare and raids, and William seems to have asked for more immigrants from Denmark. Dudo and William of Jumièges tell a strange tale of King Harald Bluetooth coming with sixty ships to Cherbourg and occupying the country after being driven out by his rebel son. But the dates do not fit. Sweyn Forkbeard’s revolt took place years later. Dudo was, we may assume, confusing some tale told him by Richard I who would have been a boy of eight at the time, being educated at Bayeux. Possibly Harald did pay a visit a few years later, or there may have been a leader named Harald among the immigrant Danes. In any event many pagan Danes did come in about this time.

  William, alarmed by the whole situation, wanted to become a monk at Jumièges, but the abbot told him that his duty lay in the world — though he gave him a monk’s habit, which William locked up in a box in his bedroom. On his return to Rouen he fell ill. He arranged a council of regency made up of seven lords, who took an oath of allegiance to Richard. A general assembly (suggesting a Thing) was called at Bayeux and its acceptance of the young ruler was secured. But not long after a group of conspirators, including Arnulf, Baldwin, and Thibault of Blois, managed to murder William at a meeting on an island in the Somme. Thibault later married his widow Liutgarda. Herbert of Vermandois died the same year and the powerful dominion he had built up promptly collapsed.

  The earliest sample of Norman literature we possess is a Complaint for William Longsword, perhaps by a cleric of Jumièges, but clearly sung throughout the country, with a strong rhythm, returns of phrase, and refrain. It laments William’s murder and states that his father (Rollo) remained a pagan, but that his mother was a Christian:

  When his father died, then the unbelievers

  rose armed in revolt, rose to do him harm.

  Them he conquered, trusting in God’s succour,

  them he defeated with his own right arm.

  But treachery did for him: ‘Let all men weep for William, innocent yet done to death.’ Something of the idea of a holy war of Christians against pagans is appearing. The second sample of early Norman literature, in rhythmic prose, tells of the return of St Ouen’s relics to Rouen and shows the tendency to make Rollo respectable. To save his relics from theft, the saint appears to Richard I.

  Richard the Fearless had been accepted on 29 May 942; the recognition ceremony was carried out at Rouen. Throughout much of his reign the key figure was the loyal Bernard the Dane. King Louis granted investiture to Richard, who thus became his ward. But some Norman lords of the Evecin were indignant at homage being thus paid to the king and made contact with Hugh of Paris, who was an ambitious schemer and whose frontier adjoined theirs. Other sections had sworn fealty direct to Louis and favoured the close link with France, while yet others felt opposed to the whole direction that was being taken, and wanted to cling to Norse pagan ways. These latter, centred on Bayeux, broke into rebellion under one Thormod. The episode is obscure, since Dudo and William of Jumièges are reticent, and we have to look to Flodoard and Richer (later chroniclers, both of Rheims) for the facts. Somehow Thormod, reinforced by a Norse fleet under Sihtric, got power over Richard, and proclaimed that he had reverted to paganism. The rebels advanced southward with the aim of occupying all Normandy. But against such an invasion both Louis and Hugh of Paris combined. Hugh drove the rebels back, then Louis routed them, killing Thormod, it is said, with his own hands.

  In Rouen Louis reinstated Richard and condemned his father’s murder; but he was suspicious and did not mean to let Richard slip out of his hands. After three days an insurrection broke out in the town. Louis was unprepared and had to let Richard go free. Bernard and the other leaders demanded that he should concede Normandy to Richard, to be held by hereditary right, and should swear to defend Normandy against its enemies. At a solemn ceremony Richard renewed his homage and Louis took the required oath — as also, reluctantly, did his vassals. But the pagan party was not yet crushed, and the usual intrigues went on around Louis, Hugh of Paris, and other great lords. Louis had promised to take vengeance on Arnulf of Flanders, but instead he plotted with him to get rid of Richard, who was at Laon.

  One day when Richard and Osmund de Centeville came back from a hawk
ing expedition on which they had gone without leave, Louis flew in a rage and imprisoned them. All Normandy soon knew, but could do nothing. Osmund got in touch with Bernard de Senlis, who lived not far off at Coucy, and gave out that Richard was dying. While Louis was celebrating the news, he smuggled Richard out in a truss of hay to Coucy. De Senlis decided to try to use Hugh of Paris to oppose Louis; Hugh in turn felt that he could exploit the situation, and offered troops to safeguard Richard’s transfer from Coucy to Senlis. (De Senlis was Hugh’s vassal.) When Louis asked for Richard’s return, Hugh refused. Louis conferred with Arnulf, who advised him to buy off Hugh, though the price would be high. Hugh agreed to abandon Richard if he were given a lion’s share in the partition of Normandy.

  Richard had two honest men on his side, Bernard de Senlis and Bernard the Dane, the latter now an old man who had been a follower of Rollo. To keep control of the situation, they agreed to pretend to take different sides, the Dane turning to Louis, de Senlis to Hugh. (Hugh had grown more ambitious than ever, as his third wife, sister of the Emperor Otto, had borne him his first son.) Thibault of Blois, a scoundrel who was now one of the great men of France, was immobilized by a scheme that de Senlis put to him for the killing of Louis; de Senlis knew it would start Thibault plotting how to betray him (de Senlis). William of Jumièges, trying to explain Dudo’s account, says that Bernard the Dane sent to Harald king of the Danes, who was still at Cherbourg, asking him to raise a force from Bayeux and Coutances, and to launch a land-invasion of Normandy, while he himself attacked by sea. (Richer and Flodoard mention this Harald, Herald, Hagrald, but say he was the commander at Bayeux.) In any event civil war broke out in Brittany and Normandy was overrun by the Danes, who came in through Cherbourg. In this eventuality, Louis, Arnulf, and Hugh combined once more.

  Bernard the Dane’s aim all along was to split the enemy. So he did his best to hold the Danes back and offered submission to Louis, who then entered Rouen amid cheers. Louis now regretted his bargain with Hugh, and Bernard played on his regret, deploring the division of Normandy. He persuaded Louis to command Hugh to stop his operations around Bayeux. Hugh felt himself in danger, raised the siege of Bayeux, and returned to his own domains, where de Senlis urged him to take his revenge by supporting Richard. Louis appointed as his minister in Normandy Raoul Torta, a son of the French bishop of Paris, who had been an associate of Bernard the Dane under William. He imposed heavy levies, and William of Jumièges hated him for taking stones meant for his Abbey and using them to fortify Rouen. He may have made a secret agreement with Bernard, who wanted Rouen to be strong. The Normans were beginning to settle down afresh, but the French kept clamouring for the redistribution of Norman land and the dispossession of the Normans. De Senlis won Hugh over into making a sudden attack on Louis’s dominions; he seized Compiègne and Montigny at Easter 945. Louis rushed off to defend the region and Danes swarmed into Normandy from Brittany. A fleet anchored in Barfleur. Louis hurried back. A conference was held on the Dive in July 945. What happened is unclear; but war broke out. Louis was routed and taken prisoner. His queen appealed to her brother Otto of Germany and to Edmund of England, without much effect, though Otto promised to intervene when he could. Louis gave way and accepted Richard as duke of Normandy and Richard made some slight acknowledgement of the king’s precedence; a charter of 968 speaks of the Princeps of the Franks as the duke’s Senior. Bernard kept Raoul in his office, but Raoul was so unpopular that he had to be dismissed after a while.

  Richard heard of the beautiful wife of his forest-superintendent at Sècheville and decided to visit her; but she let her sister Gunnor take her place. Next day Richard found out the trick, but he liked Gunnor so well that he merely laughed. He made Gunnor his wife more Dannico, and she bore him several children, the eldest of whom succeeded him. The decisive change among the Normans seems to have begun now. The old allodial tenures became more like feudal tenures, and the freemen lost their independent status — though some allodial tenures remained. The changes were probably the work of Bernard the Dane, Osmund, and Ivo de Bellême, who seem to be the three foremost barons. Military service was organized more on the basis of feudal fealties and less by the old summons to all freemen. We hear no more of Bernard, though through his son Torf and grandson Thorold he seems to have been the ancestor of many later noble families in Normandy and especially those of Harcourt and Beaumont.

  Arnulf, Louis, and Otto now made an alliance against Richard and Hugh of Paris. They ravaged the two duchies, but Rouen held out and the allies began to quarrel among themselves. Finally in 950 peace was arranged, with Louis regaining Laon, but the duchies of Paris and Normandy were undefeated. For seven years Richard had peace. He was betrothed to Hugh’s daughter Emma, but was in no haste to marry her. In 954 Louis died, succeeded by his son Lothaire; in 956 Hugh died, naming Richard as his son’s guardian. Richard was now in a strong position. At last in 960 he married Emma, but she died in 962.

  Lothaire got hold of Hugh’s two sons and allotted them Paris and Poitou. Then a coalition against Richard seems to have been organized by Bruno, archbishop of Cologne and the duke of Lorraine, a brother of Otto; Richard was to have been murdered at Amiens in 960, but, according to Dudo, was warned. In 961 Lothaire called an assembly of his chief vassals at Soissons; the Normans tried to disperse the meeting by force, but failed. Next year Thibault seized Evreux. Driven out, he went to Lothaire, and war began between Lothaire and Richard. The latter succeeded in making his opponents give up their aggressive plans. Dudo tells us that he had called in Harald Bluetooth from Denmark, apparently while the issues were still doubtful. When the Danes came, says Dudo, they found Lothaire beaten. Harald at this time was master of the seas, overlord of Norway as well as king of Denmark, and it is possible that he went to Normandy to aid some further immigration and to equip his ships for a piratic expedition against the Moors of Spain.

  Normandy seems generally uninvolved in the events of 978-87, when there was war between Lothaire and the Germans. (Otto had become emperor in 962.) Lothaire and then his son both died, and Hugh Capet became king of France. Richard seems to have played only a diplomatic role in the succession, as he had done in 965 when old Arnulf of Flanders died. In 996 he himself died after reigning more than fifty years.

  Those years had been crucial in establishing the Normans as an integral part of the Frankish scene. Though their connections with Norsemen persisted, it was no longer possible to call them an upstart pack of pirates who should be dispossessed. We cannot trace the details, but the Norman state now took definite form. We have two charters of Richard’s reign, the first written documents of Norman history, but they tell us little except the names of Richard’s chief advisers, the signatories. The number of baronies seems between 100 and 120, and there were a few counts. As yet there was no clearcut relation between land held and military services due. Normandy was much smaller than, say, the kingdom of Wessex, and the baronies were not large. Richard probably began the system of administration through viscounts, which was functioning in the next reign. The ecclesiastical system in early days had fallen into confusion, and the dukes held it firmly in their hands, with the viscounts controlling the bishoprics. Richard founded the abbeys of Mont St Michel and St Ouen, and did much for Fécamp. Mercantile activity was growing in the towns and at the fairs, and Richard seems to have been the first Norman duke to coin his own money. Tall, fair, handsome and energetic, in his later years he had a long beard and thick white hair; he was personally generous and easy-going. He it was who encouraged Dudo to write the history of the Normans.

  Richard II (998-1026) soon had to face a challenge from the peasantry, who William of Jumièges says began to devise plans for their own self-government both on the coast and in the interior. Each local group elected two deputies for a central assembly which aimed at formulating general policy. Wace says that the peasants wanted to rise against their feudal oppressors and calculated that they outnumbered the latter by twenty to one. Raoul d’Ivri was p
ut in charge of the forces for the destruction of the movement, and his well armed warriors soon crushed the peasants, who were cruelly punished. The deputies had their hands and feet cut off, and were then sent back to report to their electors. The monk William of Jumièges writes with delight at this treatment of a presumptuous peasantry.

  The movement seems remarkably ahead of the times, suggesting as it does later communal movements or a peasant revolt like that in England in 1381. We know little of the composition of the small free farmers in Normandy at this time. It has been suggested that Norsemen filled the towns, while survivors of the earlier peasantry mostly carried on on the land. But we can understand such a movement for self-government in early eleventh-century Normandy only if we see the leaders as Norsemen remembering the Things and the odal systems of their homeland. Under Richard II the issue of paganism against Christianity seems to have faded out; but there was the one last effort to maintain and extend the system of government among the smaller free farmers which had nourished the spirit of independence, and which in more favourable conditions, in Iceland, produced a society without centralization or oppressive state-forms. The settlement of Norse farmers must have been helped by the depopulations caused by the early raids; but at the same time it is certain that considerable numbers of pre-Norman peasants carried on. One main argument for their persistence lies in the place-names; and on many large estates in the region continuity of tenure certainly went on without any large-scale break throughout the tenth century. But we can still argue that there were enough free Norsemen on the land to dominate the situation and to be the force behind the scheme for some sort of self-government. When Adhémar of Chabannes later wrote, ‘They received the Christian faith, fo­rsook the language of their fathers, and accustomed themselves to Latin speech’, he was telescoping a process that took two or three generations; and the fact that by 1025 Norse speech was more or less obsolete in the Bayeux area does not disprove this comment.