chapter 8._

_Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 2, chapter 4._

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NORMANDY: A. D. 1066. Duke William becomes King of England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1042-1066; 1066; and 1066-1071.

NORMANDY: . D. 1087-1135. Under Duke Robert and Henry Beauclerc.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1087-1135.

NORMANDY: A. D. 1096. The Crusade of Duke Robert.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.

NORMANDY: A. D. 1203-1205. Wrested from England and restored to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1205.

NORMANDY: A. D. 1419. Conquest by Henry V. of England.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422.

NORMANDY: A. D. 1449. Recovery from the English.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.

NORMANDY: 16th Century. Spread of the Reformation. Strength of Protestantism.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1559-1561.

----------NORMANS: Start--------

NORMANS. NORTH MEN: Name and Origin.

"The northern pirates, variously called Danes or Normans, according as they came from the islands of the Baltic Sea or the coast of Norway, … descended from the same primitive race with the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks; their language had roots identical with the idioms of these two nations: but this token of an ancient fraternity did not preserve from their hostile incursions either Saxon Britain or Frankish Gaul, nor even the territory beyond the Rhine, then exclusively inhabited by Germanic tribes. The conversion of the southern Teutons to the Christian faith had broken all bond of fraternity between them and the Teutons of the north. In the 9th century the man of the north still gloried in the title of son of Odin, and treated as bastards and apostates the Germans who had become children of the church. … A sort of religious and patriotic fanaticism was thus combined in the Scandinavian with the fiery impulsiveness of their character, and an insatiable thirst for gain. They shed with joy the blood of the priests, were especially delighted at pillaging the churches, and stabled their horses in the chapels of the palaces. … In three days, with an east wind, the fleets of Denmark and Norway, two-sailed vessels, reached the south of Britain. The soldiers of each fleet obeyed in general one chief, whose vessel was distinguished from the rest by some particular ornament. … All equal under such a chief, bearing lightly their voluntary submission and the weight of their mailed armour, which they promised themselves soon to exchange for an equal weight of gold, the Danish pirates pursued the 'road of the swans,' as their ancient national poetry expressed it. Sometimes they coasted along the shore, and laid wait for the enemy in the straits, the bays, and smaller anchorages, which procured them the surname of Vikings, or 'children of the creeks'; sometimes they dashed in pursuit of their prey across the ocean."

_A. Thierry, Conquest of England by the Normans, book 2 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _T. Carlyle, The Early Kings of Norway._

NORMANS: 8-9th Centuries. The Vikings and what sent them to sea.

"No race of the ancient or modern world have ever taken to the sea with such heartiness as the Northmen. The great cause which filled the waters of Western Europe with their barks was that consolidation and centralization of the kingly power all over Europe which followed after the days of Charlemagne, and which put a stop to those great invasions and migrations by land which had lasted for centuries. Before that time the north and east of Europe, pressed from behind by other nationalities, and growing straitened within their own bounds, threw off from time to time bands of emigrants which gathered force as they slowly marched along, until they appeared in the west as a fresh wave of the barbarian flood. As soon as the west, recruited from the very source whence the invaders came, had gained strength enough to set them at defiance, which happened in the time of Charlemagne, these invasions by land ceased after a series of bloody defeats, and the north had to look for another outlet for the force which it was unable to support at home. Nor was the north itself slow to follow Charlemagne's example. Harold Fairhair, no inapt disciple of the great emperor, subdued the petty kings in Norway one after another, and made himself supreme king. At the same time he invaded the rights of the old freeman, and by taxes and tolls laid on his allodial holding drove him into exile. We have thus the old outlet cut off and a new cause for emigration added. No doubt the Northmen even then had long been used to struggle with the sea, and sea-roving was the calling of the brave, but the two causes we have named gave it a great impulse just at the beginning of the tenth century, and many a freeman who would have joined the host of some famous leader by land, or have lived on a little king at home, now sought the waves as a birthright of which no king could rob him. Either alone, or as the follower of some sea-king, whose realm was the sea's wide wastes, he went out year after year, and thus won fame and wealth. The name given to this pursuit was Viking, a word which is in no way akin to king. It is derived from 'Vik,' a bay or creek, because these sea-rovers lay moored in bays and creeks on the look-out for merchant ships; the 'ing' is a well known ending, meaning, in this case, occupation or calling. Such a sea-rover was called 'Vikingr,' and at one time or another in his life almost every man of note in the North had taken to the sea and lived a Viking life."

_G. W. Dasent, Story of Burnt Njal, volume 2, appendix._

"Western viking expeditions have hitherto been ascribed to Danes and Norwegians exclusively. Renewed investigations reveal, however, that Swedes shared widely in these achievements, notably in the acquisition of England, and that, among other famous conquerors, Rolf, the founder of the Anglo-Norman dynasty, issued from their country. … Norwegians, like Swedes, were, in truth, merged in the terms Northmen and Danes, both of which were general to all Scandinavians abroad. … The curlier conversion of the Danes to Christianity and their more immediate contact with Germany account for the frequent application of their name to all Scandinavians."

_W. Roos, The Swedish Part in the Viking Expeditions (English History Review, April, 1892)._

ALSO IN: _S. Laing, Preliminary Dissertation to Heimskringla._

_C. F. Keary, The Vikings of Western Christendom,