Normans

NORMANS. - I. THE SCANDINAVIAN ORIGINS. - The Scandinavian peoples do not enter history until the end of the 8th century, when the "men of the north" (Northmen, Normands) invaded Western Europe. The information available about their origins, drawn from inscriptions in runic characters, from much later works by the skalds, court poets of the Scandinavian kings, and especially from the epic tales of the sagas, is very imperfect.

A northern branch of the Germanic peoples, the Scandinavians divided fairly early into three regional groups: Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, settled, as regards territory, more or less as they are today. The principal foundations of the unity of the Scandinavian peoples are the close kinship of their dialects, the originality of their mythology, the similarity of their social organization and of their way of life. The Scandinavian languages differ from one another only in dialectal forms. The songs of the ancient Edda, a poem rediscovered in Iceland in 1643, describe the triad Thor, Odin and Freyr, personifying the forces of nature; their practices, more magical than cultic, aim to conciliate or to ward off the influence of the trold, beneficent or maleficent spirits. The Scandinavians live in contact with nature; their life is predominantly agricultural, based on three-field rotation, of which cereals constitute the principal element. The farmstead (torp) and the village (by), cells of the social organization, administer themselves autonomously, because "self-government," embodied at each level by an assembly (thing), forms the particular trait of Scandinavian societies. Canton and province, of very remote origin, form the frame, the setting of judicial and fiscal life, over which presides the power of the local kings, elected by the assembly of the chiefs (jorf) of the province. Nevertheless, little by little the king's power imposed itself, thus preparing the rise of future States; first in Norway, around the Oslo fjord, at the end of the 7th century, with Halvdan the Generous and his son Godfrid; then in Denmark, whose king Godfrid (d. 810) confronted Charlemagne; and finally in Sweden, where sacrifices common to the whole people, celebrated at Uppsala, preluded unity.

Nevertheless the Scandinavian world, far from living turned in upon itself, soon entered into contact with outside regions. The first voyage known, of Westerners toward the peoples of the north, is that of Pytheas of Massalia, at the end of the 4th century B.C. Afterwards, the countries of the north push, on various occasions, toward the Latin world masses of emigrants, Cimbri and Teutones, Vandals and Burgundians; while the Jutes follow the Angles and Saxons in their movement toward the British Isles. Commercial relations, knotted from the 5th to the 8th century, with the West and the East, prelude the great Scandinavian migrations. In the east, many merchants, crossing the territory of future Russia, retrace and prolong the itineraries already traveled by the Frisians from the shores of Merovingian Gaul and of Brittany. By these routes the zoomorphic decorations characteristic of the shores of the Black Sea spread into the West; Arab coins travel up as far as Scandinavia, silver scolta come down from Sweden as far as Marseilles, while bronze keys with pierced handles, of Frankish type, spread along the shores of the Baltic. In the 6th century Scandinavian ships are reported in the Gulf of Gascony (520) and in Frisia (575); in the 8th century the Norwegians begin the peaceful colonization of the Caledonian archipelagos (Hebrides, Shetland, Faroe) and of Ireland. At the end of the same century the Danes renounce in more drastic fashion confronting on land the invincible power of the Franks, and, between 786 and 793, begin on the English coasts the exploration of the fruitful "westward route." Already the era of the Vikings is announced, that is, of the pirates, of whom the apostle of Frisia, St. Willibrord, could only skirt the country and whom the mission of St. Ansgar will touch with difficulty around 830 with the foundation of the bishopric of Birka in Sweden.

II. THE SCANDINAVIAN EXPANSION

The Scandinavian expansion from the 9th to the 11th century was therefore not a sudden event, but the culmination of a very ancient process. The exodus seems to have arisen from the insufficiency of arable land for an increased population, and perhaps, secondarily, as regards the Danes, from internal political revolutions. To this were added the taste for adventure and the lure of booty. Determined by common causes, the Norman expansion developed from the Crimea to Greenland, with different characteristics: peaceful in the east, with the Varangians, traveling merchants, associated in companies by the bond of an oath (etymologically vdrar = guarantees, oaths); violent and conquering in the west with the Vikings, pirates in search of booty and land (etymologically: vikingr, a person who frequents bays, from vik = bay).

1. The Varangians in Eastern Europe

From the 9th century, along the trade route from the Baltic to the Black Sea, Swedish trading posts and military stations were staggered: Novgorod, Smolensk and above all Kiev. Between the disappearance of the Avars and the irruption of the Pechenegs, the Ukrainian steppe opened up to adventurers from the north, numerous enough in the 10th century to form something like small states: that of Kiev became the most important under the princes Askold, Olaf and Igor. Attracted by the splendors of Byzantium, the Varangians dared to attack it in 860 and again in 907; but they were too few in number to avoid mixing with the Slavs and to avoid coming to terms with the Greek power. They furnished a guard to the basileus, and the Varangians, converted to Christianity in 988 in the time of Prince Vladimir, adopted Byzantine culture and transmitted it to the future Russia, which received its name from them (Russia from Rutsilaiset, the Finnish name for the Swedes).

2. The Vikings in the West

Maritime expansion toward the west became possible thanks to advances in shipbuilding. The royal tombs of Oseberg and Gokstad in Norway, and of Ladby in Denmark, have made known longships from 24 to 24 m. [sic], with exceptional nautical qualities, despite the absence of a deck, thanks to their sharp prows, their keels and their simultaneous propulsion by sail and oars (about 30 to 40 rowers); some ships carried up to 200 warriors. Skilled sailors, the N. sailed straight across the Ocean, without troubling to coast along the shores. Such daring is explained by the ardor of the Norman warrior; the hero of the sagas, attracted by the sea from childhood, tall, broad-shouldered, fair-colored, the berseks (= bear-man), is an intrepid, cruel and greedy fighter, feared even by his own. The 9th and 10th centuries, the great age of Scandinavian history, led him as far as America.

3. Norwegian maritime expansion

Setting out from the archipelagos near Scotland, the Norwegians made the methodical conquest of the Isle of Man and of Ireland and founded, toward the middle of the 9th century, the Principality of Dublin. There fruitful exchanges of civilization took place until the day when, at Clontarf, near Dublin, the Celtic chiefs of Ireland drove the Norse back into a few coastal towns (1014). The Isle of Man and the Hebrides remained Scandinavian until the 13th century, the Orkneys and Shetlands until the 14th.

Around 860 the Norwegians began to colonize Iceland, where they founded Reykjavik ca. 875. A century later, Erik the Red created in Greenland a settlement that lasted until the 15th century. Erik's son, Leif, would have reached ca. the year 1000 the coasts of the enigmatic Vinland (Labrador, Newfoundland or Nova Scotia?).

4. The N. in France and in England

Held in check by the Franks south of Jutland, the Danes attacked the West by sea. In their light boats they sailed up into the heart of the countries and each year reaped tributes of gold and silver (Danegeld), which form the present wealth of the Nordic museums. The fortified bridges, the defenders recruited on the spot by the Frankish counts, in the absence of Carolingian soldiers, did not prevent the danger from becoming general. Frisia is attacked first, during the anarchy of the reign of Louis the Pious; Duurstede is burned in 836; five years later the country is abandoned to the Dane Rorik. The N. attack the English coasts from Essex to Dorset, on the Thames, on the Somme (ruins of Quentovic), on the Seine (burning of Rouen, 841, and of Paris, 845), on the Loire (capture of Nantes, 843), on the Garonne (844), on the Iberian coasts, Lisbon and Seville; and they reach as far as the Mediterranean (sack of Pisa, 860); the Saracens designate them with the derogatory name of mağus (= fire-worshippers).

Around 850 the Norman raids became more concentrated. In France, the Scheldt carries them to Cambrai, the Seine and the Yonne to Sens, the Loire beyond Orléans. The populations flee, the monks carry the relics elsewhere (e.g., those of St. Philibert), from Noirmoutier to Tournus on the Saône. The victory of Brissarthe, near Le Mans, won in 866 by Robert the Strong, ancestor of the Capetians, and the resistance of his son Odo, at Paris, in the face of the great invasion of 885-86, did no more than check the danger. In England Anglo-Saxon disunity paralyzes the defense; York falls in 866; Northumbria is overwhelmed; only the energy of the king of Wessex, Alfred the Great, saves the third part of England, south of the line called Watling Street. In France, driven back at Saucourt-en-Vimeu by Louis III in 883, and in 885 at Louvain, the N. take advantage of the success obtained thanks to the incompetence of Charles the Fat. It was impossible to dislodge them: Charles the Simple (treaty of St-Clair-sur-Epte, 911) granted the region of the lower Seine to their chief Rollo, who in 25 years would impose himself on the whole country, thereafter called Normandy. Another Norman attempt on the lower Loire was broken by a Breton chief, Alan Twistedbeard (939).

III. THE NORMAN STATES IN THE 11TH CENTURY

1. The Danish Empire of Canute the Great

The expansion of the Scandinavian peoples did not exhaust their strength. Baltic islands and ports (Hedeby, Birka, Gotland) were the meeting point of Frisian and Eastern merchants; Roman missionaries, who came especially from Germany, had to contend with Byzantine proselytism for the regions of the North. Made more alert by external influences, the Scandinavian kingdoms, unified and Christianized, had begun to organize themselves in the 9th century, with Harald Fairhair in Norway; and in the 10th century with Harald Bluetooth in Denmark (550-986).

The progress achieved allowed the Danes to reconquer the regions of England lost after Alfred the Great (d. 899). King Sweyn took the crown from the English king Ethelred (1013); his son, Canute the Great (1014-35), would add Norway to his own crown. His Empire did not survive him, and his sons lost Norway and England. For the last time, in 1074, 200 ships made their appearance before England, by then dominated for 8 years by another Norman, William the Conqueror.

2. The Duchy of Normandy and the founding of the Anglo-Norman Kingdom

Normandy was one of the strongest feudal states. The numerical importance of the newcomers is evident from the persistence of northern physical traits and the survival of toponymics. The N. converted to Christianity and respected the demesnial structure of the great abbeys; but from their settling in the region a new era began, because, detached from the Carolingian Empire, the Duchy did not share in its decline: governed by a hierarchy of warriors, it preserved its cohesion, and its orderly administration would anticipate by a century that of the Capetian Kingdom. Little is known of Rollo's successors, William Longsword, Richard I, Richard II, Robert I; with William the Conqueror, Normandy appears rich in resources and the duke a very powerful person: he acts indeed as arbiter in English disputes; he receives the English king Ethelred, a fugitive before the Danes; he restores his son Edward to the throne; he takes on the appearance of legitimate heir, ruining at Hastings the ambitions of the usurper Harold (1066). Thus arose the Anglo-Norman State.

Guglielmo Mollat

IV. THE FORMATION OF THE NORMAN KINGDOM IN SICILY; RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCH

The spirit of conquest did not abandon the N. Some took part in the Spanish reconquest, such as Roger of Tosny at Barcelona (1068), while William of Hauteville (Iron Arm), together with his brothers, set out in 1035 for the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, driving out the Byzantines. This aroused fears and suspicions in the southern lords and even more in Pope Leo IX, who was especially concerned about his fief of Benevento. But the expedition that Leo organized against the N. ended in a defeat; in the battle of Civitate (1053) the Pope himself was taken prisoner; hence the need to open negotiations with the N., as a result of which he obtained the ransom: an agreement between the N. and the pope (Nicholas II) was concluded in 1059.

Robert Guiscard, who meanwhile, having succeeded his brothers, had consolidated and enlarged his domains, secured through that agreement the investiture, as a fief of the Church, of the lands already conquered and of those to be conquered in the future, obligating himself in exchange to protect the Papacy in the struggle against the Empire. Indeed Robert, summoned by Gregory VII, hastened to Rome (1084) besieged by Henry IV and freed the Pontiff.

Roger, Robert's brother, meanwhile (1061), undertook the conquest of Sicily. The capture of Palermo and Roger's assumption of the title of count of Sicily date to 1072. Roger showed, in ecclesiastical matters, a notable independence from the Curia, despite the intrinsically Catholic nature of his State and the great political interest in the development and spread of Catholicism as against the Greek and Muslim religions. He therefore pursued a twofold policy, in the sense of favoring the Catholic religion but limiting as much as possible the powers of the Church, while nonetheless recognizing its great spiritual importance. The pontiff Urban II, for his part, seeing that Roger did not tolerate the institution of a permanent legate, who in fact showed no little zeal in the affairs of the Church, and that circumstances advised against making an enemy of him, decided to entrust to him (5 July 1098) the legation for all of Sicily (v. MONARCHIA SICILIA).

When the Hauteville branch of Apulia died out and the Saracens had been definitively driven from the island, Roger II, son of Roger I, united to it the domains of the mainland and from the antipope Anacletus, whose side he had taken in the schism of 1130, obtained the title of King of Sicily, later recognized in 1138, after the settlement of the schism, also by Pope Innocent II. Roger also demanded the coronation and the chrism, according to the sumptuous ceremonial adopted for Charlemagne.

The new Kingdom did not neglect legislative activity, beginning that work which the constitutions of Frederick II would develop and complete. In particular the Norman Assizes could not fail to reflect the characteristics of a monarchy in which royal authority, through Roman-Byzantine influence, was conceived as deriving directly from God. In consequence of these principles, in his policy toward the Church, Roger II followed in his father's footsteps, so that relations between the Papacy and the Kingdom of Sicily were accompanied by a continuous struggle, although Norman legislation was inspired by the principles of the Church in the sphere of private law and matters of common interest, in particular matrimonial matters.

Only William I succeeded in resolving the long-standing questions concerning the rights of the Church and those of the monarchy in ecclesiastical matters. The Treaty of Benevento (1156) between William I and Pope Adrian IV granted the monarch broad powers: chiefly it secured for him the right to approve the appointments of bishops who were elected by the clergy, and it confirmed on the Church's part the renunciation of appointing legates, thus restoring the situation of the time of Urban II.

During the thirty-four years of the reign of William II, who succeeded William I in 1166, relations between the Church and the Kingdom of Sicily were relatively calm.

M. Teresa de Simone-Niquesa