NORMANNI. – I. SCANDINAVIAN ORIGINS
The Scandinavian peoples enter history only at the end of the eighth century, when the “men of the north” (Northmen, Normands) invaded Western Europe. The information available concerning their origins from inscriptions in runic characters, from the much later works of the scalds, court poets of the Scandinavian kings, and especially from the epic narratives of the sagas, is very imperfect.
A northern branch of the Germanic peoples, the Scandinavians divided fairly early into three regional groups: Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, settled territorially more or less as they are today. The principal foundations of the unity of the Scandinavian peoples are the close relationship of their dialects, the originality of their mythology, the similarity of their social organization, and their way of life. The Scandinavian languages differ from one another only in dialectal forms. The songs of the ancient Edda, a poem discovered in Iceland in 1643, describe the triad Tor, Oden, and Freyr, personifying the forces of nature; the practices, more magical than cultic, aim to reconcile or avert the influence of the trold, benevolent or malevolent spirits. The Scandinavians live in close contact with nature; their life is predominantly agricultural, based on a three-year rotation, in which cereals constitute the principal element. The homestead (torp) and the village (by), cells of social organization, are administered autonomously, because “self-government,” concretized at each level by an assembly (thing), constitutes the distinctive feature of Scandinavian societies. Canton and province, of very remote origin, form the framework and setting of judicial and fiscal life, over which stands the power of the local kings, elected by the assembly of the provincial chiefs (jorf). Nevertheless, little by little the king’s power asserted itself, thus preparing the emergence of the future states: first in Norway, around the Oslo fjord, at the end of the seventh century, under Halvdan the Generous and his son Godfrid; then in Denmark, whose king Godfrid (d. in 810) confronted Charlemagne; and finally in Sweden, where sacrifices common to the entire people, celebrated at Uppsala, foreshadowed unity.
Nevertheless, the Scandinavian world, far from living turned in upon itself, soon came into contact with the regions beyond II. The first known journey by Westerners to the peoples of the north was that of Piteas of Marseille, at the end of the fourth century B.C. Subsequently, the northern countries sent, at various times, masses of emigrants toward the Latin world: Cimbri and Teutons, Vandals and Burgundians; while the Jutes followed the Angles and Saxons in their movement toward the British Isles. Commercial relations, established from the fifth to the eighth century with the West and the East, foreshadowed the great Scandinavian migrations. To the east, many merchants, crossing the territory of the future Russia, retraced and extended the routes already traveled by the Frisians from the shores of Merovingian Gaul and Brittany. Along these routes the characteristic zoomorphic decorations proper to the shores of the Black Sea spread through the West; Arab coins reached as far as Scandinavia, silver scolta descended from Sweden to Marseille, while bronze keys with perforated handles, of Frankish type, spread along the shores of the Baltic. In the sixth century Scandinavian ships were reported in the Gulf of Gascony (520) and in Frisia (575); in the eighth century the Norwegians began the peaceful colonization of the Caledonian archipelagos (Hebrides, Shetland, Feroë) and of Ireland. At the end of the same century the Danes more decisively abandoned attempts to confront on land the invincible power of the Franks and, between 786 and 793, began on the English coasts the exploration of the fruitful “western route.” The age of the Vikings, that is, of the pirates, was already announcing itself; the apostle of Frisia, s. Willibrordo, could do no more than touch upon their country, and the mission of s. Anscario would laboriously reach it around 830 with the foundation of the bishopric of Birka in Sweden.
II. SCANDINAVIAN EXPANSION
Scandinavian expansion from the ninth to the eleventh century was therefore not a sudden event, but the culmination of a very ancient process. The exodus seems to have resulted from the insufficiency of arable land for an increased population and perhaps, secondarily, as regards the Danes, from internal political revolutions. Added to this were a taste for adventure and the lure of booty. Determined by common causes, Norman expansion developed from Crimea to Greenland, with differing characteristics: peaceful in the east, with the Varangians, traveling merchant-adventurers associated in companies bound by 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 ninth century onward, along the trade route from the Baltic to the Black Sea, Swedish merchant depots and military stations were spaced out: Novgorod, Smolensk, and above all Kiev. Between the disappearance of the Avars and the irruption of the Pechenegs, the Ukrainian steppe opened to adventurers from the north, so numerous in the tenth century that they formed small states: that of Kiev became the most important under the princes Astolk, 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 mingling with the Slavs and coming to terms with Greek power. They provided a guard for the basileus, and the Varangians, converted to Christianity in 988 under Prince Vladimiro, 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 Godstad in Norway and of Ladby in Denmark have revealed longboats measuring from 24 to 24 m., with exceptional nautical qualities despite the absence of a deck, owing to their sharp bows, their keels, and their simultaneous propulsion by sail and oars (approximately 30 to 40 oarsmen); some ships carried as many as 200 warriors. Skilled sailors, the N. sailed straight across the Ocean, without bothering to follow the coasts. Such daring is explained by the ardor of the Norman warrior; the hero of the sagas, drawn to the sea from childhood, tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, the berseks (= bear-man), is an intrepid, cruel, and greedy fighter, feared even by his own people. The ninth and tenth centuries, the great age of Scandinavian history, carried him as far as America.
3. Norwegian Maritime Expansion. — Setting out from the archipelagos near Scotland, the Norwegians methodically conquered the Isle of Man and Ireland and founded, around the middle of the ninth century, the Principality of Dublin. There, fruitful exchanges of civilization took place until the day when, at Clontarf, near Dublin, the Celtic chieftains of Ireland drove the Norsemen back into a few coastal towns (1014). The Isle of Man and the Hebrides remained Scandinavian until the thirteenth century, and the Orkneys and Shetlands until the fourteenth.
Around 860 the Norwegians began to colonize Iceland, where they founded Reykjavik around 875. A century later, Erik the Red established a settlement in Greenland that lasted until the fifteenth century. Erik’s son, Leif, is said to have reached around the year 1000 the coasts of the enigmatic Vinland (Labrador, Newfoundland, or Nova Scotia?).
4. The N. in France and England. — Hemmed in by the Franks to the south of Jutland, the Danes attacked the West by sea. In their light vessels they sailed up into the heart of the countries, plundering and collecting each year tributes of gold and silver (Danegeld), which constitute the present wealth of the Nordic museums. Fortified bridges and defenders recruited locally by the Frankish counts, in the absence of Carolingian soldiers, did not prevent the danger from becoming general. Frisia was attacked first, during the anarchy of the reign of Louis the Pious; Duursteede was burned in 836; five years later the country was abandoned to the Dane Rorik. The N. attacked the English coasts from Essex to Dorset, on the Thames, on the Somme (the ruins of Quentovic), on the Seine (the burning of Rouen in 841 and of Paris in 845),
on the Loire (the capture of Nantes in 843), on the Garonne (844), and on the Iberian coasts, Lisbon and Seville; and they reached as far as the Mediterranean (the sack of Pisa in 860); the Saracens designated them by the derogatory name mağus (= fire worshipers).
Around 850 the Norman raids became more concentrated. In France, the Scheldt carried them to Cambrai, the Seine and the Yonne to Sens, and the Loire beyond Orléans. The populations fled, and the monks carried the relics elsewhere (for example, those of s. Filiberto), from Noirmoutier to Tournus on the Saône. The victory of Brissarthe, near Mans, won in 866 by Roberto the Strong, ancestor of the Capetians, and the resistance of his son Oddone at Paris in the face of the great invasion of 885–86 did no more than slow the danger. In England, Anglo-Saxon disunity paralyzed the defense; York fell in 866; Northumbria was overwhelmed; only the energy of the king of Wessex, Alfredo the Great, saved the third part of England south of the line called Watling Street. In France, repulsed at Saucourt-en-Vimeu by Luigi III in 883 and at Leuven in 885, the N. took advantage of the success obtained through the incompetence of Carlo il Grosso. It was impossible to dislodge them: Carlo il Semplice, by the treaty of St-Clair-sur-Epte (911), granted the lower Seine region to their leader Rollone, who within twenty-five years would impose himself upon the entire country, thereafter called Normandy. Another Norman attempt on the lower Loire was broken by a Breton leader, Alano Barbatorta (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, coming 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 under Harald Fairhair in Norway; and in the 10th century under Harald Bluetooth in Denmark (550–986).The progress achieved enabled the Danes to reconquer the regions of England, lost after Alfred the Great (d. 899). King Svend took the crown from the English king Ethelred (1013); his son, Canute the Great (1014–35), would add Norway to his crown. His Empire did not outlive him, and his sons lost Norway and England. For the last time, in 1074, 200 ships appeared before England, which had by then been ruled for eight years by another Norman, William the Conqueror.
2. The Duchy of Normandy and the Foundation of the Anglo-Norman Kingdom. — Normandy was one of the strongest feudal states. The numerical importance of the newcomers is apparent from the persistence of northern physical traits and the survival of place-names. The N. converted to Christianity and respected the demesne structure of the great abbeys; but their settlement in the region ushered in a new era, 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 Rollone’s successors, William Longsword, Richard I, Richard II, and Robert I; under William the Conqueror, Normandy appears rich in resources and the duke a very powerful person: he in fact acted as arbiter in English disputes; received the English king Ethelred, a fugitive before the Danes; restored his son Edward to the throne; and presented himself as the legitimate heir, destroying at Hastings the ambitions of the usurper Harold (1066). Thus the Anglo-Norman State arose.
nation normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols., Paris 1907; F. Lot, La grande invasion normande de 85-62, in Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes, 69 (1908); id., La Loire, l'Aquitaine et la Seine de 862 à 866, ibid., 76 (1915); H. Prentout, Essai sur les origines de la fondation du duché de Normandie, Caen 1911; Ch. Plummer, The life and times of Alfred the Great, Oxford 1912; C. H. Haskins, The Normans in European History, Boston-New York 1915; W. Cohn, Das Zeitalter der Normannen in Sicilien, Bonn-Leipzig 1920; various authors, Il Regno normanno, Messina 1932; G. M. Monti, Lo Stato normanno 1930, Naples 1934; C. Ceci, N. d'Inghilterra e N. d'Italia, Bari 1934; M. Garsud, Les invasions des Normands en Poitou, in Rev. hist., 137 (1937), pp. 241–267; A. W. Brugger, Vinlandsfendene, Oslo 1937, German version, Hamburg 1939; M. Bloch, La Société féodale, I, Paris 1939, pp. 28–93; C. Cohen, Le régime féodal de l'Italie normande, Paris 1940; id., La Syrie du Nord à l'époque des Croisades et la principauté d'Autriche, there 1940; D. C. Douglas, Rollo of Normandy, in The English Historical Review, 57 (1942), p. 417; F. M. Stanton, The Scandinavian Colonies in England and Normandy, in Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., 4th series, 27 (1945); W. Chadwick, The beginnings of Russian History, Cambridge 1946.
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 Ruggero di Tosny at Barcelona (1068), while Guglielmo di Altavilla (Braccio di ferro), together with his brothers, set out in 1035 to conquer Apulia and Calabria, driving out the Byzantines. This aroused fear and suspicion among the southern lords, and even more so in Pope Leo IX, who was particularly concerned about his fief of Benevento. But the expedition that Leo organized against the N. ended in defeat; in the battle of Civitate (1053), the Pope himself was taken prisoner. Hence the need to begin negotiations with the N., as a result of which he obtained his release: an agreement between the N. and Pope Nicholas II was concluded in 1059.Roberto il Guiscardo, who in the meantime, having succeeded his brothers, had consolidated and enlarged his domains, secured by that agreement the investiture, as a fief of the Church, of the lands already conquered and of those subject to future conquest, undertaking in return to protect the Papacy in its struggle against the Empire. In fact, summoned by Gregory VII, Roberto hastened to Rome (1084), besieged by Henry IV, and liberated the Pontiff.
Ruggero, Roberto’s brother, meanwhile (1061), undertook the conquest of Sicily. Palermo was captured in 1072, and Ruggero assumed the title of count of Sicily. In ecclesiastical matters, Ruggero displayed notable independence from the Curia, despite the intrinsically Catholic nature of his State and the considerable political interest in the development and spread of Catholicism vis-à-vis the Greek and Muslim religions. He therefore pursued a dual policy: favoring the Catholic religion, while limiting as far as possible the powers of the Church, although recognizing its great spiritual importance. For his part, Pope Urban II, seeing that Ruggero would not tolerate the institution of a permanent legate, that he himself in fact displayed considerable zeal in Church affairs, and that circumstances counseled against making an enemy of him, decided to entrust him (5 July 1098) with the legation for all Sicily (v. SICILIA).
After the branch of the Altavilla of Apulia had died out and the Saracens had been definitively expelled from the island, Ruggero II, son of Ruggero I, united the mainland domains with it and obtained from the antipope Anacletus, whom he had supported during the schism of 1130, the title of King of Sicily. This title was subsequently recognized in 1138, after the resolution of the schism, also by Pope Innocent II. Ruggero also demanded coronation and chrism, according to the sumptuous ceremonial adopted for Charlemagne.
The new Kingdom did not neglect legislative activity, beginning the work that 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, owing to Roman-Byzantine influence, was conceived as deriving directly from God. Consequently, in his policy toward the Church, Ruggero II followed in his father’s footsteps, so that relations between the Papacy and the Kingdom of Sicily were accompanied by continual struggle, although Norman legislation was inspired by the principles of the Church in the sphere of private law and in matters of common interest, particularly matrimonial matters.
Only Guglielmo I succeeded in resolving the longstanding questions concerning the rights of the Church and those of the monarchy in ecclesiastical matters. The Treaty of Benevento (1156) between Guglielmo I and Pope Adriano IV granted the monarch extensive powers: above all, it assured him the right to approve the appointments of bishops who were elected by the clergy, and confirmed to him the Church’s renunciation of the right to appoint legates, thereby restoring the situation that had prevailed in the time of Urbano II.
During the thirty-four-year reign of Guglielmo II, who succeeded Guglielmo I in 1166, relations between the Church and the Kingdom of Sicily were relatively peaceful.